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Science News

For different species, different functions for embryonic microRNAs

When evolution has lucked into efficient solutions for life’s most fundamental problems, it adopts them as invaluable family heirlooms, passing them down as one species evolves into another. So it was reasonable to expect that a key regulator of embryonic development — a strand of RNA that sheph...
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Scientists develop a tool to study deadly parasite's histone code

n the Japanese art of paper folding, a series of folds can make the same sheet of paper into a ballerina or baby elephant. But try unfolding the baby elephant and making it into a ballerina. It’s like trying to make a neuron from a kidney cell. Epigenetics, it turns out, isn’t much different fro...
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New tag could enable more detailed structural studies of mammalian proteins

To say our genes are resourceful is a gross understatement. Through ingenious combinations of a paltry 20 amino acids, the basic building blocks of life, genes engineer all of the tissues and organs that are the marvel of our working bodies. Now scientists are adding to the parsimonious genetic r...
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New sequencing technique to prod benefits from killer venom

King Kong toxin, a component of the venom in some poisonous marine snails, has a peculiar power to go with its peculiar name. When injected into a meek little lobster in a tank full of superiors, the poison induces delusions of grandeur; the little guy starts marching around like he’s king of the...
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New clinical study probes how light fights psoriasis

Ultraviolet light is a proven treatment for psoriasis, one of humanity’s oldest known diseases. Sunshine can also beat back the chronic autoimmune disorder of the skin. But explaining light’s therapeutic effects has been difficult. “We know it works, but we want to know how,” says Michelle L...
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Levels of cellular stress determines longevity of retinal cells

Stress can be adaptive. It can make you sharper, help you focus and it can even improve your performance. But too much of it can tax cells to the point where they can no longer cope and slowly self-destruct. Scientists at Rockefeller University now show that when the protein-making factory of the...
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New nucleotide could revolutionize epigenetics

Anyone who studied a little genetics in high school has heard of adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine — the A,T,G and C that make up the DNA code. But those are not the whole story. The rise of epigenetics in the past decade has drawn attention to a fifth nucleotide, 5-methylcytosine (5-mC), th...
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Parasite breaks its own DNA to avoid detection

The parasite Trypanosoma brucei, which causes African sleeping sickness, is like a thief donning a disguise. Every time the host’s immune cells get close to destroying the parasite, it escapes detection by rearranging its DNA and changing its appearance. Now, in research to appear in the advance ...
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Research defines neurons that control sociability in worms

Ants colonize. Fish shoal. Flamingos flock and caribou herd. Earth is populated by inherently social beings. Even lowly worms seek out the benefits of companionship. New research at The Rockefeller University has dissected the social proclivities of a model worm, identifying a single type of neur...
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Scientists show how a neuron gets its shape

Ask a simple question, get a simple answer: When Abraham Lincoln was asked how long a man’s legs should be, he absurdly replied, “Long enough to reach the ground.” Now, by using a new microscopy technique to watch the growth of individual neurons in the microscopic roundworm Caenorhabditis el...
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