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Without glial cells, animals lose their senses
Sensory neurons have always put on a good show. But now it turns out they’ll be sharing the credit. In groundbreaking research to appear in the October 31 issue ofĚýScience, Rockefeller University scientists show that while neurons play the lead role in detecting sensory information, a second type...
New method provides panoramic view of protein-RNA interactions in living cells
DNA, it has turned out, isn’t all it was cracked up to be. In recent years we learned that the molecule of life, the discovery of the 20th century, did not — could not — by itself explain the huge differences in complexity between a human and a worm. Forced to look elsewhere, scientists turned...
By imaging living cells, researchers show how hepatitis C replicates
The hepatitis C virus is a prolific replicator, able to produce up to a trillion particles per day in an infected person by hijacking liver cells in which to build up its viral replication machinery. Now new research — in which scientists have for the first time used fluorescent proteins to image...
Simulator allows scientists to predict evolution's next best move
Biologists today are doing what Darwin thought impossible. They are studying the process of evolution not through fossils but directly, as it is happening. Now, by modeling the steps evolution takes to build, from scratch, an adaptive biochemical network, biophysicists Eric D. Siggia and Paul Fra...
Plant virus spreads by making life easy for crop pests
In 752, Japanese Empress Koken wrote a short poem about the summertime yellowing of a field in what is thought to be the first account of a viral plant disease. More than 1,250 years later, scientists concluded that the virus Koken described was part of the particularly insidious geminivirus fami...
In mice, anxiety is linked to immune system
In the first study ever to genetically link the immune system to normal behavior, scientists at Rockefeller and Columbia Universities show that mast cells, known as the pharmacologic bombshells of the immune system, directly influence how mice respond to stressful situations. The work, to appear ...
Scientists discover how a well-known protein repairs broken DNA ends
During the life cycle of our cells, a minefield of environmental and biological assaults can lead to double-stranded DNA breaks, the most lethal and dangerous form of DNA damage. Now, in research published online this week inNature, Rockefeller University scientists reveal that when these breaks ...
A new role for a critical DNA molecule in the immune system
The human immune system is a brilliantly adaptable weapon against foreign invaders. But it all depends on the work of specialized cells called lymphocytes that have made a risky evolutionary gambit to mutate their own DNA. New research to be published this week inĚýNatureĚýshows for the first time ...
By recognizing odors, a single neuron controls reactions
“When you’re out hiking, you’ll notice that everything tastes really delicious. That’s one of the best parts about hiking, actually, is how delicious a peanut butter and raisin sandwich can be,” says Cori Bargmann, Torsten N. Wiesel Professor and head of the Laboratory of Neural Circuits a...
Molecule stops DNA replication in its tracks
The process is akin to unzipping a zipper: The sliding clamp works its way along the DNA double helix while a network of proteins work together to unwind the two strands. Proteins known as polymerases then add, in assembly-line fashion, nucleotide bases — the building blocks that make up DNA — t...
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