Female ducks have evolved an intriguing way to avoid becoming impregnated by undesirable but aggressive males endowed with large corkscrew-shaped penises: vaginas with clockwise spirals that thwart oppositely spiraled males…
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Three University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) professors have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as a fellow of AAAS is an honor bestowed upon members by their peers. The new fellows from UAB are David Allison, Ph.D., of the Department of Biostatistics; Etty “Tika” Benveniste, Ph.D…
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In some ways a cell in your body or an organelle in that cell is like an ancient walled town. Life inside either depends critically on the intelligence of the gatekeepers. If too many barbarians sneak into town, the town may be put to the torch. And if the cellular gatekeepers can’t control the flow of ions and molecules into and out of the cell, the cell may die…
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Genome scientists from the US and Germany have assembled the first pages of a comprehensive encyclopedia of genomes of all the microbes on Earth. The results, published Dec. 24 in the journal Nature, will help biologists find new genes and fill out the branches of the “Tree of Life…
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Our cells are more like us than we may think. They’re sensitive to their environment, poking and prodding deliberately at their surroundings with hand-like feelers and chemical signals as they decide whether and where to move. Such caution serves us well but has vexed engineers who seek to create synthetic tissue, heart valves, implants and other devices that the human body will accept…
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An international team of scientists has discovered how changes in both gene expression and gene sequence led to the diversity of visual systems in African cichlid fish. In research published in the open-access journal PLoS Biology, University of Maryland biologist Dr…
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An estimated 25,000 Americans develop severe fungal infections each year, leading to 10,000 deaths despite the use of anti-fungal drugs. The associated cost to the U.S. health care system has been estimated at $1 billion a year. Now two Syracuse University scientists have developed new brominated furanones that exhibit powerful anti-fungal properties…
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The ability to make, test, and map the atomic structure of new anti-cancer agents has enabled a team of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists to discover a compound capable of halting a common type of drug-resistant lung cancer…
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A team of Columbia scientists have discovered two genes that, when simultaneously activated, are responsible for the most aggressive forms of human brain cancer. This finding was made possible by the assembly of the first comprehensive network of molecular interactions that determine the behavior of these cancer cells, a map so complex and elusive that, until now, it could not be constructed…
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University of Iowa researchers have shown that a protein channel helps nerve sensors in blood vessels keep blood pressure in check. Without the protein channel, known as ASIC2, the sensors are unable to send the brain the signals it needs to properly control blood pressure…
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