http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (PhysOrg.com) -- Our breakfast egg is a peculiarity of nature: a single cell protected by a thin mineral layer. Apart from a number of tiny radiolaria and diatoms, individual cells normally do not have a hard shell. Korean researchers have now developed a strategy for equipping individual cells of baker`s yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, with a synthetic shell made of silicon dioxide. As the team led by Insung S. Choi reports in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the lifespan of these coated yeast cells is tripled, whilst their division is suppressed. The shell also protects the cells from unfavorable external conditions. http://www.physorg.com/news176474495.html Chemistry Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:47:08 EST news176474495 The Stowers Institute's Gerton Lab has provided new evidence to clarify the structure of nucleosomes containing Cse4, a centromere-specific histone protein required for proper kinetochore function, which plays a critical role in the process of mitosis. The work, conducted in yeast cells, was published in the most recent issue of Molecular Cell. http://www.physorg.com/news173366310.html Biology Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:19:39 EST news173366310 Some budding yeast species have the ability to silence genes using RNA interference (RNAi). Until now, most researchers thought that no budding yeasts possess the RNAi pathway because Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the protoypical model budding yeast does not. http://www.physorg.com/news171882202.html Chemistry Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:05:12 EST news171882202 (PhysOrg.com) -- If you want to know how a cell responds to a particular chemical, the experiment is simple: Inject it with that chemical. Micropipettes - tiny needles that can puncture a cell and deliver a compound directly into it - are used precisely for this purpose. But biologists who study yeast have not had this tool available to them. A yeast cell`s rigid outer wall is too strong to be penetrated. http://www.physorg.com/news171221032.html Biology Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:24:18 EST news171221032 Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), a not-for-profit genomic research organization, published results today describing new methods in which the entire bacterial genome from Mycoplasma mycoides was cloned in a yeast cell by adding yeast centromeric plasmid sequence to the bacterial chromosome and modified it in yeast using yeast genetic systems. http://www.physorg.com/news170324638.html Biology Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:24:33 EST news170324638 Whitehead Institute scientists have developed a rapid, inexpensive drug-screening method that could be used to target diseases that until now have stymied drug developers, such as Parkinson's disease. This technique uses baker's yeast to synthesize and screen the molecules, cutting target discovery and preliminary testing time to a matter of weeks. http://www.physorg.com/news166712777.html Chemistry Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:06:47 EST news166712777 (PhysOrg.com) -- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists' discovery of a cancer-causing gene - the first in its family to be linked to cancer - demonstrates how the panoramic view of genomics and the close-up perspective of molecular biology are needed to determine which genes are involved in cancer and which are mere bystanders. The findings are reported in the June 25 issue of the journal Nature. http://www.physorg.com/news165068004.html Medicine & Health Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:50:04 EST news165068004 Cell biologists have found a more filling substitute for caloric restriction in extending the life span of simple organisms. In a study published May 8 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics, researchers from the University of Southern California Andrus Gerontology Center show that yeast cells maintained on a glycerol diet live twice as long as normal -- as long as yeast cells on a severe caloric-restriction diet. They are also more resistant to cell damage. http://www.physorg.com/news160985198.html Biology Fri, 08 May 2009 07:07:17 EST news160985198 Scientists in California are reporting use of a first-of-its-kind approach to craft genetically engineered microbes with the much-sought ability to transform switchgrass, corn cobs, and other organic materials into methyl halides - the raw material for making gasoline and a host of other commercially important products. http://www.physorg.com/news160936277.html Chemistry Thu, 07 May 2009 17:31:58 EST news160936277 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA is preparing to fly a small satellite about the size of a loaf of bread that could help scientists better understand how effectively drugs work in space. The nanosatellite, known as PharmaSat, is a secondary payload aboard a U.S. Air Force four-stage Minotaur 1 rocket planned for launch the evening of May 5. http://www.physorg.com/news160161359.html Space & Earth Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:16:29 EST news160161359 Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered a new energy-making biochemical twist in determining the lifespan of yeast cells, one so valuable to longevity that it is likely to also functions in humans. http://www.physorg.com/news157105752.html Biology Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:29:55 EST news157105752 We know that lifespan can be extended in animals by restricting calories such as sugar intake. Now, according to a study published in the journal PLoS Genetics, Université de Montréal scientists have discovered that it's