A new study offers an explanation for how ''protocells'' could have emerged on early Earth, eventually leading to the cells we know today. The work suggests that molecules called cyclophospholipids may have been the ingredient necessary for protocells to form important internal structures called vesicles, which likely kicked off the evolutionary process.
Read moreBorder collies are highly trainable, greyhounds love to chase, and German shepherds make good guard dogs. While the environment plays a role, traits like these are highly heritable, according to a study of 101 dog breeds. The work identifies 131 genetic variants associated with breed differences in behavior.
Read moreLike entrance and exit doors on a building, a cell's outer surface has doors — channels, pumps, and transporters that selectively control what molecules enter or exit. In the immune system, T cells possess unique sets of 'doors', including ones that specialize in calcium ion movement. Now, researchers describe a unique mechanism for coordinating these calcium entrance and exit 'doors' on T cells that helps them carry out their jobs and ensure normal immune function.
Read moreScientists have revealed how the electrical patterns formed within an embryo initiate a cascade of molecular changes that culminate in the development of cartilage and bone. Prior studies have shown these electrical patterns appear like blueprints of the tissues and organs that eventually take shape as the embryo matures. The new study demonstrates that voltage gated calcium channels 'read' the electrical pattern, setting off the expression of genes that guide differentiation to mature cells.
Read moreFor the past two years, researchers have been studying six offspring of a dairy bull, genome-edited to prevent it from growing horns. Scientists report that none of the bull's offspring developed horns, as expected, and blood work and physical exams of the calves found they were all healthy. The researchers also sequenced and analyzed the genomes of the calves and their parents looking for any unexpected changes.
Read moreExternal stimuli can rearrange the hierarchy of neuronal networks and influence behavior. This was demonstrated by scientists using the circadian clock of the fruit fly as an example.
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The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is being awarded jointly to William G. Kaelin Jr., Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza for identifying molecular machinery that regulates the activity of genes in response to varying levels of oxygen.
Shift work and jet lag disrupt not just sleep cycles, but feeding and digestive cycles as well. Such disruptions have been linked to risk of obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, infection, and other conditions. Now, researchers have identified an immune cell that helps set the daily rhythms of the gut. The findings open the door to new treatments for digestive ailments targeting such cells.
Read moreInsect-eating bats navigate effortlessly in the dark and dolphins and killer whales gobble up prey in murky waters thanks in part to specific changes in a set of 18 genes involved in the development of the cochlear ganglion — a group of nerves that transmit sound from the ear to the brain, according to a new study.
Read moreResearch into the molecular phylogeny (evolutionary history) of the HIV-1B virus in Indonesia has succeeded in illuminating the transmission period and routes for three clades (main branches of the virus). This includes a clade thought to be unique to Indonesia, as well as clades that spread from Thailand, Europe and America in the 1970s and 1980s.
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