The chemical compounds carnivorous plants in the tropics use to dissolve their prey could serve as a new class of anti-fungal drugs for use in human medicine, according to researchers from Tel Aviv University's Department of Plant Sciences. In a study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, scientists document how the natural compounds from the carnivorous plant Nepenthes khasiana, native to India, were found effective as anti-fungal drugs against human fungal infections widespread in hospitals.
Writing in Cell, a team of biologists say they have unraveled the biochemistry of how bacteria so precisely time cell division, a key element in understanding how all organisms from bacteria to humans use their biological clocks to control basic cellular functions. The discovery provides important clues to how the biological clocks of bacteria and other "prokaryotic" cells—which lack cell nuclei—evolved differently from that of "eukaryotic" cells with nuclei that comprise most other forms of life, from fungi to plants and animals.
The mechanism by which the parasite Plasmodium intensively replicates itself in human blood to spread malaria has eluded scientists despite decades of rigorous research. But now biologists writing in the journal Genome Research say they have discovered how the deadly parasite regulates its infectious cycle.
In the cells of eukaryotes, such as the unicellular Plasmodium and humans, DNA, which can be as long as two meters, is closely packed to fit into the cell's tiny nucleus. Huge complex proteins called nucleosomes facilitate this DNA compaction so that eventually the DNA is coiled in an ordered manner to form chromosomes.
A recent study in the American Journal of Human Genetics has revealed how human genes interact with their environment to boost disease risk. The authors say the findings shed light on why the search for specific gene variants linked to human diseases can only partly explain common disorders.
In December 2008 CNN announced that it was closing down its whole science and technology production team and moving the environmental agenda into their general news. It was as if the news world had just lost a continent, prompting four of the world's leading science and environmental journalism groups to pen their first ever joint letter of protest. "In wielding this axe, your network has lost an experienced and highly regarded group of science journalists at a time when science coverage could not be more important in our national and international discourse." Nevertheless,
the axe fell.
Astronomers have detected the astronomical equivalent of prehistoric life in our intergalactic backyard: a group of small, ancient galaxies that has waited 10 billion years to come together. These "late bloomers" are on their way to building a large elliptical galaxy.
Such encounters between dwarf galaxies are normally seen billions of light-years away and therefore occurred billions of years ago. But these galaxies, members of Hickson Compact Group 31, are relatively nearby, only 166 million light-years away.
The popular social networking site facebook is for more than just keeping in touch with friends and sharing photos, according to a new survey in the Harvard Business Review. Companies that use the popular social-media site and its fan page module to market themselves to customers can increase sales, word-of-mouth marketing and customer loyalty significantly among a subset of their customers, according to the new research from Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business.
