Latest science news in Biology & Nature
Bees prefer shortest distance between two flowers
Insects such as honeybees and bumble bees are predictable in the way they move among flowers, typically moving directly from one flower to an adjacent cluster of flowers in the...
Lab-on-a-chip homes in on how cancer cells break free
Johns Hopkins engineers have invented a method that could be used to help figure out how cancer cells break free from neighbouring tissue, an 'escape' that can spread the disease...
What's driving specific patterns of gene expression among cell types?
Providing another tool to help to understand gene regulation on a global scale, a nationwide research team has identified and mapped 55,000 enhancers, short regions of DNA that act to...
Are Beetles Imported into the U.S. to Kill Invasive Trees Doing Too Good a Job?
A foreign beetle imported to attack invasive trees in the U.S. Southwest may have brought its own culinary agenda. Researchers in Utah and Arizona are sounding the alarm about salt...
Fruit flies used to study neural circuits
PASADENA, Calif., March 19 (UPI) -- A U.S. biologist says he has used the behavior of fruit flies to study human behavior and, perhaps, develop new treatments for...
Protein is key to embryonic stem cell differentiation
Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have learned that a protein called Shp2 plays a critical role in the pathways that control decisions for differentiation or self-renewal in...
Penn researchers identify new protein important in breast cancer gene's role in DNA repair
For years, researchers have known that under normal conditions, the breast cancer protein BRCA1 orchestrates the repair of damaged DNA, but the details of just how BRCA1 moves to the...
Research yields potential target for cancer, wound healing and fibrosis
New Orleans, LA - Research conducted by Allison Berrier, PhD, Assistant Professor of Oral and Craniofacial Biology at the LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Dentistry, and colleagues,...
Atomic fountain clocks are becoming still more stable
They are at present the most accurate clocks in the world: Caesium fountain clocks furnish the second accurate to 15 places after the decimal point. Until they reach this accuracy,...
Rare Hawaii vine added to endangered list
A rare Hawaii vine has been added to the endangered species list, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday. It's the second species to be classified as endangered by...
Gardening the CSAIL way
In CSAIL's indoor tomato garden, robots have supplanted humans. Could this be the future of agriculture?
A Mother's Touch: Handling Determines Future
Daughters' genes governing mothering style are switched on or off by their mothers' actions.
Lion shot after escaping zoo enclosure
A lioness was fatally shot after breaking out of its enclosure at an Australian zoo and forcing visitors to hide in nearby buildings, a zoo official said Wednesday.
Q&A with Richard Hynes on stem cell funding
MIT Professor Richard Hynes discusses the impact of President Obama's recent announcement that the federal government will expand its funding of certain types of embryonic stem cell research.
Cold War-era mystery killings become online riddle
A brilliant, married Australian scientist about to depart for a job with Bell Laboratories in the United States is found dead by a river with the wife of a Communist...
Rockefeller receives new $4.8 million state grant to fund stem cell research
Grant from New York will establish new facilities for studying the molecular basis of how stem cells are maintained and how they differentiate.
Process That Regulates Seed Germination Identified
Researchers have determined a process that regulates activity of genes that control seed germination and seedling development. They discovered the step involved in keeping seeds from germinating in adverse conditions...
Long, Sexy Tails Not A Drag On Male Birds
At least two dozen hummingbirds, not to mention hundreds of other birds, sport long tails to attract females. But don't these tails get in the way? By attaching long streamer...
Variant Form Of Amyloid Beta Hinders Amyloidogenesis And The Development Of Alzheimer's Disease
Alzheimer's disease causes misfolding and aggregation of a protein fragment known as amyloid beta and its deposition as plaques in the brain. This process triggers a cascade of event that...
Fife aquarium breeds deadly frogs
A frog so poisonous it can kill as many as 200 people is successfully bred at a Fife aquarium.
Too much intermingling puts native trout in trouble
Mixing with introduced rainbow trout could reduce offspring for the troubled westslope cutthroat
Protein may tip scales toward weight loss
URBANA , Ill., March 18 (UPI) -- A study financed by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association suggests dieters can lose more fat by choosing protein over carbohydrates.
Eutrophication Of Lake Constance Led To Genetic Changes In A Species Of Water Flea
Ecological changes caused by humans affect natural biodiversity. For example, the eutrophication of Greifensee and Lake Constance in the 1970s and 1980s led to genetic changes in a species of...
Small Molecules Block Cancer Gene
Finding molecules that block the activity of the oncogene Stat 3 (signal transducer and activator of transcription) required screening literally millions of compounds, using computers that compared the structure of...
Animal Families With The Most Diversity Also Have Widest Range Of Size
Somewhere out there in the ocean, SpongeBob SquarePants has a teeny-tiny cousin and a humongous uncle. That's just what one would expect from a new analysis of body sizes across...
Fishing For Microdeletions That Predispose An Embryo To Develop Cancer Syndromes In Later Life
Researchers have used a common laboratory technique for the first time to detect genetic changes in embryos that could predispose the resulting children to develop certain cancer syndromes. Current preimplantation...
Developing Fruit Fly Embryo Is Capable Of Genetic Corrections
Animals have an astonishing ability to develop reliably in spite of variable conditions during embryogenesis. New research addresses how living things can develop into precise, adult forms when there is...
Mechanism of Alzheimer's suggests combination therapy needed
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have discovered a mode of action for mysterious but diagnostic protein snarls found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients...