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Tag: "ancient" at biology news

Study reveals classic symbiotic relationship between ants, bacteria

...ogist Cameron Currie illustrates the intricate and ancient nature of this mutualistic relationship. The researchers found that the ants house the bacteria in specialized, highly adapted cavities and nourish them with glandular secretions-an indication that the ants, bacteria, fungus and parasites have likel...

How sperm crack the whip

...earch pathway. "It's like opening an chamber in an ancient pyramid, because no one had ever seen inside sperm cells to measure all the currents that control their activity," he said. "We are already measuring many of these currents and beginning to answer questions about what they are and what they do." Fu...

Insects and mammals share common fat-building pathway, study suggests

... the so-called hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway--an ancient suite of genes involved in determining the fates of many cell types--might also play an important role in fat formation in both flies and mice. The findings are the first to show a conserved effect of genes on fat storage from insects to mammals, acc...

Lizard 'third eye' sheds light on evolution of color vision

...s creatures suggests it is the evolutionarily more ancient light-triggering signal. Although gustducin and Go are different molecules, they are similar and considered "related" proteins. However, gustducin and Go each activate different molecular pathways that work against each other physiologically. Blue ...

FSU biologist says new dinosaur is oldest cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex

... paleobiologist Gregory M. Erickson sliced up some ancient dinosaur bones uncovered in China to help an international team of scientists identify a new genus and species. Despite striking skeletal differences and only subtle similarities, the FSU researcher determined that the two remarkably intact specimens...

New mechanism for essential genome-wide gene silencing identified

...e've discovered what looks to be an evolutionarily ancient mechanism for broadly repressing and protecting the genome," says Shelley L. Berger, Ph.D., the Hilary Koprowski Professor at The Wistar Institute and senior author on the study. "We believe it to be the first identified mechanism of its kind." The ...

Polymer aids in blood clotting, pointing way to new treatment

...ompted by an old scientific image and involving an ancient but understudied molecule may lead to a new treatm... picture is that we've found a new function for an ancient molecule," he said. "Polyphosphate has been around for billions of years. Roberto's discovery that t...

Advanced genomics and proteomics improve the diagnosis and treatment of a deadly lung disease

...cells of higher animals, suggesting that it has an ancient evolutionary heritage. Because of its ability to recognize double-stranded RNA, scientists think Dicer's original function may have been to defend cells from certain kinds of viruses. Having an image of Dicer from Giardia intestinalis, Doudna noted,...

Molecule does more than slice and dice RNA

...cells of higher animals, suggesting that it has an ancient evolutionary heritage. Because of its ability to recognize double-stranded RNA, scientists think Dicer's original function may have been to defend cells from certain kinds of viruses. Having an image of Dicer from Giardia intestinalis, Doudna noted,...

Common enzyme is a key player in DNA repair

... repair DNA damage extends to mice and archaea, an ancient and diverse group of single-celled organisms. In nearly every organism, they believe, the same specialized enzyme is poised to patch over a certain kind of blemish so that it does not permanently damage the genome. The DinB gene and its protein pro...

Laos ?a lost world for frogs

...an rock rat, which is the lone living member of an ancient mammal family, to the Annamite striped rabbit and saola, a type of forest antelope. Nine amphibians have been discovered by Stuart and his collaborators since 2002. "Certainly much more remains to be found in Laos," said Stuart. With a high level ...

Ancient DNA provides clues to the evolution of social behavior

...ly and her colleagues are using DNA extracted from ancient teeth-some more than 10,000 years old-to unravel t...tally different from anything anyone has done with ancient DNA,'' says Hadly, an associate professor of biological sciences and co-author of the study. ''What ...

Next good dinosaur news likely to come from small packages

...dge technology used to divine new information from ancient bits of bone and tissue. One of the field's hottest topics is whether proteins and DNA survive the test of time. Ostrom is putting her bet on proteins and is working with an international team from Michigan, the Smithsonian and York and Cardiff Un...

Typhoid fever led to the fall of Athens

... colleagues using DNA collected from teeth from an ancient Greek burial pit points to typhoid fever as the di...lden Age of Pericles and Athenian dominance in the ancient world. It is thought that up to one third of the Athenians, including their charismatic leader, Peri...

There's something fishy about human brain evolution

...ionary growth of the human brain. Instead, imagine ancient hominid children chasing frogs. Not for fun, but f...historic savannahs or forests, argues Dr. Cunnane, ancient shoreline environments provided a year-round, accessible and rich food supply. Such an environment w...

UF scientists reveal ancient origin of vertebrate skeleton

... Florida scientists have found that people have an ancient skeleton in their closets - a skeleton personified...e. Because of the lamprey, we know it is much more ancient genetic pathway that activates the collagen matrix." Animal collagen, often associated with the ful...

UF scientists reveal ancient origin of vertebrate skeleton

... Florida scientists have found that people have an ancient skeleton in their closets - a skeleton personified...e. Because of the lamprey, we know it is much more ancient genetic pathway that activates the collagen matrix." Animal collagen, often associated with the ful...

Hot-spring bacteria flip a metabolic switch

...nto sugars and oxygen via photosynthesis. In fact, ancient cyanobacteria produced most of the oxygen that allows animals to survive on Earth. Cyanobacteria such as Synechococcus are often found in the microbial mats that carpet hot springs, where life exists at near-boiling temperatures. These mats are high...

Marsupial genome reveals insights into mammalian evolution

...o found data supporting the idea that there was an ancient relationship between the MHC and another critical component of the immune system, the natural killer complex (NKC), which contains natural killer (NK) cell receptor loci. This "immune supercomplex," which no longer exists in modern genomes, performe...

Why the Amazon rainforest is so rich in species

...hundred thousand years old. Other groups were very ancient and hadn't produced many species over tens of millions of years, such as the clear-winged butterflies [the genus Oleria]. There was also a wide spectrum of ages in the other species they studied. Because tests revealed that the species were of varyi...

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