Orientation in Biological News

New windows opened on cell-to-cell interactions

... nature at nanotechnological scales where the orientation of minuscule proteins is crucial, said Raghuveer ... very specific things. Controlling molecular orientation from cell membranes In a paper appearing ... allowing precise optical measurements of the orientation of the molecule. Electron microscopy revealed ...

How baby fish find a home

... chamber is designed to detect and quantify the orientation of larval coral reef fish in the pelagic ... change their immediate environment and manipulate orientation cues, such as acoustic, chemical, or magnetic ... an infrared camera that can verify the larvaes orientation at night. Through a research grant from The ...

Scientists alter sexual orientation in worms

... the same sex part of a study that shows sexual orientation is wired in the creatures brains. They look ... just like worms. It seems possible that if sexual orientation is genetically wired in worms, it would be in ... other hermaphrodites. The results show sexual orientation is wired into the brain in both sexes of worm. ...

Jet-propelled imaging for an ultrafast light source

... that it comes and goes before any of the atoms can move, freezing their orientation like a strobe light. Just as important, a sufficiently brief pulse may ... of a lens reside. Computer systems have been developed that infer the orientation of the sample from the diffraction pattern itself, even when as few as ...

High carbon dioxide levels cause abnormally large fish ear bones

... ear bones. Otoliths serve a vital function in fish by helping them sense orientation and acceleration. The researchers had hypothesized that otoliths in ... the fish stay upright, navigate and survive." In addition to serving in orientation and acceleration, otoliths help reveal physical characteristics of fish. ...

CU-Boulder study shows Maya intensively cultivated manioc 1,400 years ago

... at Ceren were oriented 30 degrees east of magnetic north -- the same orientation as the village buildings and the public town center, said Sheets. "The ... laid out the agricultural fields and the town structures with the same orientation as the nearby river, showing the importance and reverence the Maya had for ...

Orientation of antenna protein in photosynthetic bacteria described

... Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have figured out the orientation of a protein in the antenna complex to its neighboring membrane in a ... guiding of the energy to the reaction center. By knowing exactly how this orientation is on the membrane, we determined the funneling property in a more precise ...

Spookfish uses mirrors for eyes

... animal kingdom (it's why silvery fish are silvery) but the arrangement and orientation of the guanine crystals is precisely controlled such that they direct the light to a focus. Partridge's computer simulation showed that the precise orientation of the plates within the mirror's curved surface is perfect for focusing ...

Space researchers developing tool to help disoriented pilots

... is physiology. "Humans are notoriously bad at figuring out their orientation when flying because we did not evolve in a flight environment, in contrast ... throughout that vibrate in a sequence to alert the pilot when an orientation correction is needed. "It is really important that the system alert ...

Simulations help explain fast water transport in nanotubes

... and orient in one direction as a result of confinement effects. This orientation produces water transport in one direction. However, the water molecules ... report. "The molecular mechanism governing the relationship between orientation and flow had not been known," Aluru said. "The coupling occurs between the ...

'Mind's eye' influences visual perception

... Pearson, Clifford and Tong also discovered that changing the orientation of the image from what had been imagined greatly reduced the impact of imagery on perception. Because orientation is processed in early visual areas, this suggests that imagery's ...

Study finds link between individual stress and adolescent obesity

... Academic problems Consumption of drugs and alcohol Depression or poor mental health levels Acting out or aggressive behaviors Lack of future orientation The researchers wrote that the adolescents' relationship with stress and becoming overweight may be a result of biological (perturbed ...

ESA's Earth observation missions: Sharing teams and facilities boosts efficiency

... within the same tight timeframe. These included the first System Validation Test for ADM-Aeolus, a closed-loop test for Cryosat-2's attitude and orientation control system, and a series of simulations for the then-pending GOCE launch. Complex testing campaign creates 'huge challenge' The complex ...

2009 ASPB Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship award announcement

... to continue towards my goal of a career in plant ecology. Annie Jeong, Barnard College Mentor: Kristen Shepard Analysis of the Spatial orientation of Chimeric and Male Floral Organs in Spergularia Marina I am a junior at Barnard College, majoring in Biology, with a Chemistry minor. This is my ...

Brain building: Study shows brain growth tied to cell division in mouse embryos

... pool is maintained by asymmetrical divisionone daughter cell becomes a neuron, the other self-renews. This fate asymmetry is thought to depend on the orientation of cell division, and the authors observed an increase in the number of symmetrically dividing progenitors in the brains of Vangl2-lacking mouse ...

AGU journal highlights -- March 12, 2009

... deformation textures. If the analogue between the compound used in the experiments and the perovskite crystal-packing system holds true, such lattice orientation transitions may explain the observed seismic jumps. On a more local level, the fast spikes in certain seismic velocities may be explained by ...

40 minority scientists receive travel fellowships to Experimental Biology 2009 in New Orleans

... opportunities. The mentor introduces the fellow to other established scientists at the conference, and the fellows meet other minority students at an orientation and reception for current and past travel fellows. APS also invites fellows to career workshops, sessions on special skills development, and other ...

Fluorescent proteins illuminating biomedical research

... revealing new insights into a variety of biological processes. For example, one of his PAFPs was used to capture the first nanoscale images of the orientation of molecules within biological structures. "Such images could be useful in studying protein-protein interactions, the growth and collapse of ...

Whispering bats are 100 times louder than previously thought

... the bats have to search over large areas to find fruiting trees, and Surlykke suspects that the bat uses its high volume, well-carrying shrieks for orientation in their complex forest environment. However, tiny M. macrophyllum's lifestyle is completely different. They hunt for insects over water, scooping ...

