features 2 7

Tag: "features" at biology news

Molecule does more than slice and dice RNA

... permits researchers to tease out their functional features and show how they go about their business inside a cell. In the case of Dicer, it shows how the enzyme recognizes RNA and snips it into precise increments. "The fact that it makes these specific sized RNAs is important to the process," Doudna said. ...

USC, Rice to develop bacteria-powered fuel cells

...ion from multiple beams of light to resolve sample features as small as one-billionth of a meter. In previous studies with Nealson, Lüttge used the technique to examine how the cigar-shaped Shewanella attach themselves to crystalline surfaces. The researchers found that Shewanella would lay flat and orient th...

NHGRI announces new sequencing targets

... Scientists will use the combined data to look for features that are similar, or conserved, among the genomes of the human and other mammals. The eight new mammals to be sequenced will be chosen from the following 10 species: dolphin (Tursiops truncates), elephant shrew (Elephantulus species), flying lemur...

Attractive birds more immune against bird flu

...f a mate is influenced by behaviour and appearance features that cannot reasonably be thought to have any usefulness. Therefore, they have begun to look more and more at the genetics behind what are called secondary sexual characters, such as the tail of a peacock, the stripes of the female gulf pipefish, and...

Novel molecular 'signature' marks DNA of embryonic stem cells

...n the same issue of Cell and describes new control features found in human ES cells. ...

Ticks, flukes, and genomics: Emerging pathogens revealed

...nomics can lead to the identification of molecular features that underlie the lifestyle of pathogens," says TIGR molecular biologist Hervé Tettelin, senior author of the PLoS Genetics article. "We could not have reached these conclusions by independently studying the genome sequence of each individual pathoge...

In the mind's eye: How the brain makes a whole out of parts

...at indiscriminately," signaling all the individual features within a shape to which they are sensitive. For instance, a particular neuron may respond to objects with either a concave fragment at the top or a convex fragment at the bottom. At this point, the neural signals are ambiguous; the brain doesn't know...

New nano-canary in the nanotoxicology coalmine: The body itself

...ared, FTIR, spectroscopy offers several attractive features for these investigations. These include the potential to detect biologically active nanoparticles without any prior knowledge of cell signaling pathways affected by them or need of a contrast agent to detect the biological response. Thus, live cell...

Diverse tropical forests defy metabolic ecology models

...aph data from different forests, there are certain features that, at first glance, look similar everywhere '" the presence of some very large trees, or the general shape of the tree size distribution curve," explains first author, Helene Muller-Landau from the University of Minnesota. "So you start to think t...

U of MN researchers identify ataxia gene

...t, suggesting the possibility that he showed early features of the disease. Ranum started this historical and scientific journey more than a decade ago. She and her colleagues John Day, M.D., Ph.D., University of Minnesota, and Larry Schut, M.D., CentraCare Clinic in St. Cloud, Minn., examined and collec...

'Executive' monkeys influenced by other executives, not subordinates

...were hints that gaze-following didn't have all the features of a purely reflexive action, but these were only hints. Such hints -- as well as previous studies in the Platt laboratory -- led Shepherd and Platt to explore whether social stimuli might also play a role in such decisions. Those previous studies s...

Study finds drug may cut down involuntary movements

...of symptoms. "Tetrabenazine does not help all the features of Huntington's disease, and other medications are commonly needed to improve mood and behavior. For those Huntington's disease patients whose function is impaired by chorea, however, tetrabenazine can help activities of daily living, and improve fu...

Male rivalry increases when females at most fertile, say researchers

...e an affair with a masculine-looking man, as their features are linked to high testosterone levels, demonstrating good genetic qualities that can be passed on to offspring. New research at the University has found that men sense this preference shift in their female partners and find masculine men more thre...

Carnegie Mellon scientists show brain uses optimal code for sound

...y, when the researchers derived the optimal set of features for natural sounds, they corresponded exactly to the patterns observed by neurophysiologists in the auditory nerves. "We've found that timing of just a sparse number of spikes actually encodes the whole range of nature sounds, including components o...

Minimal genome should be twice the size, study shows

...he two bacteria, including some of the non-obvious features of their genomes. "Far from being a cause for disease, the insects need these bacteria to supply them with essential nutrients," said Professor Hurst. "In these relatively cosy conditions, Buchnera and Wigglesworthia have lost some of the genes the...

Patterns in genome organization may partially explain how microbial cells work

...have reported that the location of genes and other features distributed along the chromosomes of bacteria and simpler organisms also is fundamentally important to how microbial cells operate. In a paper published Jan. 13 online in PLoS Computational Biology, the researchers reported large- and small-scale or...

Free access to a digital library for developing countries

...iness Media. The Springer environmental collection features journals such as Oecologia, Marine Biology, Climatic Change, Ecosystems, Environmental Geology and Water, Air, & Soil Pollution. OARE will enable countries to build their own higher education programs in the environmental sciences, educate their...

Why the Amazon rainforest is so rich in species

...rmally given. Instead, we think that idiosyncratic features of the biology of each species, such as competitio...ies must largely be caused by intrinsic biological features of each group of species." He added: "This research is helping us understand the reasons behind the...

Forgotten by evolution?

Not least because undifferentiated cells with features typical of stem cells are being increasingly found...th, was stimulated, the cells began to develop the features of heart muscle cells. In contrast, when they were beforehand stimulated with a protein known as CDO...

UCLA discovery will aid in treatment of patients with a deadly brain cancer

...ng us begin to understand the underlying molecular features of disease, and new drugs are making it possible to safely and specifically target pathways that are altered in cancer cells. This was impossible five years ago. Glioblastoma is still a difficult disease, but the idea that it may be possible to induc...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10