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Tag: "hunt" at biology news

Researchers find protein that silences genes

... time, Pikaard and his colleagues have been on the hunt for the proteins responsible for keeping the silenced genes off. In their current paper, published on-line on April 28, 2006, in Genes and Development, and the cover story for the print version of the journal due out May 15, Pikaard and his collabo...

Immune cell communication key to hunting viruses, Jefferson immunologists show

...ogy: how immune system cells called killer T-cells hunt down invading viruses. They found that surprisingly little virus can turn on the killer T-cells, thanks to some complicated communication among so-called "antigen presenting" proteins that recognize and attach to the virus, in turn, making it vis...

Psst! Coffee drinkers: Fruit flies have something to tell you about caffeine

In their hunt for genes and proteins that explain how animals discern bitter from sweet, a team of Johns Hopkins researchers began by testing whether mutant fruit flies prefer eating sugar over sugar laced with caffeine. Using a simple behavioral test, the resear...

Archerfish tune their shots to universal properties of prey adhesion

Archerfish exhibit the remarkable ability to hunt for insects and other small terrestrial animals by firing precisely aimed streams of water that knock prey onto the water's surface. These water shots were once thought to be all-or-none in quality, but researchers have now discovered new levels of s...

Common ancestry of bacterium and plants could be key to an effective new treatment for chlamydia

...d in any bacteria that live with humans. So the hunt for a new antibiotic is on. Leustek is going to start screening for chemicals that block the enzyme. He is also using the results of his research to work on another approach, which is to characterize the structure of the enzyme so that he could desig...

Chimpanzees found to use tools to hunt mammalian prey

...apable of habitually fashioning and using tools to hunt mammalian prey. The work, reported by Jill Pruetz of Iowa State University and Paco Bertolani of the University of Cambridge, will appear online in the journal Current Biology on February 22nd. Chimpanzees are well known for their ingenuity in using...

Primitive yeast yields secrets of human cholesterol and drug metabolism

...he same way.? The search for Dap1 began with the hunt for factors that influence the actions of a large family of enzymes called cytochrome P450. These enzymes control many life-sustaining chemical reactions in humans and other animals. Happily, Espenshade says, yeast have only two P450 enzymes, and ...

In Iran, cheetahs collared for the first time

... Iranian culture, being trained by its emperors to hunt gazelles in ancient times. Iranian biologist and director of the project in Iran, Dr Hooshang Ziaie said "These captures herald a new era of conservation in Iran. This is the first time we have successfully deployed these collars in Iran, and the d...

DNA analysis suggests under-reported kills of threatened whales

...aling in 1986. Though it is illegal to directly hunt minke whales in South Korea, those caught in fishing nets can be killed and sold as "bycatch" if officially reported. Economic incentives make such pursuits attractive, said Baker, who pointed out that individual whales are thought to fetch as much a...

Brain's white matter -- More 'talkative' than once thought

...ctrical signals in the OPCs. A further microscopic hunt revealed that pools of glutamate were present in the nerve fibers wherever they touched OPCs. All of the nerve cells in the white matter that released glutamate within reach of OPCs, moreover, had something in common: no myelin insulation. Normal...

Alien plants attack using 'resource conservation' as weapon, researchers say

...source efficient," Vitousek said. "And then we can hunt those down." ...

Moths mimic sounds to survive

...ats. The researcher trained free-flying bats to hunt moths in view of two high-speed infrared video cameras to record predator-prey interactions that occur in fractions of a second. He also recorded the sounds emitted from each moth, as well as the sounds made by the bats. All the bats quickly lea...

The mouflons of the Kerguelen archipelago

...ties decided to offer residents the opportunity to hunt mouflons (a type of wild sheep). A pair of Corsican mouflons was imported from the Vincennes Zoo in Paris. Initially, the mouflon population grew exponentially, and then, from the early 1980s, it fluctuated between 300 and 700 individuals. The h...

In nature, proteins sweep up nanoparticles

...arbored life. Scientists involved in this research hunt for biosignatures, which are the telltale calling cards left behind by microbes that may have lived eons ago. The presence of fine particulate sulfides in minerals is one such biosignature, although it is only suggestive of life. Now, the presence o...

CSIRO scientists join fight to save 'Tassie devil'

...nology and Land and Water, are working together to hunt down the cause of Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) and possibly develop a test to identify infected animals. DFTD is infectious and is thought to be passed between animals by biting when, for example, devils compete for food. Once the cancer be...

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