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Home > News > Tags > proteins
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Our cells' ability to move ions through their membranes and to only allow for a certain type of ions either in or out is arguably one of the most important set of traits it has. In charge of letting various chemicals through are structures inside the membrane known as ion channels, which display a property calle... |
27 November 2009
01:51 GMT |
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The heart is the only organ inside the human body that can never be allowed to stop. Lungs do so from time to time, either on their own, or because we want them to, the brain disconnects itself occasionally too, especially during sleep, but the heart keeps soldering on without a moment's rest. Over the course of... |
26 November 2009
04:46 GMT |
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The ribosomes are some of the most important structures inside the human cells, as they play a fundamental role in making proteins from amino acids. Without proteins, our bodies would have no clue what to do, and all of the cells would die off very fast. Two new scientific studies have recently shed new light on the ... |
24 November 2009
16:01 GMT |
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Animals and insects living at the highest latitudes, either at the North or South Poles, had to be evolutionarily prepared to do so, biologists hypothesized a long time ago. They also proposed that these animals, especially the smaller ones, must have antifreeze molecules inside their bodies, to prevent the water ins... |
24 November 2009
14:01 GMT |
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Scientists at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have recently managed to decipher the structure and modus operandi of a remarkable class of ring-shaped protein motors. The team used the state-of-the-art protein crystallography beamline at the Advanced Light ... |
20 November 2009
08:46 GMT |
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Arguably the biggest challenge in the life of a couple is fight. As spirits heat, one or the other may drop some words that he or she does not necessarily mean, but that are uttered precisely because the other will undoubtedly be hurt. Many otherwise happy couples split and marriages ended following such arguments, e... |
14 November 2009
04:35 GMT |
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The discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein (GFP), a 238-amino-acid structure that is able to emit fluorescent light when blue light is applied on it, has won scientists Martin Chalfie, Osamu Shimomura, and Roger Y. Tsien the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Since then, numerous investigators have sp... |
12 November 2009
05:38 GMT |
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A new scientific study would appear to suggest that over-eaters are not necessarily pushed into eating more by their stomachs, but by their brains. The investigation, which was conducted on unsuspecting rats, proved that the brain chemistry of over-eaters and drug addicts was very similar, which sheds new light on th... |
10 November 2009
04:10 GMT |
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Obesity is known to be one of the main causes why people begin to develop a host of other conditions and also become vulnerable to the effects of external pathogens. For instance, those with too many extra pounds may suffer from diabetes, heart conditions, a lack of physical condition and muscle tone, as well as catc... |
5 November 2009
15:31 GMT |
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Scientists at the Rice University have recently announced that they finished the painstaking and laborious work of browsing through thousands of genes and proteins, in order to discover the explanation for our biological complexity. One of the main reasons why we are like this today is the fact that we have evolved i... |
4 November 2009
10:16 GMT |
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When scientists get to work on a specific drug, they usually design it in a manner that they believe is only suitable for treating a single medical condition. However, over the years, it has become apparent that, while this may be the case for some types of medication, the limitation does not apply to all substances.... |
2 November 2009
01:48 GMT |
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Scientists who recently completed a new genetic research on the issue say that at least 30 percent of Americans may be innate bad drivers. The experts argue that those who have a variant of a certain gene were proven in the investigation to not be able to keep their cars on the road as efficiently as other people cou... |
29 October 2009
02:17 GMT |
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Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have recently managed to develop a basic architectural model for the nuclear pore complex (NPC), often referred to as the “gatekeeper” of the cell. The basic sketch may help biologists and other researchers gain a better understanding of how ch... |
28 October 2009
03:30 GMT |
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In a groundbreaking, new discovery that has the potential to change the methodology of biomolecular studies around the world, scientists have managed to create a new investigation method for looking inside protein molecules and at how they bind with each other. The research could lead to the creation of a number of n... |
27 October 2009
02:49 GMT |
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In a number of medical conditions, the amyloid precursor protein (APP) plays a major role. Doctors and researchers have had their eyes set on the molecule for a long time, attempting to figure out whether it has a good effect on the organism, or a bad one. New investigation is beginning to reveal that the influence i... |
19 October 2009
04:49 GMT |
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Scientists at the US Department of Energy (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have recently managed another breakthrough that could lead to major changes in the fields of biology and medicine. They have succeeded in imaging one of the most important protein complexes in the human body, a struct... |
14 October 2009
06:40 GMT |
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Groundbreaking imaging techniques today reveal details of the small-scale world that were never before thought possible. They can image single atoms and structures just nanometers across, but they are notorious for not being able to look inside living molecules. The highly energetic streams of particles they use for ... |
