Biology News

New NIST 'Cell Assay on a Chip': Solid Results from Simple Means Wednesday, February 8, 2012 - 09:43

The great artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci once said that “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) research engineer Javier Atencia certainly believes in the wisdom of what da Vinci preached; he has a reputation for creating novel microfluidic devices out of ordinary, inexpensive components. This time, he has combined a glass slide, plastic sheets and double-sided tape into a “diffusion-based gradient generator”—a tool to rapidly assess how changing concentrations of specific chemicals affect living cells.

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Molecular Path from Internal Clock to Cells Controlling Rest and Activity Revealed in Penn Study Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - 23:45

The molecular pathway that carries time-of-day signals from the body's internal clock to ultimately guide daily behavior is like a black box, says Amita Sehgal, PhD, the John Herr Musser Professor of Neuroscience and Co-Director, Comprehensive Neuroscience Center, at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

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Caribbean lizards settle 'founder effect' controversy Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - 23:17

When a devastating 2004 hurricane wiped out a Caribbean lizard population, University of California, Davis, researchers had an unprecedented opportunity to address a long-simmering controversy in evolutionary biology. Their findings — from the first experimental study of the so-called “founder effect” in a natural setting — are published in the Feb. 3 edition of Science Express, the online publication of the journal Science, which will publish the study in print on Feb. 17.

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Redder ladybirds more deadly, say scientists Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - 13:29

A ladybird’s colour indicates how well-fed and how toxic it is, according to an international team of scientists. Research led by the Universities of Exeter and Liverpool directly shows that differences between animals’ warning signals reveal how poisonous individuals are to predators.

 

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Boise State Researchers Discover Why Birch is Toxic to Snowshoe Hares Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - 13:19

Boise State biologists have uncovered why the chemical defenses in birch, a common type of tree found in North America, are toxic to snowshoe hares.

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Researchers Examine the Consequences of Non-Intervention for Infectious Disease in Highly Endangered African Great Apes Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - 12:38

Infectious disease has joined poaching and habitat loss as a major threat to the survival of African great apes as they have become restricted to ever-smaller populations. Despite the work of dedicated conservationists, efforts to save our closest living relatives from ecological extinction are largely failing, and new scientific approaches are necessary to analyze major threats and find innovative solutions.

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Entire genome of extinct human decoded from fossil Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - 09:39
The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany, has completed the genome sequence of a Denisovan, a representative of an Asian group of extinct humans related to Neandertals.

 

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Foxo1 Identified as an Essential Protein in Tooth Mineralization Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - 08:00

Scientists have identified a critical protein involved in the biomineralization of tooth enamel, the hardest and most highly mineralized substance in our body.  They found that the protein called Foxo1 involved in regulating gene expression is essential for enamel biomineralization. 

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