Phys.org news

Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) can help scientists determine the three-dimensional structure of proteins in unprecedented detail. Jacques Dubochet, former group leader at EMBL, shared the 2017 Nobel Prize in chemistry ...

Some insects and microbes develop symbiotic partnerships that become so interdependent they can no longer survive without each other. But how specific are these heritable symbioses? Is it possible for the same species of ...

Researchers from the Biosciences Department at Durham University have discovered a previously unknown mechanism that helps plants control the formation of wood, a finding that could open new directions for research into plant ...

When colleagues and I found microplastics in hedgehog droppings, we wanted to know where they were coming from. One answer was surprisingly close to home: pet food.

Coral reef ecosystems, widely seen as a climate change bellwether, are more complex than previously understood. A new international study by the universities of Bristol, Wuhan in China, and Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany reveals ...

A lot of things need to go right on a molecular level for immune cells to launch an adaptive response to an infection. B cells can produce different classes of antibodies tailored for specific infections through controlled ...

How does your body produce millions of antibodies from one genome? New research reveals how two closely related proteins help immune cells fold DNA, connecting distant genetic pieces to create diverse antibodies that help ...

At first glance, bat sea stars, the nubbly, orange, many-footed creatures often found on the seafloor, seem about as far from humans as one can get. Appearances can be deceiving, however. Scientists have found evidence showing ...

Patterns reveal the individual: A novel AI algorithm equips researchers with a powerful new tool to accurately identify individual jaguars, zebras and giraffes in real time based on their unique coat patterns. Biologists ...

For her doctoral dissertation, Yale's Nathalie Alomar decided to study a small amphibian that appeared to have eluded the forces of evolution. She found that there is more to its evolution than meets the eye.

Even in darkness, many animals retain a sense of orientation because their nervous system sustains a memory of heading encoded by the activity of head-direction (HD) cells. Animals continuously update this internal compass ...

This April, when the spring breeze carried the formal acceptance notice of our paper by the Journal of the American Chemical Society to my desk, my thoughts instantly drifted back to the late Phil Geissler. A legendary physical ...