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Cell Biology

Red Blood Cells Are Master Contortionists
October 28, 2005
Biophysicists have analyzed why red blood cells are able to squeeze through tight spaces on their journeys through our tissues, reports the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering.  Their membranes contain a network of 33,000 hexagons arranged in a complex geodesic dome formation.  Each hexagon vertex is joined with flexible lines to a central maypole-like proto-filament, […]
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Cell Biology

Stem Cell Breakthroughs: No More Ethical Concerns?
October 19, 2005
Several science news sites have been reporting two new techniques for creating embryonic stem cells that do not involve the creation of viable embryos (see, for instance, New Scientist, Science Now, and Nature news, 437, 1065 (20 October 2005) | doi: 10.1038/4371065a).     There is no consensus yet, however, whether these methods overcome all […]
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Cell Biology

Molecular Machine Updates
October 11, 2005
Scientists continue to make headway understanding the detailed workings of molecular motors.  The two most famous rotary motors yielded additional secrets recently: ATP Synthase:  “Making ATP” was the short title of a paper in PNAS this week.1  Xing, Liao and Oster came up with a model that linked the rotation of the gamma subunit (the […]
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Cell Biology

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week:  Network Evolution Trumps ID
October 5, 2005
This entry will make more sense after reading yesterday’s story on the evolution of modular networks (10/04/2005).  A reader sent in a reference to a very similar article from scientists at Johns Hopkins published in PLoS Biology.1  It must be Network Evolution Week.  Before awarding the SEQOTW prize, some background is necessary.     Like […]
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Cell Biology

Can Networks Design Themselves?
October 4, 2005
A molecular biologist and a physicist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel (see also 09/26/2003) wrote a paper in PNAS1 with an intriguing title: “Spontaneous evolution of modularity and network motifs.”  Can a network arise spontaneously?     Biologists increasingly speak of the interaction of genes, proteins and metabolic processes in terms of […]
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Amazing Facts

Muscle Motor Observed in Action
October 3, 2005
Myosin proteins have been heavily studied in recent years since they are critical to many cellular and tissue functions, including muscle.  According to EurekAlert Scientists from the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and the University of Vermont have captured the first 3-dimensional (3D) atomic-resolution images of the motor protein myosin V as it “walks” along […]
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Cell Biology

Cell Has Automatic Jam-Clearing Proofreading Machinery
September 19, 2005
Findings at Rockefeller University have scientists excited.  DNA copying machines work on a “sliding clamp” that can hold two repair machines at the same time.  One is a low-fidelity repair tool, the other a high-fidelity repair tool.  Usually, the high-fidelity one is active, but when it needs a bigger hammer that is perhaps more effective […]
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Cell Biology

Bacterial Parcel Service Discovered
September 14, 2005
Bacteria send letters and parcels to one another.  Some of them are love letters, some of them are letter bombs.  This amazing packaged system of communication, separate from the mere sending of diffusible chemicals, was described in Nature1 with the title, “Microbiology: Bacterial speech bubbles.”  Stephen C. Winans described what is known about bacterial communication: […]
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Cell Biology

Molecular Motors Galore: How Did They Evolve?
August 26, 2005
Myosin is one of the cell’s little monorail motors that trucks cargo around the cell, pushes false feet into the surrounding environment, forces packages out the cell membrane, makes muscles move and wiggles hairlike cilia.  Scientists reporting in Nature1 found twice as many varieties of myosin (37) than were previously known (17) and decided to […]
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Cell Biology

Saddle Up Your Algae: Scientists Harness Flagellar Motors
August 19, 2005
1805: Beast of burden of choice: oxen. 2005: Beast of burden of choice: algae. Science Now reported an unusual item: scientists have learned how to hitch their loads to a single-celled green alga named Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (see Yale description).  Researchers are actually calling their little teams “micro-oxen.” Scientists are increasingly interested in harnessing biological motors […]
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Cell Biology

Body Scan: How Precision Engineering Aids Human Acumen
August 5, 2005
Often the most interesting science stories are the ones about us– how our bodies and minds function.  Actions we perform each day without much thought are made possible by precision engineering, sometimes at the molecular level.  Here is a selection of news briefs about human superpowers. Electrical engineering: We have untold myriads of electrical voltage […]
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Cell Biology

Cell’s High-Fidelity Proofreading and Editing Explained
July 26, 2005
—It’s unusual to have a story win both Amazing and Dumb awards simultaneously, but the reason will become clear.–ed.) Luisa Cochella and Rachel Green (Johns Hopkins) have published a primer on “Fidelity in Protein Synthesis” in Current Biology.1  This is a good article for cell biology enthusiasts to read, to learn more about the methods […]
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Cell Biology

“Junk” Cells Maintain the Brain
July 16, 2005
The most abundant immune cells in your brain are not the neurons, but microglia – spindly cells that were thought to be static and immobile, the smallest of the glia cells that were once considered mere scaffolding to support the more important gray matter (see 11/20/2001 and 01/29/2001 entries).  When two scientists recently applied the […]
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Cell Biology

Small Wonder: Tubulin Visualized Up Close
June 28, 2005
Science Daily printed a neat story about microtubules, complete with a 3D visualization of how the protein components are arranged.  They are not just ropes or chains, but complex cylinders of precise parts.  Scientists are starting to get an idea of why they continually grow and shrink within the cell.  The process allows them to […]
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Cell Biology

Reverse-Engineering Biological Networks Challenges Caltech Scientists
June 25, 2005
Evolutionists love to quote Dobzhansky saying, “Nothing in biology makes sense apart from evolution.”  An article in the current issue of Caltech’s magazine Engineering and Science,1 however, might change that proverb to, “Nothing in biology makes sense apart from information theory and systems engineering.”  The article makes no mention of evolution, but rather looks at […]
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