not sugar itself that is important in this process but the ability of cells to sense its presence. http://www.physorg.com/news155550999.html Chemistry Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:36:51 EST news155550999 In times of starvation, cells tighten their belts: they start to digest their own proteins and cellular organs. The process - known as autophagy - takes place in special organelles called autophagosomes. It is a strategy that simple yeast cells have developed as a means of survival when times get tough, and in the course of evolution, it has become a kind of self-cleaning process. In mammalian cells, autophagosomes are also responsible for getting rid of misfolded proteins, damaged organelles or disease-causing bacteria. http://www.physorg.com/news154958639.html Biology Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:04:29 EST news154958639 Eckhard Boles, co-founder of the Swiss biofuel company Butalco GmbH and a professor at Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany, has discovered a new enzyme which teaches yeast cells to ferment xylose into ethanol. Xylose is an unused waste sugar in the cellulosic ethanol production process. The researchers have recently filed a patent application for their process. http://www.physorg.com/news154720922.html Chemistry Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:02:26 EST news154720922 Actin, a globular protein found in all eukaryotic cells, is a workhorse that varies remarkably little from baker's yeast to the human body. Part of the cytoskeleton, actin assembles into networks of filaments that give the cell structural plasticity while driving many essential functions, from cell motility and division, to vesicle and organelle transport within the cell. In a groundbreaking new study in the current issue of Developmental Cell, Brandeis researchers raise the curtain on how this actin maintains just the right filament length to keep the cell healthy and happily dividing. http://www.physorg.com/news154196674.html Biology Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:25:49 EST news154196674 University of Massachusetts Amherst biologists have discovered a secret of how cells organize chromosomes to prepare for dividing. Their unexpected finding is reported in this week`s issue of the journal, Current Biology. http://www.physorg.com/news152807696.html Biology Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:35:32 EST news152807696 A connection between genetic and environmental causes of Parkinson's disease has been discovered by a research team led by Aaron D. Gitler, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Gitler and colleagues found a genetic interaction between two Parkinson's disease genes (alpha-synuclein and PARK9) and determined that the PARK9 protein can protect cells from manganese poisoning, which is an environmental risk factor for a Parkinson's disease-like syndrome. The findings appear online this week in Nature Genetics. http://www.physorg.com/news152720701.html Medicine & Health Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:25:21 EST news152720701 New evidence from a study of yeast cells has resulted in the most detailed picture of an organism's evolutionary process to date, says a Texas A&M University chemical engineering professor whose findings provide the first direct evidence of aspects, which up until now have remained mostly theory. http://www.physorg.com/news151334458.html Biology Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:20:58 EST news151334458 In hopes of more fully tapping the libraries' potential, a group of Scripps Research Institute scientists, led by Scripps Research President Richard A. Lerner, M.D., has for the first time developed a new screening technique that enables antibody screening against equally massive libraries of targets. This technique makes it possible to accelerate searches for new treatments against cancer and other diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news151250099.html Medicine & Health Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:54:59 EST news151250099 An ingenious social behavior that mobilizes yeast cells to cooperate in protecting each other from stress, antibiotics, and other dangers is driven by the activity of a single gene, scientists report this week in the journal Cell. The cooperating cells use the same gene, dubbed FLO1, as a marker for detecting "cheaters," cells that try to profit from the group's protection without investing in the group's welfare. http://www.physorg.com/news145798754.html Biology Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:39:14 EST news145798754 Yeast fungus cells that kill thousands of AIDS patients every year escape detection by our bodies' defences by hiding inside our own defence cells, and hitch a ride through our systems before attacking and spreading, scientists heard today (Tuesday 9 September 2008) at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn meeting being held this week at Trinity College, Dublin. http://www.physorg.com/news140162723.html Biology Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:05:23 EST news140162723 A Scripps Research team has unraveled a new biochemical pathway that triggers a critical repair response to correct errors in the DNA replication process that could otherwise lead to harmful or fatal mutations in cells. Though the work focused on yeast cells, the team expects to find an analogous system in human cells that could be exploited as a target for potential therapies for cancers, which are often caused by such repair mechanisms going off course. The research was published today in an advanced, online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.physorg.com/news137261363.html Biology Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:09:23 EST news137261363