Bacteria attack with toxins designed to hijack or kill host cells but they have ways of protecting themselves from their own toxins. Researchers have described one of these protective mechanisms, potentially paving the way for new classes of antibiotics that cause the bacteria's toxins to turn on themselves.
Scientists determined the structures of a toxin and its antitoxin in Streptococcus pyogenes, common bacteria that cause infections ranging from strep throat to life-threatening conditions like rheumatic fever. In Strep, the antitoxin is bound to the toxin in a way that keeps the toxin inactive.
Two STEREO spacecraft are now 180 degrees apart from each other and providing scientists with a 360-degree view of the Sun. NASA's STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft were launched on October 25, 2006, and have been gathering images of solar activity, especially solar storms, since the mission began.
Faked fossils hold up science; there’s no two ways about it. Palaeontologists need a thick skin to realize that sometimes, those hours spent examining and interpreting a fossil may have been entirely wasted.
Sometimes, although the fossil may have been tampered with, the work may not have been wholly in vain, and there may be still viable science that can be done. And sometimes, like in this week's hoaxed fossil, there can be a whole new family of dinosaurs to describe.
I just got back from a vacation in Hawaii and for the entire time, I had laryngitis, or some sort of thing that made me unable to talk and my throat sore. So I could not speak.
I tell you, I have never been so attractive to my wife, even though she married me because I am brilliant. My lack of communication made her unsure if I had concerns about us and the relationship, it seems, along with an extra dose of 'cold' and 'distant'. In reality she could not see me pointing wildly to the coffee maker and then my throat from where I was bedridden.
As the 21st century unfolds, if even one woman does not get a job, there will be claims of discrimination. And some will believe discrimination occurs institutionally despite the evidence, and insist any action by individuals is proof of sexism. That's the nature of humans being humans.
X-ray imaging technology is helping scientists better understand how snakes lost their legs during evolution and perhaps help help resolve the debate about whether they evolved from a terrestrial lizard or from one that lived in the oceans.
New 3-D images in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology reveal that the internal architecture of an ancient snake's leg bones strongly resembles that of modern terrestrial lizard legs.
