News tagged with biology
Sucker-footed bats don't use suction after all (w/ Video)
Dec 14, 2009 |
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There are approximately 1,200 species of bats worldwide. Of that total, only six are known to roost with their heads pointed upward. Investigators did not know why, because they knew next to nothing about ...
Study explores 'garbage disposal' role of VCP and implications for degenerative disease
Dec 14, 2009 |
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It's important to finish what you start, say Jeong-Sun Ju and researchers from Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. In the December 14, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology, Ju et al. ...
Scientists crack mystery of protein's dual function
Dec 13, 2009 |
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Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute have solved a 10-year-old mystery of how a single protein from an ancient family of enzymes can have two completely distinct roles in the body. In addition to providing guidance ...
Old math reveals new thinking in children's cognitive development
Dec 11, 2009 |
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Five-year-olds can reason about the world from multiple perspectives simultaneously, according to a new theory by researchers in Japan and Australia. Using an established branch of mathematics called Category Theory, the ...
Killer catfish? Venomous species surprisingly common, study finds
Dec 10, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Name all the venomous animals you can think of and you probably come up with snakes, spiders, bees, wasps and perhaps poisonous frogs. But catfish?
Article Traces History of Darwinian Medicine
Dec 10, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Despite being a founding principle of modern biology for 150 years, evolutionary theory has played a limited role in the field of medicine. Only in the last 20 years has Darwinian medicine emerged as a discipline ...
Scientists find way to catalog all that goes wrong in a cancer cell
Dec 10, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Princeton University scientists has produced a systematic listing of the ways a particular cancerous cell has "gone wrong," giving researchers a powerful tool that eventually could make possible ...
Flies like us: They can act like addicts, too
Dec 10, 2009 |
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When given the chance to consume alcohol at will, fruit flies behave in ways that look an awful lot like human alcoholism. That's according to a study published online on December 10th in Current Biology that is one of the ...
Researchers discover a way to strengthen proteins
Dec 10, 2009 |
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Proteins, which perform such vital roles in our bodies as building and maintaining tissues and regulating cellular processes, are a finicky lot. In order to work properly, they must be folded just so, yet many proteins readily ...
Researchers uncover chemical basis for extra 'quality control' in protein production
Dec 09, 2009 |
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December 9, 2009 -Even small errors made by cells during protein production can have profound disease effects, and nature has developed ways to uncover these mistakes and correct them. Though in the case of one essential ...
Newly discovered mechanism allows cells to change state
Dec 09, 2009 |
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Cells are not static. They can transform themselves over time — but change can have dangerous implications. Benign cells, for example, can suddenly change into cancerous ones.
Researchers Identify the Most Promiscuous Birds in the World
Dec 09, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- UConn ornithologist Chris Elphick and his colleagues carried out DNA tests to discover the paternity of Saltmarsh Sparrow nestlings.
One Can Act Without Group Support; Even in the Bacterial World
Dec 08, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A single bacterium can act alone, performing the same kinds of actions that a group normally does. The behavior of that bacterium can be manipulated at the cellular level. That’s the intriguing ...
'Shoot-'em-up' video game increases teenagers' science knowledge
Dec 08, 2009 |
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While navigating the microscopic world of immune system proteins and cells to save a patient suffering from a raging bacterial infection, young teenage players of the "Immune Attack" video game measurably improved their understanding ...
Scientists show that female fruit flies can be 'too attractive' to males
Dec 08, 2009 |
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Females can be too attractive to the opposite sex -- too attractive for their own good -- say biologists at UC Santa Barbara. They found that, among fruit flies, too much male attention directed toward attractive ...
