Mapping the cellular circuits behind spitting

For over a decade, researchers have known that the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans can detect and avoid short-wavelength light, despite lacking eyes and the light-absorbing molecules required for sight. As a graduate student ...

Mother roundworms have ultra-protective instincts

Talk about motherly instincts! Biologists at the University of Iowa have learned that female roundworms can alert their future offspring of dangers they will encounter when born, and the mothers pass on these warnings even ...

Worm pheromones trigger plant defenses, study finds

Plants can sense parasitic roundworms in the soil by picking up on their chemical signals, a team of researchers at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research (BTI), on the Cornell University campus, has found.

Genetic code cracked for worldwide dog and human parasite

For the first time, scientists have sequenced the genetic code of Toxocara canis, a roundworm that causes disease in humans and animals, which paves the way for new drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tests.

Preventing the spread of repression

Scientists at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research have identified a novel and unexpected regulatory activity of RNA at the edge of inactive chromosomal regions. In their publication in Nature Structural ...

How coral cures your ills

Next time you successfully fight off a nasty infection, give thanks to the Great Barrier Reef. A dramatic discovery by an Australian team of scientists has revealed that the ability of humans to resist bacterial diseases ...

page 2 from 6