New research may help to explain an intriguing phenomenon inside human cells: how wall-less liquid organelles are able to coexist as separate entities instead of just merging together.
Read moreScientists have developed a new technique to trick bacteria into revealing hundreds of holes in their cell walls, opening the door for drugs that destroy bacteria's cells.
Read moreBiologists have uncovered an important clue in the longtime mystery of how long strands of DNA fold up to squeeze into microscopic cells, with each pair of chromosomes aligned to ensure perfect development.
Read moreHybrid plants, which produced by crossing two different types of parents, often die in conditions in which both parents would survive. Certain hybrid tobacco plants, for example, thrive at 36 degrees Celsius, but die at 28 degrees Celsius, which is the temperature at which both parents would thrive. Researchers have begun to unravel the molecular mechanisms by which hybrid tobacco plant cells meet their demise.
Read moreResearchers have identified a neural pathway implicated in social interaction between adult and juvenile animals.
Read moreScientists have provided an explanation of how chromosomes undergo structural changes during cell differentiation.
Read moreA 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 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 demonstrated that not only plant odors determine the best oviposition site for egglaying hawkmoths, but also the frass of other larvae. They specified the repelling substance in the feces which signals the presence of competing conspecifics. Moreover, the researchers identified an odorant receptor which is involved in the detection of the typical smell of larval frass and thereby governs competition avoidance during oviposition.
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.
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