Liquid crystal droplets as versatile microswimmers

Nature's most common swimmers are single-celled organisms such as microalgae that swim toward light sources, and sperm cells that swim toward an ovum. For a physicist, cells are simply biochemical machines, which must obey ...

Novel quantum dots enhance cell imaging

A team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Mayo Clinic have engineered a new type of molecular probe that can measure and count RNA in cells and tissue without organic dyes. The probe is ...

Amoeba feast on backpacks

(Phys.org)—The amoeba Acanthamoeba cunningly traps motile bacteria, collecting them in a rucksack before devouring the whole backpack. This behaviour of the single-cell organisms is unique.

Our ancestor's 'leaky' membrane answers big questions in biology

All life on Earth came from one common ancestor – a single-celled organism – but what it looked like, how it lived and how it evolved into today's modern cells is a four billion year old mystery being solved by researchers ...

Subglacial microbial life on Earth and beyond

The search for life beyond Earth fascinates many and inspires big questions: Are we truly alone in the universe? Is our Earth unique? Is it possible that life beyond Earth may actually be far from little green aliens and ...

Investigating drivers of Antarctic ice retreat

An investigation of how an Antarctic ice sheet melted thousands of years ago will improve contemporary climate models and projections of rising sea level, according to a recently published study with contributions from The ...

Algal library lends insights into genes for photosynthesis

It isn't easy being green. It takes thousands of genes to build the photosynthetic machinery that plants need to harness sunlight for growth. And yet, researchers don't know exactly how these genes work.

page 10 from 21