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Tag: "thin" at biology news

Giant deep-sea tubeworm's meal ticket comes in as a skin infection

...instaking reconstruction of electronmicrographs of thin slices of larvae andjuvenile worms, the team showed that thesymbionts do not enter through the mouth, butthrough the skin, in a process akin toinfection by pathogenic bacteria. Thesebacterial partners then crawl inward, throughvarious larval tissues,...

Scientists discover why cornea is transparent and free of blood vessels, allowing vision

...elves vessel-free (the other is cartilage), is the thin transparent tissue that covers the front of the eye. It is the clarity of the cornea that allows light to pass onto the retina and from there to the brain for interpretation. When the cornea is clouded by injury, infection or abnormal blood vessel gr...

Think fast! Rice undergrad unlocks nerve speed secret

...r bodies, nerve cells are encased in a membrane, a thin layer of fatty tissue that walls off the outside world from the cell's interior. And like other cells, nerve cells use a complex system of proteins as sensors, switches and activators to scan the outside world and decide when to open membrane doorway...

Bedsores and bald hides: Novel roles revealed for a 'scaffolding' protein

...the hair follicle die too soon, which results in a thin coat of fragile hair, a condition resembling alopecia or thinning, balding hair. That the hair is fragile is not surprising given that K17 is a keratin protein, known to provide structure and strength, says Coulombe. Hair follicle cells cycle contin...

Some people would give life or limb not to be fat

...sed by asking people to rate their preferences for thin and fat people, and the degree to which they believe that fat people are lazier than thin people. The researchers found that people of all weight categories exhibited a significant implicit...

Brain-computer link lets paralyzed patients convert thoughts into actions

...n -- from nearby neurons and transmit them through thin gold wires to a titanium pedestal that protrudes about an inch above the patient's scalp. An external cable connects the pedestal to computers, signal processors and monitors. Converting digitized intentions into meaningful action, however, is not...

Pollutant haze heats the Arctic

...ate pollution from mid-latitude cities ?mixes with thin clouds, making them better able to trap heat. T...stem. Tim's work suggests that where pollution and thin clouds are coincident, they act to warm the surface by about 2 degrees to 3 degrees Fahrenheit." "...

The appearance of your hands can reveal your age, study finds

... to photos of very elderly hands ?characterized by thin skin, age spots, wrinkles, deformity, veins and prominent joints ?did not change the participants' ability to distinguish the person's age. Overall, the physical characteristic which most commonly gave away age was prominent hand veins. In alte...

Finding the right mix: A biomaterial blend library

...blasts--responded to changes in the composition of thin films made of these tyrosine-derived polymers. In practice, many biomaterials are made from blends of polymers to achieve specific material properties. Optimizing the blend composition is often a difficult and time-consuming task. As the blends gaine...

Like a snail through the intestinal canal

...currently used for this is the colonscope, a long, thin and flexible tube that causes patients great discomfort and pain. For this reason, researchers have been trying to develop alternative medical devices, such as, for example, a small robot that moves independently through the intestinal tract. There i...

Boston University biomedical engineers win major grant for pursuit of the '$1,000 Genome'

...g beams of electrons, Meller punches tiny holes in thin silicon films, then pulls strands of DNA through these "nanopores" using an electric current. Each base is identified by a florescent marker attached to it, which allows the researchers to record the sequence of bases as the strand emerges from the n...

Chemical tests of cell growth enter third dimension

...ok very bright in the well, because they grow as a thin film layer that is essentially two-dimensional. Researchers get around this problem by removing the cells from the well and counting them one by one under a microscope. It's a long and tedious process. "Our idea is very simple," Yang said. "We want...

Most important actors in the growth process of neurons identified

...between neurons. Neurons have a number of long thin offshoots - called axons - that conduct electrical impulses. These primary elements of information transfer in the nervous system can sometimes be more than a meter long. The axon's orientation as it grows is also of great importance in forming the r...

Electric jolt triggers release of biomolecules, nanoparticles

...nts, the researchers used gold electrodes, each as thin as a single strand of human hair, fabricated through the same photolithography techniques used to make computer chips. "We used a gold electrode because gold is a good conductor of electricity," said Mali, "and because it's an inert metal, it wouldn'...

Scientists design simple dipstick test for cocaine, other drugs

... the conjugation pad, streptavidin is applied as a thin line to the membrane pad, and the device is then dried. When dipped into a solution, or swabbed with a sample, the wicking pad carries the fluid to the nanoparticle aggregates on the conjugation pad. The rehydrated aggregates then migrate to the ed...

Recycling technology

...lly composed of two glass sheets, between which, a thin film of viscous liquid crystal material is deposited. The material is a mixture of anywhere between 15 to 20 different compounds. EU legislation now prevents disposal of electronic materials in landfill. Dr Avtar Matharu, of the Department of Chem...

Scientists crack rhino horn riddle

...orns of most animals have a bony core covered by a thin sheath of keratin, the same substance as hair and nails. Rhino horns are unique, however, because they are composed entirely of keratin. Scientists had been puzzled by the difference, but the Ohio University study now has revealed an interesting clue...

Dig deeper to find Martian life

...actic radiation is modified as it goes through the thin Martian atmosphere to the surface and underground. Three different surface scenarios were tested; dry regolith, water ice, and regolith with layered permafrost. The particle energies and radiation doses were measured on the surface of Mars and at ...

Widely used iron nanoparticles exhibit toxic effects on neuronal cells

...ss a variety of neuron-specific genes and generate thin sprout-like cellular extensions called neurites, which are hundreds of times longer than the width of the cell, or up to several millimeters in length. These properties of PC12 cells have made them useful for studying the neurobiological and neuroche...

Volcanic eruptions, ancient global warming linked

...n years for the mantle to weaken, the continent to thin and the molten material to rise to the surface," Duncan said. "It was like lifting a lid. The plate came apart and gave birth to the North Atlantic Ocean." The link from the volcanism to the warming period came through correlations with the marine...

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