MIT: Mending broken hearts with tissue engineering

... patch contracted more readily in one direction than in another. In a third advantage, "the scaffold itself has an intrinsic ability to guide the orientation of cultured heart cells," Freed said. (In 2004 Freed was part of another MIT team that showed that heart cells cultured on a traditional scaffold ...

Migratory moths may hitch their rides, but they're anything but drifters

... that fly low to the ground during the day, he added, but "it is much harder to envisage how these insects are able to carry out these feats of orientation while traveling hundreds of meters above the ground at speeds up to 100 kilometers per hour in almost total darkness." ...

The structure of the Mre11 protein bound to DNA

... of repair called nonhomologous end-joining can take up the slack. The right tools for the job DNA was bound to Mre11 dimers in the correct orientation and crystallized at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. Critical for the results was the analysis of the samples performed by the Scripps ...

Neurotechnology Releases SentiSight 2.0 SDK Universal Object Recognition Technology

... features the ability to identify and approximately outline the region an object occupies in a scene, providing additional information about the size, orientation and scale of the recognized object. SentiSight 2.0 supports both Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems and gives developers complete ...

Neurotechnology Releases SentiSight 2.0 SDK Universal Object Recognition Technology

... features the ability to identify and approximately outline the region an object occupies in a scene, providing additional information about the size, orientation and scale of the recognized object. SentiSight 2.0 supports both Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems and gives developers complete ...

Caltech scientists create DNA tubes with programmable sizes for nanoscale manufacturing

... contains four modular binding sites. By pairing up the complementary binding sites, these single-stranded tiles bind with each other in a particular orientation like Lego pieces snapped together, forming a tube composed of parallel DNA helices. The circumference of the resulting tube is determined by the ...

Advances in Atmospheric Sciences named Rising Star by ScienceWatch

... Guoxiong Wu, Huijun Wang and Da-Lin Zhang speculated on the reasons for the high citation rate. Wu said, "It may be attributed to the international orientation of the journal, including the close collaboration with Springer, the periodically recycled international editorial board, and the significant ...

Centromeres cross over, a lot

... is so repetitiveit's hard to see when a segment has switched chromatids. Jaco et al. have now addressed this challenge by using CO-FISH (chromosome orientation fluorescence in situ hybridization). After replication, the two new strands are digested away, leaving the two old strands. Because the strands are ...

A molecular switch turns on the flame in 'nature's blowtorch'

... to react with the substrate (or anything else, for that matter). In the other orientation, however, the substrate is held tightly in the correct orientation for the oxidation, and the oxygen can be activated to do "the burn." The activated form of the molecule is generated by binding a helper protein, ...

Into the wild

... State University and two Russian undergraduates from Vitus Bering Kamchatka State University. The team flies out on June 25 and will undertake an orientation week while staying close to Esso village in central Kamchatka, learning general skills for survival and safety including camp protocols, navigation ...

A model photochemical compass for bird navigation

... that the magnetic compass sense of migratory birds is based on a magnetically sensitive chemical reaction whose lifetime depends on the orientation of its molecules to Earth's magnetic field," said Peter Hore, professor of chemistry at Oxford University and head of the U.K. team. Gust and ...

Are you looking at me?

... obvious indicators of risk a predator looming overhead or the fleeing of other animals are well documented, but Carter argued that a predators head orientation and eye-gaze direction are more subtle indicators of risk, and useful since many predators orient their head and eyes towards their prey as they ...

ESF conference probes water's mysterious interactions at molecular level

... for analysing water molecules at interfaces, observing the way high-energy x-ray beams are scattered at the points of interaction. The location and orientation of individual water molecules can be detected that way, and already a lot has been learned about the crucial role played by them in critical ...

Predicting the radiation risk to ESA's astronauts

... aspects of the work was that Ersmark had to build from scratch a computer model of the International Space Station itself. The configuration and orientation of the ISS are crucial parameters in defining the amount of matter that radiation passes through. The Columbus module, launched into space by ...

Mutation may cause inherited neuropathy

... mutations in only one copy of a gene coding for one part of dynein protein have severe defects in proprioception, the ability to perceive the spatial orientation of body parts. These defects caused a significant reduction in the number of sensory nerve cells in affected mice. They also caused early-onset ...

Liquid crystal phases of tiny DNA molecules point up new scenario for first life on Earth

... a machine called the Argonne Advanced Photon Source synchrotron that enabled probing of the nano DNA molecular organization in single liquid crystal orientation domains only a few microns in size. The experiments provided direct evidence for the columnar stacking of the nano DNA pieces in a fluid liquid ...

Salk scientists identify key nerve navigation pathway

... itself, said Pfaff, noting that the fundamental pieces, such as the receptors capable of reading cues, all seem to be present. Without the correct orientation of receptors, however, signals cannot be read accurately, resulting in growth going off course. A precise gradient normally exists across the cone, ...

Do migratory birds 'see' the magnetic field?

... and Cluster N via the visual thalamus. Thus, the only two parts of the central nervous system shown to be highly active during magnetic compass orientation are linked to each other by a well-known visual brain circuit, namely by parts of the so-called thalamofugal pathway. For the first time, clear ...

Springer will publish Journal of Coastal Conservation

... of Marine and Coastal Law and Marine Biology. The first issue of the relaunched JCCO, with a new editor and advisory board, revised and broadened orientation and new subtitle, will be published by Springer this month. The Journal of Coastal Conservation: Planning and Management publishes both ...

Researchers learn how blood vessel cells cope with their pressure-packed job

... stretching caused by a beating heart. Such an orientation of stress fibers is a hallmark of healthy blood ... perpendicular to the direction of stretch. "This orientation of actin fibers can be thought of as a feedback ... and biochemical stimuli to regulate the proper orientation of these stress fibers," said Kaunas. "Indeed, we ...