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Tag: "converting" at biology news

Survival of the selfless - scientists find cheats don't always prosper

...gy efficiently by taking in sugar slowly and fully converting into energy all that they ingest. This method maxi...aking in all the sugar they can and only partially converting it into energy. While this ensures swift energy production for the individual, it is a wasteful meth...

A more powerful and efficient engine for rice: the C3-C4 challenge

...etic efficiency, or what's known scientifically as converting rice from a C3 plant to a C4 plant, where the "C" refers to the carbon captured by photosynthesis for growth. To do this, C4 plants--such as maize--use solar energy more effectively for growth. Dr. Sheehy compared the potential impact of successful...

Oxidation defense in mosquitoes benefits malaria parasite

...nt strategy to prevent the accumulation of 3-HK by converting the chemically reactive 3-HK to the chemically stable XA via transaminase-mediated reactions," said Li. The protein described in the PNAS article is responsible for this transforming of 3-HK into XA in the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae, where XA...

How nice, brown rice: Study shows rice bran lowers blood pressure in rats

...d, via the same mechanism, inhibited angiotensin-1 converting enzyme, or ACE. “There’s much work being done on various bran fractions to nail down any health benefits,?says the journal’s editor, James Seiber, Ph.D., who is also director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Western Regional Research Center i...

Hopkins researchers discover genetic switch that turns off an oxygen-poor cell's combustion engine

... TCA cycle by preventing an enzyme called PDH from converting pyruvate made by glycolysis into acetyl CoA. Specifically, HIF-1 blocks the ability of PDH to make this conversion. HIF-1 does this by activating a protein called PDK, which binds to PDH and prevents it from performing this critical task. This starve...

USC, Rice to develop bacteria-powered fuel cells

... in colonies ?but they are incredibly efficient at converting organic inputs to electricity, so we are confident that they'll be a great candidate for our fuel cells," Lüttge said. ...

Protein 'nanosprings' most resilient found in nature

... the inner ear, where they play a critical role in converting sound (a mechanical stimulus) into an electrical signal that can be transmitted to the brain ?a process known as mechanotransduction. Ankyrin proteins also coordinate the ion channels and transporters that control the beating of the heart. In 2004, ...

Nano machine switches between biological and silicon worlds

...m or system. It can be a simple mechanical device, converting various forms of energy to rotating or linear mechanical energy. Or it can convert mechanical action into an electrical signal. It works both ways. "The light switch, the button that makes a retractable pen, all these are actuators, and by developi...

Microbes convert 'Styrofoam? into biodegradable plastic

... among the first to investigate the possibility of converting a petroleum-based plastic waste into a reusable biodegradable form. O’Connor and his colleagues from Ireland and Germany, utilized pyrolysis, a process that transforms materials by heating them in the absence of oxygen, to convert polystyrene ?the k...

Hot-spring bacteria flip a metabolic switch

...osynthesis and unexpectedly begin to fix nitrogen, converting nitrogen gas (N2) into compounds that are useful for cell growth. The study, published January 30 in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to document an organism that can juggle both metabolic...

Image of myosin-actin interaction revealed in cover story of Molecular Cell

...cific time. Fueled by hydrolysis -- the process of converting the molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP) into energy -- myosin V travels in one direction using actin as a track to deliver its payload of cell vesicles and organelles. Myosin V is also involved in transporting proteins that signal and communicate ...

War on terror meets war on cancer

... cells was generated by metabolism, the process of converting food into energy and other necessities of life. That conclusion was based on their surprising discovery that water inside the bacterial cells (intracellular water) has a different oxygen-18-to-oxygen-16 ratio than water outside the cells (extracellul...

Seeing the forest and the trees

...was able to hold. They found, for example, that converting tropical forests to less-diverse tree plantations containing only species with high wood density such as teak resulted in a 75 percent increase in the forest's carbon-storage capacity--so long as the trees are not harvested. By contrast, selectively ...

Plant wounds trigger bacteria

... phosphate (PO4) group to a related protein, VirG, converting it into an active form. The new study shows that the activated form of VirG causes the tumor-inducing plasmid to replicate up to five times faster than normal by increasing the expression of a protein called RepC, which is required for replication ...

A step toward the $1,000 personal genome using readily available lab equipment

...s week. The Church group's technology is based on converting a widely available and relatively inexpensive microscope with a digital camera for use in a rapid automated sequencing process that does not involve the much slower electrophoresis, a mainstay of the conventional Sanger sequencing method. "Meeting t...

Unweaving amyloid fibers to solve prion puzzles

... of biology at MIT. Prions are in the business of converting other prion molecules to join their ranks. And as they join together, they can create an amyloid fiber. To understand the nature of this fiber, it's necessary to understand how the prions that comprise it attach to each other. Krishnan was able to id...

Microreactor efficiently regenerates cofactors for biocatalysis

...earchers performed a model biocatalytic process by converting an achiral substrate (pyruvate) into a chiral product (L-lactate), using lactate dehydrogenase as the enzyme. While further research is needed to improve the performance of individual microreactors, the present work shifts the emphasis from the long...

It's electric: Cows show promise as powerplants

...livestock waste to power machinery and lights. But converting methane into electricity requires costly equipment : one California farmer reportedly spent $280,000 to convert his operation to a methane digester system. "Methane still needs to undergo combustion, which creates issues with energy efficiency," sai...

New miniaturised chip dramatically reduces time taken for DNA analysis

... a substance by chemically interacting with it and converting this interaction into an electrical current that they measure. To detect DNA, the new miniaturised electrochemical genosensors have a probe containing DNA fragments that complement the DNA they aim to detect. For example, to detect Salmonella in a s...

Eliminate Data Analysis Bottlenecks in Drug Discovery

...duction of sirtuin1, which in turn lets PGC1 start converting the pyruvate into the glucose the body needs to survive." The relationship between sirtuin1 and PGC1 also connects processes involved in cellular aging and responding to calorie intake in mammals for the first time. In bacteria and yeast, the equiva...

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