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Amazing Facts

Health Depends on Robust Cell Machinery
January 5, 2006
When we think of health, we typically visualize the big things: firm muscles, energy, lack of a protruding stomach and the like.  Cell biology, though, is showing us how our health depends on the proper functioning of countless myriads of molecular machines.  Here are some recent samples from the science journals: Heroic Underdogs in the […]
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Cell Biology

Minimal Cell More Complex Than Expected
January 3, 2006
Craig Venter’s lab has been working on an interesting project in theoretical biology: what is the minimum set of genes needed for life?  They have taken one of the simplest organisms, Mycoplasma genitalium, and knocked out genes to see which ones are essential and which are nonessential for viability.  (This is part of the “top […]
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Origin of Life

Don’t PNA in our OOL
December 17, 2005
Theories for the origin of life (OOL) are in a crisis, unable to imagine how something as complex as a replicating cell could come into existence. Could PNA do it?
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Cell Biology

One-Celled Organism’s Spring Generates Enormous Forces
December 13, 2005
The pioneering Dutch microscopist Antony van Leeuwenhoek marveled at the miniature “animalcules” he witnessed darting through the water and spinning like a top.  One such marvelous protozoan was Vorticella.  The way it rapidly contracted and expanded on its little stalk must have reminded Leeuwenhoek of a spring.  It turns out, it is a spring – […]
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Cell Biology

Micro-RNAs are Cell’s Optimizers
December 12, 2005
“Unnoticed next to the main ingredients, microRNAs were considered to be ‘junk’ DNA, leftovers from millions of years of evolution.”  That line comes from an article on EurekAlert telling about how dramatically that picture has changed.  RNA molecules are now seen to be indispensable, with many roles in the cell.  This article talked about how […]
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Cell Biology

Cell Ribosome Assembly Is Like Throwing Car Parts Together
December 1, 2005
Ribosomes are the protein-assembly machines in the living cell (11/24/2005, 07/26/2005, 01/19/2005).  A bacterium can have thousands of them.  They are composed of two large RNA complexes; the smaller one has 20 unique proteins that fit snugly in various parts of the apparatus, and the larger complex has even more.  How do the parts all […]
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Cell Biology

Nature Cover Exploits Intelligent Design While Inside Attacks It
November 24, 2005
The 11/24 issue of Nature included two very caustic letters attacking intelligent design, yet its cover story highlighted the promising new field of Synthetic Biology.  In one of the leading papers,1 David Sprinzak and Michael B. Elowiz of Caltech (see 06/25/2005 entry) described the synthetic approach in terms reminiscent of William Paley’s old Divine Watchmaker: […]
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Biomimetics

Living Wonders at a Glance
November 4, 2005
Here is an assortment of recently-reported biological marvels at the cellular level.  Researchers into creation and evolution explanations may wish to delve into these more deeply. Clock Conductor:  The brain is a “time machine,” reports EurekAlert on research at Duke University about the human biological clock.  Each structure in the brain has a resonant frequency […]
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Cell Biology

Bacterial Flagellum Visualized
November 2, 2005
Tom Magnuson at Access Research Network found this link that came out last year but is too good to pass up: another visualization of the bacterial flagellum, the “poster child of the ID movement,” by Japanese researchers on NanoNet, the Nanotechnology Researchers Network Center of Japan.  The 02/05/2004 NanoNet Bulletin features the bacterial flagellum with […]
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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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