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Tag: "tips" at biology news

Primates harvest bee nests in Ugandan reserve

...ive habitat. Chimps in the Park peel and chew the tips of vines and twigs to make honey dipsticks. Roubik notes that indigenous groups in the Americas use similar honey brushes to harvest honey in areas where Africanized bees are relative newcomers [see photo]. "Most studies of stingless bees have been...

Engineers discover why toucan beaks are models of lightweight strength

...variety of purposes, from gathering fruit from the tips of tree branches, to defending themselves. Bird beaks are typically either short and thick or long and thin. The Meyers team decided to prospect for a novel material in toucan beaks because they are both long and thick. Emerald Forest Bird Gardens,...

Recreating 'Flowers for Algernon' with a happy ending

...rooves on a record," said Silva. "But surplus Ras tips the balance between switching signals on and off in the brain. This interrupts the delicate cell communication needed by the brain to record learned information." The UCLA team began searching for a safe drug that would zero in on Ras and overcome ...

Marathon of nano-sprinters

...ns are those that connect our spinal cord with the tips of our fingers and toes. Within such an axon, microtubules provide the tracks along which molecular motors transport their cargo, such as vesicles filled with neurotransmitters. During the last decade, our knowledge about molecular motors has incre...

Scientists map one of biology's critical light-sensing structures

...ls that respond directly to light, such as in root tips and new shoots. The phytochrome revealed by the Wisconsin team was derived from a microbe known as Deinococcus radiodurans, a bacterium renowned for its tolerance to ionizing radiation. It was only within the last eight years that scientists from Vi...

MIT researcher finds neuron growth in adult brain

...tire neurons in the adult cortex. Dendritic branch tips were measured over weeks to evaluate physical chan...ract from contact with neighboring cells. Dendrite tips that look like the thinnest twigs grow longer. Of several dozen branch tips, sometimes only a handfu...

A new window into structural plasticity in the adult visual cortex

... four to ten weeks. The length of dendritic branch tips was measured over time to evaluate physical change...rons have different dynamic properties. The branch tips of interneurons in the adult neocortex can grow, retract, and sprout new additions--without experime...

A little telomerase isn't enough

...rotect chromosomes in much the same way as plastic tips on shoelaces prevent the fabric from fraying. Each time a cell divides, its chromosome ends get a little shorter, and eventually the cell can no longer divide because its critical genetic information is exposed. In stem cells, however, a protein call...

Normal chromosome ends elicit a limited DNA damage response

...roken strands of DNA that need to be repaired, the tips of chromosomes are tucked in and shielded by a pha... the now unprotected telomeres - congregate at the tips of chromosomes. "We believe that the localization of repair proteins to chromosome ends, and detec...

Biotechnology's newest chemical tool

...d. To overcome this problem, the authors took some tips from organic chemistry textbooks and stabilized the transfer with a multiple carbon bond. "It turned out that our first bet, a double or triple carbon-carbon bond, placed next to the transferable carbon unit, helped to alleviate the problems that h...

Long-sought flower-inducing molecule found

...ed in the plant leaves is transported to the shoot tips where it induces the formation of flowers. This kn...oduce a substance that is transported to the shoot tips where it induces the formation of flowers. In the 30-ies a Russian scientist called this mysterious ...

Gradient guides nerve growth down spinal cord

...ensory nerves. These nerves have a receptor on the tips of their growth cones, known as Frizzled3, which responds to Wnts. In this paper, the researchers show that the nerves growing in the opposite direction are driven down the cord, away from the brain, under the guidance of a receptor, known as Ryk, w...

Mechanism for the captation of nutrients in plants- unknown to date

..., basic knowledge of this mechanism provides great tips for the rational design of experiments aimed at enhancing vegetable species in the interest of humanity. One of the great questions thrown up by the fact that saccharose pick-up is produced via endocitosis is, fundamentally, to find out if the sacch...

Biochemists report discovery of structure of major piece of telomerase; implications for cancer

...ell divides, telomeres, which act like the plastic tips on the ends of shoelaces, get shorter. In the natural aging process, the telomeres eventually get so short that cells can no longer divide, and they die. While telomerase is turned off in most types of healthy cells in our bodies, it is active in the...

At long last, scientists figure out how plants grow

...y for the growth hormone. Auxin is produced in the tips of plant shoots and branches. The hormone travels downward toward the roots. It migrates into plant cell nuclei, where it is picked up by the TIR1 portion of a four-protein complex called SCF(TIR1). SCF(TIR1) and auxin binds to yet another protein th...

Cerebral navigation: How do nerve fibers know what direction to grow in?

...intricate network. Growth cones, structures in the tips of growing axons, are responsible for steering axons in the right direction, guided by a complex set of signals from cells they encounter along the way. Some signals lure the axons to extend and grow in a particular direction; others are inhibitory, ...

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