Current Feed Content from 7 Oct 08 05:32
Models of eel cells suggest electrifying possibilities
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
Engineers long have known that great ideas can be lifted from Mother Nature, but a new paper* by scientists at Yale University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) takes it to a cellular level. Applying modern engineering design tools to one of the basic units of life, they argue that artificial cells could be built that not only replicate the electrical behavior of electric eel cells but in fact improve on them. Artificial versions of the eels electricity generating cells could be developed as a power source for medical implants and other tiny devices, they say........Beetles get by with a little help from their friends
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
Humans living in communities often rely on friends to help get what they need and, as per scientists in the lab of Cameron Currie at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a number of microbes, plants and animals benefit from 'friendly' associations too. The Currie team's study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and reported in the Oct. 3, 2008, issue of the journal Science, describes the complex relationship between a beetle, two types of tree fungus and a bacterium that aids in their struggle to survive and thrive........A molecule that coordinates the movement of cells
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
Even cells commute. To get from their birthplace to their work site, they sequentially attach to and detach from an elaborate track of exceptionally strong proteins known as the extracellular matrix. Now, in research to appear in the October 3 issue of Cell, researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Rockefeller University show that a molecule, called ACF7, helps regulate and power this movement from the inside - findings that could have implications for understanding how cancer cells metastasize........Structures of Important Plant Viruses Determined
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
Flexible filamentous viruses make up a large fraction of known plant viruses and are responsible for more than half the viral damage to crop plants throughout the world. New details of their structures, which were poorly understood, have been revealed by researchers using a variety of sophisticated imaging techniques at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborating institutions........Green coffee-growing practices buffer climate-change impacts
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
Chalk up another environmental benefit for shade-grown Latin American coffee: University of Michigan scientists say the technique will provide a buffer against the ravages of climate change in the coming decades. Over the last three decades, a number of Latin American coffee farmers have abandoned traditional shade-growing techniques, in which the plants are grown beneath a diverse canopy of trees. In an effort to increase production, much of the acreage has been converted to "sun coffee, " which involves thinning or removing the canopy........Self-training gene prediction program for fungi
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a computer program that trains itself to predict genes in the DNA sequences of fungi. Fungi which range from yeast to mushrooms are important for industry and human health, so understanding the recently sequenced fungal genomes can help in developing and producing critical pharmaceuticals. Gene prediction can also help to identify potential targets for therapeutic intervention and vaccination against pathogenic fungi........Common insecticide can decimate tadpole populations
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
The latest findings of a University of Pittsburgh-based project to determine the environmental impact of routine pesticide use suggests that malathionthe most popular insecticide in the United Statescan decimate tadpole populations by altering their food chain, as per research reported in the Oct. 1 edition of Ecological Applications........Gene that may contribute to improved rice yield
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
A team of scientists, including Penn State Distinguished Professor of Biology Hong Ma, has identified a gene in rice that controls the size and weight of rice grains. The gene may prove to be useful for breeding high-yield rice and, thus, may benefit the vast number of people who rely on this staple food for survival. "Our work shows that it is possible to increase rice's yield by enhancing the expression of a particular gene, " said Ma. The team's results will be published on 28 September 2008 in an early online edition of the journal Nature Genetics, and in the November print issue of the journal........Reversible 3-D cell culture gel invented
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
Singapore's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), which celebrates its fifth anniversary this year, has invented a unique user-friendly gel that can liquefy on demand, with the potential to revolutionize three-dimensional (3D) cell culture for medical research. As reported in Nature Nanotechnology (Y.S. Pek, A. C. A. Wan, A. Shekaran, L. Zhuo and J. Y. Ying, "A Thixotropic Nanocomposite Gel for Three-Dimensional Cell Culture"), IBN's novel gel media has the unique ability to liquefy when it is subjected to a moderate shear force and rapidly resolidifies into a gel within one minute upon removal of the force. This phenomenon of reverting between a gel and a liquid state is known as thixotropy........GenesControlling Rhythmic Plant Growth
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
A team of biologists from UC San Diego, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Oregon State University has identified the genes that enable plants to undergo bursts of rhythmic growth at night and allow them to compete when their leaves are shaded by other plants. The scientists report in this week's issue of the journal PLoS Biology that these genes control the complex interplay of plant growth hormones, plant light sensors and circadian rhythms that permit plants to undergo rhythmic growth spurts at specific times of the day or year in response to varying levels of light and other environmental conditions........Coating copies microscopic biological surfaces
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
Someday, your car might have the metallic finish of some insects or the deep black of a butterfly's wing, and the reflectors might be patterned on the nanostructure of a fly's eyes, as per Penn State scientists who have developed a method to rapidly and inexpensively copy biological surface structures........Walnut Trees Emit Aspirin-Like Chemical to Deal With Stress
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
Walnut trees respond to stress by producing significant amounts of a chemical form of aspirin, researchers have discovered. The finding, by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., opens up new avenues of research into the behavior of plants and their impacts on air quality, and also has the potential to give farmers an early warning signal about crops that are failing........'Redesigned hammer' that forged evolution of pregnancy in mammals
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
New Haven, Conn. Yale scientists have shown that the origin and evolution of the placenta and uterus in mammals is linked to evolutionary changes in a single regulatory protein, as per a report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences "A number of past studies have shown that genes are regulated and altered by changes within their own structures. This is the first work suggesting that the evolution of transcription factors separate regulatory proteins may play an active role in the origin and evolution of structural innovations like the placenta and uterus, " said senior author Gunter Wagner, the Alison Richard Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale........How corals adapt to day and night
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
Researchers have uncovered a gene in corals that responds to day/night cycles, which provides some tantalizing clues into how symbiotic corals work together with their plankton partners. Corals are fascinating animals that form the largest biological constructions in the world, sprawling coral reefs that cover less than 0.2 % of the seafloor yet provide habitats for more than 30% of marine life. In shallow waters that don't have abundant food, corals have developed a close relationship with small photosynthetic critters called dinoflagellates. The dinoflagellates use sunlight to produce energy for the coral, which in turn use that energy to construct mineralized skeletons for protection. The mineral production, known as coral calcification, is closely tied with the day/night cycle, though the molecular mechanism behind this synchronization is mysterious........A molecular clue to evolution
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:45:48 GMT
A Florida State University researcher who uses high-powered computers to map the workings of proteins has uncovered a mechanism that gives researchers a better understanding of how evolution occurs at the molecular level. Such an understanding eventually could lead to the development of new and more effective antiparasitic drugs........
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