12 October 2009
06:59 GMT |
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Until now, the scientific community has assumed that plants, animals and humans develop different mechanisms related to cellular death, but a new paper has revealed that this is not the case. The research, published in the latest issue of the scientific journal Nature Cell Biology (October 11), highlights the fact th... |
12 October 2009
06:20 GMT |
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The human brain is arguably the most complex natural system in the world today. After millions of years of evolution, it grew to an impressive average size, and encompasses billions of neurons, tied together via a massive number of synaptic connections. Understanding how it functions is one of mankind's greatest... |
3 October 2009
05:53 GMT |
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Insects do not have a sense of smell per se, in the way we define it. They respond to chemicals in their environment like humans and higher mammals do, but are not equipped with a nose, nostrils, and smell receptors. Rather, a new study has revealed, they have specialized proteins that perform about the same role. Th... |
1 October 2009
14:11 GMT |
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When a child is born, the best possible way to describe what their brain looks like is chaos. Neural networks are not fully formed yet, and the general aspect is one of disarray. However, out of that chaos, highly ordered neurons begin to pop up, and eventually form centers with very specific tasks. The mechanism und... |
29 September 2009
10:11 GMT |
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Evolution in a biological context roughly translates into a species' ability to favor the passing on of genes that ensure its survival into the next generation. In order for this to happen, mutations must occur. Mutations generate diversity, but can also have adverse effects on a species, and lead to its extinct... |
24 September 2009
04:50 GMT |
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The first known genetic regulatory protein, the lactose repressor protein, was discovered as far back as 1966, but it was only recently that the tools of biochemistry became sophisticated enough to allow for it to be investigated thoroughly. Behind the research were experts at the Rice University (RU), who discovered... |
23 September 2009
18:11 GMT |
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According to a new scientific paper, published in the September 22nd issue of the respected scientific journal ACS Nano, experts at the University of Liverpool finally managed to discover what happened to nanoparticles after they were introduced in human cells. The study, which was funded by the Biotechnology and Bio... |
23 September 2009
06:09 GMT |
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Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), in Monterotondo, Italy, were recently somewhat disappointed at the result of one of their investigations, before they realized that they had in fact stumbled upon something great. The team essentially found that white blood cells known as macrophages pla... |
22 September 2009
15:31 GMT |
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One of the most impressive things about our immune system is that it is essentially everywhere in the body. Where there's blood, there are bound to be at least a few white blood cells (WBC) just patrolling around and doing their job. When a chemical trigger runs through the blood, announcing that a pathogen has ... |
17 September 2009
06:39 GMT |
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Experts at the University of Gothenburg have recently discovered a new method of identifying whether a patient suffers from Alzheimer's disease or not. The technique relies on using a new marker, found in the spinal cord, to assess the degree of damage that the neurodegenerative condition has already inflicted, ... |
15 September 2009
09:05 GMT |
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When analyzing things at the nanoscale, every bit of extra resolution counts. This was made obvious by a new research, conducted at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), when experts managed to get a tenth of a nanometer improvement in their studies of proteins. While this may... |
14 September 2009
14:41 GMT |
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Ever since lasers first appeared, efforts have been oriented towards making them more efficient, smaller, larger, or more powerful. While some laser facilities boast instruments spanning hundreds of feet in size, some scientists are working on the micro- and nanoscale, to create devices with applications in handling ... |
31 August 2009
14:01 GMT |
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Creating paper cubes out of cross-shaped pieces of paper is something that children learn to do ever since kindergarten. They use the cubes simply to play around, or to store various toys inside. In a similar line of reasoning, a group of researchers from the Johns Hopkins University (JHU), in Baltimore, Maryland, de... |
31 August 2009
06:58 GMT |
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For a long time, scientists have tried to understand the exact construction and operating mechanism of complex protein structures inside cellular nuclei called nuclear pore complexes (NPC). These intricate structures, made up of as much as 30 individual proteins, are extremely large, and yet remained impenetrable to ... |
31 August 2009
02:58 GMT |
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Perhaps the greatest problem with treatments available today for most conditions is the fact that they address the symptoms and not the root causes of the conditions. Analyzing the interactions of proteins, which occur at very tiny scales, scientists need powerful observational tools. However, not even the most advan... |
25 August 2009
05:27 GMT |
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Bioengineers at the Duke University have recently managed to achieve a groundbreaking objective, when they have created a special method that allows for the addition of protective polymer molecules to protein drugs. The new “armor” allows for the drugs to operate at an increased efficiency inside the body... |
20 August 2009
18:21 GMT |
