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Cell Biology

Cell Wonders Accelerate
June 14, 2005
Scientific papers on cell biology continue to uncover amazing things as techniques improve to peer into the workings of these units of life.  Here are our Top Ten from the last few weeks: Immunity Tunes:  A press release from Johns Hopkins talked about how, unlike other cells, immune cells undergo a “dizzying loop of activity” […]
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Cell Biology

Enzymes Chew Like Pac-Man
June 10, 2005
Evidence is growing that many enzymes have moving parts.  They act like scissors, clamps and little pac-mans.  When precisely-folded chains of amino acids emerge from the ribosome, they fold into unique shapes with the aid of chaperones.  But those shapes are not static globs.  They move, say Dmitry A. Kondrashov and George N. Phillips, Jr. […]
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Cell Biology

Stem Cell Headlines
May 23, 2005
Research on embryonic stem cells is proceeding apace without an ethical anchor, and no clue where it will lead.  News coverage of the debate accelerated with an announcement from South Korea. Match point:  The BBC News and many other news sources published South Korea’s announcement that stem cells matched to the individual have been tailored […]
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Cell Biology

Design Language Gushes Out of Article Describing Cell Quality Control
May 18, 2005
Here are the design words found in a press release from Michigan State describing the editing mechanisms of the cell DNA-to-RNA transcription process: high fidelity, quality control, inner workings, genetic coding, exquisite nanotechnology in living systems, genetic control, blueprint for life, industrial assembly line, conveyor belt, preloading, criteria, backs up to correct the error, sensed […]
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Cell Biology

Rotary Clock Discovered in Bacteria
May 17, 2005
What could be more mechanical than a mechanical clock?  A biochemist has discovered one in the simplest of organisms, one-celled cyanobacteria.  Examining the three complex protein components of its circadian clock, he thinks he has hit on a model that explains its structure and function: it rotates to keep time.  Though it keeps good time, […]
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Cell Biology

Can Gene Duplication Promote Evolution?
May 15, 2005
Imagine you had no mouth but needed to eat.  A hamburger comes flying at you.  When it hits your body, your skin folds around it and pinches off, sealing it inside.  Dozens of 3-armed parts form a geodesic dome around it and carry it to the stomach.  Once delivered, all the parts are recycled for […]
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Cell Biology

World’s Smallest Rotary Motors Coming Into Focus
April 30, 2005
Science April 29 had three articles on the ATP synthase rotary motors that inhabit all living cells.1,2,3  Using creative techniques of extreme microscopy and crystallography, research teams are beginning to get more focused images of the carousel-like rotating engines of both F-type and V-type motors.  (V-type enzymes pump ions into the cell to regulate acidity; […]
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Cell Biology

Bacterial Hydrogen Fuel Cell May Yield Cleaner World
April 24, 2005
Scientists at Penn State are working on a new, improved fuel cell.  Its secret?  Bacteria that can be coaxed with a little electricity to produce “four times as much hydrogen directly out of biomass than can be generated typically by fermentation alone.”  Will you someday be able to harness hydrogen from organic waste to drive […]
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Cell Biology

Molecular Motors Do Ballet
April 13, 2005
Scientists at University of Illinois studied dynein and kinesin – the tiny molecular trucks that ferry cargo inside the living cell – and found that they are not just individualists: they cooperate in a delicate yet effective performance.     Some scientists had thought that the two machine types, which travel in opposite directions, were […]
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Cell Biology

Flagellum Described in High-Performance Lingo
April 4, 2005
The bacterial flagellum, a virtual icon of the intelligent design movement, has been studied by many researchers, notably Howard Berg of Harvard, an expert on chemotaxis (the attraction of bacteria to chemical stimuli).  Berg was interviewed in Current Biology1 and talked like a race car mechanic when discussing this molecular machine, though he is not […]
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Cell Biology

Your Linemen at Work: DNA Search and Rescue Machine Imaged in Action
March 31, 2005
DNA is amazing enough, but its automatic error-correction utilities are enough to stagger the imagination.  There are dozens of repair mechanisms to shield our genetic code from damage; one of them was portrayed in Nature1 March 31 (see also analysis by Sheila David in the same issue2) in terms that should inspire awe.     […]
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Genetics

Descendants Can Overcome Parental Mutations
March 28, 2005
Bad genes from both parents may not spell doom in all cases.  Scientists at Purdue University found that if two parents have bad mutations, the child can sometimes reconstruct the correct gene from the grandparents.  “Our genetic training tells us that’s just not possible,” said Bob Pruitt, co-researcher on the team that ran the experiment […]
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Cell Biology

The Future of Biology: Reverse Engineering
March 14, 2005
Just as an engineer can model the feedback controls required in an autopilot system for an aircraft, the biologist can construct models of cellular networks to try to understand how they work.  “The hallmark of a good feedback control design is a resulting closed loop system that is stable and robust to modeling errors and […]
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Cell Biology

Bacterial Engineering On Par With Higher Life
March 11, 2005
Bacteria aren’t the simple life-forms microbiologists used to envision, writes Zemer Gitai in Cell.1 Recent advances have demonstrated that bacterial cells have an exquisitely organized and dynamic subcellular architecture.  Like their eukaryotic counterparts, bacteria employ a full complement of cytoskeletal proteins, localize proteins and DNA to specific subcellular addresses at specific times, and use intercellular […]
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Cell Biology

Clutch Enables Your Motors to Achieve 100% Efficiency
February 23, 2005
Those little ATP synthase motors (see 01/30/2005 entry) in your body and (in all living cells) made news again in Nature1 last week.  Scientists in Tokyo performed an ingenious set of experiments to measure the efficiency of the F1 synthesizing domain.  They attached a tiny magnet to the camshaft so that they could turn it […]
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