Bacteria's ability to destroy viruses has been a mystery but researchers say they now have a clear picture of the bacterial immune system and say its unique shape is likely why bacteria can so quickly recognize and destroy their assailants.

The researchers drew what they say is the first-ever picture of the molecular machinery, known as Cascade, which stands guard inside bacterial cells. To their surprise, they found it contains a two-strand, unencumbered structure that resembles a ladder, freeing it to do its work faster than a standard double-helix would allow.

A scientist has discovered a potentially new form of plant communication, one that allows them to share an extraordinary amount of genetic information with one another.

Professor Jim Westwood examined the relationship between a parasitic plant, dodder, and two host plants, Arabidopsis and tomatoes. In order to suck the moisture and nutrients out the host plants, dodder uses an appendage called a haustorium to penetrate the plant. Westwood previously broke new ground when he found that during this parasitic interaction, there is a transport of RNA between the two species. RNA translates information passed down from DNA, which is an organism’s blueprint.

Women with a vitamin D deficiency were nearly half as likely to conceive through in vitro fertilization (IVF) as women who had sufficient levels of the vitamin, according to a new study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology&Metabolism.

Long known for its role in bone health, vitamin D is a steroid hormone that is emerging as a factor in fertility. Animal studies have shown that the hormone, which is produced in the skin as a result of sun exposure as well as absorbed from some fortified foods, affects fertility in many mammals.

Kidney failure is a devastating condition and there are never enough donors for recipients - so it seems strange that anyone would be hesitant about getting one, but a new paper in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology suggest that interventions are needed to increase women's acceptance of living donor kidney transplantation.

An enzyme called 12-LO promotes obesity-induced oxidative stress in the pancreatic cells and that has been linked to diabetes (and pre-diabetes, if you prefer made-up conditions mainstream science wishes studies would stop claiming to be about).

12-LO's enzymatic action is the last step in the production of certain small molecules that harm the cell, according to a team from Indiana University School of Medicine. The findings will enable the development of drugs that can interfere with this enzyme, preventing or even reversing diabetes.  

Trees have been a part of the human existence for as long as humans have existed but that doesn't mean we know everything about them, like why they are the size they are. What limits the height of trees? Is it the fraction of their photosynthetic energy they devote to productive new leaves? Or is it their ability to hoist water hundreds of feet into the air, supplying the green, solar-powered sugar factories in those leaves?

The easy and therefore not vary satisfying answer is that both resource allocation and hydraulic limitation might play a role, but the question still becomes which factor (or what combination) actually sets maximum tree height, and how their relative importance varies in different parts of the world.  

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) is in the popular media because celebrities are dumping buckets of ice on their heads to raise awareness. Researchers probably wish they would donate money to research rather than raising awareness and hoping someone else donates money rather than dumping water on their heads too, but all medical outreach is good medical outreach.

Researchers at Mayo Clinic and The Scripps Research Institute in Florida have done something a little more practical; they developed a new therapeutic strategy to combat the most common genetic risk factor for ALS and frontotemporal dementia. 

The cytoplasm of mammalian cells is a viscous fluid, with organelles and proteins jiggling against one another and drifting at random.

Yet a new biophysical study finds that those drifting objects are subject to a very different type of environment than what we have thought.

The cytoplasm is actually an elastic gel, it turns out, so it puts up some resistance to simple diffusion. But energetic processes elsewhere in the cell—in the cytoskeleton, especially—create random but powerful waves in the cytoplasm, pushing on proteins and organelles alike. Like flotsam and jetsam buffeted by the wakes of passing ships, suspended particles scatter much more quickly and widely than they would in a calm sea.

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are adult stem cells isolated from blood or bone marrow that can renew themselves and differentiate into a variety of specialized cells. They give rise to all other blood cell types but their development has long remained a mystery.

In a new paper, researchers elaborate upon a crucial signaling pathway and the role of key proteins, which may help clear the way to generate HSCs from human pluripotent precursors, similar to advances with other kinds of tissue stem cells.