Despite their reputation as living fossils, scorpions have remained evolutionarily nimble—especially in developing venom to fend off the rise of mammal predators. A new genetic analysis of scorpions' toxin-making reveals ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 28, 2022
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180
Dr Jamie Seymour from JCU's Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine (AITHM) said a typical scorpion predator would be a small mammal, while its prey was usually an insect. He said varieties of scorpion toxin ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 12, 2017
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131
Malaria kills nearly half a million people every year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In some of the hardest-hit areas in sub-Saharan Africa, the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite have become resistant ...
Biotechnology
Jun 13, 2017
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982
In an evolutionary game of cat and mouse, predators have adapted a clever arsenal of new tricks to capture their ever-elusive prey.
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 14, 2016
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3
In the development of new drugs, taking something from nature and modifying it has been a successful tactic employed by medicinal chemists for years. Now, with the help of nanotechnology, researchers are turning once-discarded ...
Bio & Medicine
Jan 7, 2015
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47
Defensins, as their name implies, are small proteins found in plants and animals that help ward off viral, bacterial or fungal pests. One fascinating question of invertebrate evolution is how these proteins evolved into venoms ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 14, 2014
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0
For snakes, spiders, and other venomous creatures, the "business end," or active part, of a toxin is the area on the surface of a protein that is most likely to undergo rapid evolution in response to environmental constraints, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 23, 2012
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0
Fables have long cast scorpions as bad-natured killers of hapless turtles that naively agree to ferry them across rivers. Michigan State University scientists, however, see them in a different light.
Biochemistry
Apr 27, 2011
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