Home>Topics>Biology & Nature

Popular Science articles about Biology & Nature

Just like old times: Generating RNA molecules in water

A key question in the origin of biological molecules like RNA and DNA is how they first came together billions of years ago from simple precursors. Now, in a study appearing in this week's JBC, researchers in Italy have reconstructed...

New maize map to aid plant breeding efforts

In a massive survey of genetic diversity in maize, also known as corn, researchers across the United States, have developed a gene map that should pave the way to significant...

Related science articles

Researchers begin to decipher metabolism of sexual assault drug

This graphic shows the initial steps in the metabolism of 4-HB.It's a naturally occurring brain chemical with an unwieldy name: 4-hydroxybutyrate (4-HB). Taken by mouth, it can be abused or used as a date-rape drug.

New map of variation in maize genetics holds promise for developing new varieties

A new study of maize has identified thousands of diverse genes in genetically inaccessible portions of the genome. New techniques may allow breeders and researchers to use this genetic variation...

Amaizing: Corn genome decoded

A team of scientists led by The Genome Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published the completed corn genome in the Nov. 20 issue of the journal <i>Science</i>, an accomplishment that will speed efforts to develop better crop varieties to meet the world’s growing demands for food, livestock feed and fuel.In recent years, scientists have decoded the DNA of humans and a menagerie of creatures but none with genes as complex as a stalk of corn, the latest genome to...

Sweet corn story begins in UW-Madison lab

This week, scientists are revealing the genetic instructions inside corn, one of the big three cereal crops. Corn, or maize, has one of the most complex sequences of DNA ever...

An atomic-level look at an HIV accomplice

Since the discovery in 2007 that a component of human semen called SEVI boosts infectivity of the virus that causes AIDS, researchers have been trying to learn more about SEVI...

Sweet -- sugared polymer a new weapon against allergies and asthma

Scientists at Johns Hopkins and their colleagues have developed sugar-coated polymer strands that selectively kill off cells involved in triggering aggressive allergy and asthma attacks. Their advance is a significant...

Bone implant offers hope for skull deformities

A synthetic bone matrix offers hope for babies born with craniosynostosis, a condition that causes the plates in the skull to fuse too soon. Implants replacing some of the infant's...

Beyond genomics, biologists and engineers decode the next frontier

Biologist Benjamin Garcia (left) and chemical engineer Christodoulos Floudas collaborated to develop a fast and sensitive way to analyze proteins called histones, which play a key role in how genes function. Here, they load samples into a mass spectrometer, which separates and sequences hundreds of modified forms of histones. The work ultimately may aid the development of technology for reprogramming cells to fight cancer or to regenerate damaged tissue.A team of Princeton biologists and engineers has dramatically improved the speed and accuracy of measuring an enigmatic set of proteins that influences almost every aspect of how cells and...

Researchers find new piece of BSE puzzle

A new treatment route for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and its human form Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (CJD) could be a step closer based on new results from scientists at the...

Biologists discover bacterial defense mechanism against aggressive oxygen

Bacteria possess an ingenious mechanism for preventing oxygen from harming the building blocks of the cell. This is the new finding of a team of biologists that includes Joris Messens of VIB, a life sciences research institute in Flanders, Belgium,...

Ancestry attracts, but love is blind

People preferentially marry those with similar ancestry, but their decisions are not necessarily based on hair, eye or skin colour. Research, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology,...

Smithsonian scientists find the frog legs trade may facilitate spread of pathogens

The American bullfrog is one of the many species used in the frog leg trade.Most countries throughout the world participate in the $40-million-per-year culinary trade of frog legs in some way, with 75 percent of frog legs consumed in France, Belgium and the United...

First reconstitution of an epidermis from human embryonic stem cells

Stem cell research is making great strides. This is yet again illustrated by a study carried out by the I-STEM* Institute (I-STEM/ Inserm UEVE U861/AFM), published in the Lancet on...

UAB researchers discover antibody receptor identity, propose renaming immune-system gene

This image shows FCMR expression by immunofluorescence.Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have uncovered the genetic identity of a cellular receptor for the immune system's first-response antibody, a discovery that sheds new light...

Scientists unravel evolution of highly toxic box jellyfish

With thousands of stinging cells that can emit deadly venom from tentacles that can reach ten feet in length, the 50 or so species of box jellyfish have long been...

WPI researchers take aim at hard-to-treat fungal infections

Reeta Prusty Rao is an assistant professor of biology and biotechnology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.A team of researchers at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center at Gateway Park has developed a new model system to study fungal infections. The system...

Let them eat snail

A nutritionist in Nigeria says that malnutrition and iron deficiency in schoolchildren could be reduced in her country by baking up snail pie. In a research paper to be published...

Why Israeli rodents are more cautious than Jordanian ones

A series of studies carried out at the University of Haifa have found that rodent, reptile and ant lion species behave differently on either side of the Israel-Jordan border. "The...

Like humans, ants use bacteria to make their gardens grow

Leaf-cutter ants, which cultivate fungus for food, have many remarkable qualities.

Technique finds gene regulatory sites without knowledge of regulators

A new statistical technique developed by researchers at the University of Illinois allows scientists to scan a genome for specific gene-regulatory regions without requiring prior knowledge of the relevant transcription...

More news about Biology & Nature

Biology News in Images

Breaking science news from the newsfeed about Biology & Nature