Genetics & Molecular Biology

The 2015 growing season was tough on tomato plants at the Boyce Thompson Institute, as bacterial speck disease (Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato) descended on their field. But it was all done on…

DNA represents a dynamic form of information, balancing efficient storage and access requirements. Packaging approximately 1.8m of DNA into something as small as a cell nucleus is no mean feat, but…

The DNA in our cells is folded into millions of small packets, like beads on a string, allowing two-meter linear DNA genomes to fit into a nucleus of only about 0.01 mm in diameter. However, these…

10 commercially available insect repellents were evaluated for their effectiveness at repelling mosquitoes. Three of the products (Repel 100® Insect Repellent, OFF® Deep Woods Insect Repellent VIII,…

The lipid ceramide, long known to help keep skin smooth, also helps algae swim toward the light and appears to enable one type of brain cell to keep cerebrospinal fluid moving, researchers report in…

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) technology has been around since the late 1990s and became a political football in the early 2000s when President George W. Bush made federal funding for it…

Approximately five percent of people suffers an epileptic attack, during which the nerve cells get out of their usual rhythm and fire in a very rapid frequency, over the course of their lives. This…

Researchers have discovered how a protein from malaria could some day help stop cancer. While exploring why pregnant women are particularly susceptible to malaria, they found that the mosquito-borne…

The identification of a protein that selectively clears damaged chloroplasts from plant cells reveals how plants maintain a "clean workshop" during the process of photosynthesis. Chloroplasts play an…

A single blood test could reveal whether an otherwise healthy person is unusually likely to die of pneumonia or sepsis within the next 14 years. Based on an analysis of 10,000 individuals,…