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Tag: "defensive" at biology news

Termites feed through good vibrations

... the wood species and hardness is important as are defensive chemicals made by the plant. But our work shows that this is not the only method of assessment. There are many accounts of termites not consuming a piece of palatable wood." ### Listen to termites walking and chewing pine http://www.csiro.au/audio/...

In the sea slug's defense against lobsters, confusion is key

...ir of glands. The new findings show that Aplysia's defensive secretion includes a variety of chemicals that together comprise a multi-pronged attack on the predator's nervous system, resulting in the usurpation of its normal behavioral control system and a confused response that facilitates the slug's ultimate...

Leprosy microbes lead scientists to immune discovery

... a rapid immune response by two separate armies of defensive cells. The finding helps explain why, when threate...the detection of foreign bacteria. One category of defensive cells, macrophages, seek out and engulf the infectious bugs. The other group consists of dendritic, ...

Symbiotic bacteria protect hunting wasps from fungal infestation

...an be successfully utilized by higher organisms in defensive mechanisms against other microbes. In the new work...t dangerous pathogens. As yet, only a few cases of defensive symbioses between higher organisms and bacteria have been reported. In their new paper, Martin Kalt...

At the molecular level, the predator is the prey

...rvive are some T. sirtalis garter snakes. TTX is a defensive compound found in some puffer fish, octopuses and primitive chordates. It is used in low concentrations to treat morphine and heroine addicts. It's also the "zombie" drug used by Haitian voodoo ritualists. Despite its action at the molecular level, ...

Disabling gene defuses rheumatoid arthritis in mice

... long been recognized as a condition that involves defensive cells from the body's immune system mistakenly attacking healthy joint tissues. Scientists once thought the cells that were most active in these attacks were adaptive immune cells including T cells. Most of these cells are like guided missiles: they ...

Variation in HIV's ability to disable host defenses contributes to rapid evolution

...es a protein, called Vif, that can disable the two defensive proteins. Vif is full of variation, both in seque...k at all; others counteract only one of the host's defensive proteins. "It's a leaky system," according to Paul D. Bieniasz, senior author of the study and assoc...

When in danger humans are similar to a deer in the headlights

... stimuli, mediated by neural circuits that promote defensive survival," author Eliane Volchan explains. This study is published in the current issue of Psychophysiology. Media wishing to receive a PDF of the full article please contact journalnews@bos.blackwellpublishing.net Psychophysiology reports on new t...

Study: Plants use dual defense system to fight pathogens

...ct various infection-causing molecules and trigger defensive responses." A next step in this line of work is to look at other pathogen effector proteins and analyze their role in causing infections. Mackey conducted the study with Ohio State colleagues Min Gab Kim, a graduate student in the department of pla...

Creeping crinoids! Sea lilies crawl to escape predators, new video shows

...some way to pushing crinoids into developing these defensive strategies." ...

U. of Colorado researcher identifies tracks of swimming dinosaur in Wyoming

...some way to pushing crinoids into developing these defensive strategies." ...

Greasing interferon's gears may pave way to greater therapeutic benefits, fewer side effects

...enhance the way interferon produces its beneficial defensive effects, the body could respond to its normal level of interferon and receive enhanced benefit without side effects," Holtzman says. The group engineered a mutant Stat1 protein in which the identities of two amino acids were switched. Investigation...

Sea slug mixes chemical defense before firing at predators

...n with L-lysine and L-arginine that results in the defensive secretion. Using a variety of chemical and molecular techniques, the scientists identified L-lysine and L-arginine in the opaline gland, which produces the sticky white component of the secretion, and escapin in the ink gland, which produces the purp...

Primates harvest bee nests in Ugandan reserve

...a. Apis mellifera subspecies scutellata, the very defensive tropical African honeybee, was transplanted from Africa to Brazil as part of a scientific experiment to boost honey production in 1956. From Brazil, it invaded the Americas, working its way northward and is now found in southern U.S. states. Dave ...

Penguins okay with human visitors?for now

..., habituation is rapid. The authors monitored the defensive head turns and the level of a hormone secreted in response to stress (plasma corticosterone) of penguins when encountering humans. "Head turns of penguins visited for 10 days were significantly lower than those of penguins visited for 5 days and wer...

Researchers reveal lung's unique innate immune system

... the unique mechanism by which the lung shapes its defensive strategies against microbial invasion. "This innate immune response is specific to the lung, and was probably designed to minimize collateral damage to lung tissue caused by unchecked inflammation," said Eyal Raz, M.D., Professor of Medicine at UCSD...

Gene thwarts some pathogens, gives access to others, could save crops

...e gene BIK1 recognizes the pathogen and sets off a defensive reaction. Botrytis is a type of pathogen that can infect and obtain nutrients from dead cells on a plant and actually secretes toxic substances into plant tissue in order to gain entry. Another type of pathogen, called a biotroph, must feed on live p...

Role of protein in immune response may aid HIV research

...entists report that various organs mount different defensive responses with PGLYRP when exposed to bacteria. The skin produces these proteins only when exposed to virulent or high numbers of bacteria. In contrast, the liver, whose function is to continuously monitor the blood and fight acute infection, prod...

Mice lacking key immune component still control chronic viral infections

... killing them or sounding alarms that summon other defensive measures. To enable this recognition process, other cells regularly chop up viral proteins found in their interiors and display them on their surfaces. MHC Class I molecules act as a kind of stage for this inspection process, binding to the protein p...

BGSU biologist trying to crack microscopic code

...acteria, which are cloaked by an outer membrane--a defensive barrier against the harsh elements of their enviro...ed the Tol system, is important in maintaining the defensive barrier, although which proteins it delivers energy to as part of that process isn't known. Findin...

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