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New research supports model for nuclear pore complex
To protect their DNA, cells in higher organisms are very choosy about what they allow in and out of their nuclei, where the genes reside. Guarding access is the job of transport machines called nuclear pore complexes, which stud the nuclear membrane. Despite these gatekeepers’ conspicuously large...
Scientists identify stomach's timekeepers of hunger
New York collaborators at Columbia and Rockefeller Universities have identified cells in the stomach that time the release of a hormone that makes animals anticipate food and eat even when they are not hungry. The finding, which has implications for the treatment of obesity, marks a landmark in t...
Anthrax bacteria conspire with viruses to stay alive
The research, led by Vincent A. Fischetti, head of the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology, and Raymond Schuch, a research assistant professor in the lab, revamps the way scientists think about how pathogens exist in the environment in between outbreaks, focusing on the role virus...
Model suggests how life's code emerged from primordial soup
In 1952, Stanley Miller filled two flasks with chemicals assumed to be present on the primitive Earth, connected the flasks with rubber tubes and introduced some electrical sparks as a stand-in for lightning. The now famous experiment showed what amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, coul...
Acute stress improves working memory, research suggests
Day after day of chronic stress will wear a person down physically and mentally. But new research suggests that the acute stress produced by a brief run-in with a stressful scenario acts on a key brain region controlling emotion and cognition, temporarily improving learning and memory. Researcher...
Songbirds' elaborate cries for food show first signs of vocal learning
Only a handful of social animals — songbirds, some marine mammals, some bats and humans — learn to actively style their vocal communications. Babies, for instance, start by babbling, their first chance to experiment with sounds. Now, new research in songbirds shows that vocal experimentation may...
New imaging studies reveal mechanics of neuron migration
The development of the brain proceeds a little like the European settlement of North America. The earliest pioneers settled on the east coast with subsequent waves of settlers forming communities further and further westward. In cortical regions of the developing brain, generations of young neuro...
By manipulating oxygen, scientists coax bacteria into a wave
Bacteria know that they are too small to make an impact individually. So they wait, they multiply, and then they engage in behaviors that are only successful when all cells participate in unison. There are hundreds of behaviors that bacteria carry out in such communities. Now researchers at Rocke...
Handle with care: Telomeres resemble DNA fragile sites
Telomeres, the repetitive sequences of DNA at the ends of linear chromosomes, have an important function: They protect vulnerable chromosome ends from molecular attack. Researchers at Rockefeller University now show that telomeres have their own weakness. They resemble unstable parts of the genom...
Research suggests core nuclear pore elements shared by all eukaryotes
For perhaps 1.8 billion years after life first emerged on Earth, a sort of evolutionary writer’s block stalled the development of organisms more complicated than single cells. Then, a burst of experimental creativity about 1.7 billion years ago brought the cell nucleus onto the scene, stashing th...
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