Thursday, 9 February, 2012

Imagine a transistor so tiny that it can slip inside a living cell to measure electrical potential. Now coat that transistor so the cell will pull it inside without damage. Then adapt the transistor to measure RNA and proteins. Nanofabrication tricks convert science fiction into science fact!

Changes in the junctions between nerve cells determine how well a bird will learn to sing. Regular change in these junctions helps the bird remember the song of its species, which it needs to learn to reproduce that song. Study could explain why older people have such trouble learning a new language.

To hide from hungry fish, this animal houses luminous bacteria. But what prevents the bacteria from reproducing and killing the squid? At last, a genetic a balancing mechanism is revealed.

Biology operates on the nanometer scale, and now ultra-small technology is producing monster benefits for genetic analysis, cell biologists, and the treatment of blinding glaucoma.

Fast genomic analysis could open the door to breakthroughs in health, ecology and genetics. How do these machines work, and what have they taught about obesity, microbial diversity, and drug treatment?

This CSI is a scanning electron micrograph of the snout of a butterfly. Conveniently coiled when not in use, the long proboscises of butterflies are used to drink and obtain nectar and other nutrients from flowers. This pretty picture was obtained with the aid of a scanning electron microscope, a microscope that scans a specimen [...]

The progenitor of canine parvovirus, shown here in glorious molecular detail, once afflicted only cats and their relatives. But in the 1970s, the cat virus reconfigured just two or three surface amino acids and unleashed a plague upon dogs everywhere. All viruses, whether they infect plants, animals or bacteria, are utterly dependent on living host [...]

Tissue, please… In honor of the sneezin’ season, this CSI is common ragweed pollen as seen under a microscope. Ragweed pollen is the principal cause of hay fever and can also trigger asthma. But for all the itchy throats and watery eyes, this tough little plant is just trying to survive. The common ragweed is [...]

This CSI is Salvinia molesta, or Giant Salvinia, a fast-growing, free-floating aquatic fern that is native to Brazil. Instead of roots, the Salvinia uses a three-leaf or frond approach: two water resistant fronds float atop the surface while the third frond is divided into sections and submersed in the water, serving as a “root.” This [...]

Atomic cameras at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have captured a new model of the human papillomavirus (HPV). The picture may be more of this cancer causing bug than you ever wanted to see, but it gives scientists a valuable closeup. The picture shows, for example, that the virus may look a little different to [...]