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For many years, experts have tried to gain a better understanding of cancer, of why it appears, and of how it spreads through the human body. In order to do this, they need to be able to observe and to control interactions that occur within a cell, especially at the individual protein level. Recently, breakthroughs h... |
20 August 2009
04:56 GMT |
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After centuries in which meningitis was free to wreak havoc among small children and the elderly, researchers from the University of California in San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences have finally managed to discover how the bacteria causing the disease move fr... |
19 August 2009
03:58 GMT |
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Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM) have recently announced the creation of synthetic protein-like mimics, which have the ability to stop unnecessary and unwanted chemical communication channels between cells. The new structures, created with a little help from molecular engineering techniques a... |
18 August 2009
09:41 GMT |
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Most viruses that are able to infect the human body, as well as other animals, require living cells in order to replicate and create more viral agents. However, they also need specific chemicals and proteins located inside these cells, without which their replication cycle cannot be started. Researchers have, for ins... |
16 August 2009
15:31 GMT |
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Experts from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research have recently managed to overcome a major obstacle in human embryonic stem cell (ESC) and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell research, when they devised a new method of introducing or modifying genes inside them. While this has been relatively easy to do i... |
16 August 2009
13:41 GMT |
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We all have at least one friend or family members who seems to be unaffected by the flow of time, and who is able to wake up in the morning after only a few hours of sleep. What to others may seem only like a nap is enough for these people to recharge their batteries and go about their day completely rested up, Scien... |
16 August 2009
03:41 GMT |
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The human genome carries within it all the necessary information for everything that goes on in the human body, for generating proteins, neurotransmitters, and all sorts of other chemicals. But it is constantly under attack from outside factors, such as UV radiation from sunlight and harmful additives in our daily fo... |
14 August 2009
18:41 GMT |
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In a recent scientific study, experts from the University of Liverpool managed to discover and monitor how mirror-image molecules interact and gain control over each other, dictating the physical state of superstructures in the process. The research was focused on “chiral,” or “different-handed&rdqu... |
14 August 2009
04:59 GMT |
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Scientists have taken a major step towards curing blindness recently, when they managed to devise a method that allows patients suffering from the rare, inherited form of blindness known as Leber congenital amaurosis to see light for the first time in their lives. People born with the disease are completely blind sin... |
14 August 2009
01:52 GMT |
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A peculiar human statistic shows that most people who taste the chemical known as PTC find the compound very bitter. Conversely, about 25 percent of the population cannot sense it at all, and therefore has no opinion on it. Science explains this by showing that the two groups of people have different taste receptors ... |
13 August 2009
03:58 GMT |
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Investigators from the Jewish General Hospital Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, and the McGill University, in Montreal, Canada, may be on the verge of one of the greatest discoveries of the decade – a cure for the devastating disease multiple sclerosis (MS). The team managed to devise a method of ensu... |
12 August 2009
08:54 GMT |
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Experts at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have recently managed to create a new class of artificial cells, which behave similarly to nerve cells inside the human brain, and which could in the future be used to create more accurate and efficient interfaces between the cortex of paralyzed patients or... |
11 August 2009
03:38 GMT |
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Ever since induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) were demonstrated in 2006, it has been a goal of the scientific community to find a method of producing them that is also simple, effective and cheap. Now, investigators believe they may have made considerable headway in this direction. In five studies published in the ... |
10 August 2009
08:51 GMT |
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Humans, as a race, have lost the ability to tell apart the subtle differences in the length of the day when winter turns into spring. Despite the fact that each day is several minutes longer than the previous one, we no longer can tell the difference, except by looking at watches and calendars. But researchers have k... |
10 August 2009
04:12 GMT |
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Scientists were able recently to demonstrate that it's not only the genetic sequence of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that makes it so dangerous, but also its architecture. The term is used to compare the way the virus is put together with an electrical diagram, for example. The experts in charge of the... |
6 August 2009
14:51 GMT |
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Scientists at the prestigious Swedish medical university the Karolinska Institutet have recently made an astounding find related the phenomenon of premature aging, which has thus far eluded plausible explanations. The experts managed to trace the origins of this condition to proteins that malfunction when they are sy... |
6 August 2009
10:30 GMT |
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More than two years ago, a team of researchers dropped a bomb-news on the international scientific community – they had found intact proteins from a Tyrannosaurus Rex, one of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs that ever lived. Critics naturally started jumping up and down, arguing that it was essentially impossi... |
1 August 2009
02:44 GMT |
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