Genetics & Molecular Biology

Scientists from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden say they have discovered how aged yeast cells manage to form new and undamaged daughter cells. In a study published in Cell, two collaborating research groups at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biol ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 1 2010 - 1:22pm

A Model of Cell Signal Processing

This paper relates some neat work done at the University of Texas to understand signal processing by beta-adrenergic receptors: In layman's terms: ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Feb 1 2010 - 3:17pm

Tobacco Plant Yields Therapeutic For West Nile Virus

No vaccine currently exists for West Nile Virus, but a new therapeutic made from tobacco plants has been shown to arrest the infection, according to research conducted by Arizona State University scientists. The study, published this week in PNAS, is the ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 1 2010 - 6:09pm

Important New Compound Announced, Effective against a Broad-Spectrum of Viruses.

Saving the World Several Viruses at a Time. In a press release today, UCLA announced the discovery of a "a broad spectrum anti-viral"- a chemical compound that may be effective against many viruses both known and unknown. The press-release dis ...

Blog Post - Keith Adams - Feb 1 2010 - 11:29pm

Hydrothermal Vents Kick-Started Early Life, Study Argues

The 'primordial soup' theory--which posits that early life began in a soup of organic molecules before evolving out of the oceans millions of years later--is fatally flawed, according to researchers writing in BioEssays. Instead the authors claim ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 2 2010 - 7:13pm

Missing DNA Section Contributes To Obesity, New Study Says

A new study published today in Nature suggests that approximately seven in every thousand morbidly obese people are missing a section of their DNA containing approximately 30 genes, which may be having a dramatic effect on their weight. Researchers identif ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 3 2010 - 2:49pm

Controlling Hv1 Channel In Sperm May Prevent Babies

Scientists have long known that sperm's activity level depends on their internal pH. And now researchers writing in Cell say they have found the channel that allows the tiny cells to rid themselves of protons. Once in the female reproductive tract, th ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 4 2010 - 2:24pm

Sugar Molecule Plays Important Role In Cell Division

Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that common but hard-to-see sugar switches play an important role in cell division. Because these previously unrecognized sugar switches are so abundant and potential targets of manipulation by drugs, the discovery ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 5 2010 - 1:44pm

Choose Your Model

Walter Fontana, a Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard, reflects on models in biology: Models will play a central role in the representation, storage, manipulation, and transmission of knowledge in systems biology. Models that are capable of fulfilling ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Feb 8 2010 - 6:05pm

Peter Sheridan Dodds, Theoretical Biology's Buzzkill

There is an apocryphal story about a graduate mathematics student at the University of Virginia studying the properties of certain mathematical objects. In his fifth year some killjoy bastard elsewhere published a paper proving that there are no such mathe ...

Article - Mark Changizi - Feb 9 2010 - 4:36pm