Biologists deciphering complex lemur scent language
...lattened and squeaking warnings. They relentlessly flick their tails at one another until one of the adversaries comes to his scentses, gets the odiferous message and retreats. But until the research of Duke biologist Christine Drea and student Elizabeth Scordato, scientists had no idea what chemical me...Researchers characterize a crucial family of signaling proteins in the human genome
...e movement of a phosphoryl group is similar to the flick of a switch that causes a biochemical pathway go slower or faster. Kostich and his colleagues searched the publicly available sequence databases to find sequences with similarity to known protein kinase molecules. After removals of duplicates and pse......yed trapped between the hairs until the next rapid flick of the antennule cleared it out and replaced it with another. Apparently, with each flick of the antennule, a detailed map of the swirling filaments of odor in a plume is captured. Work is n...Lobster sniffing: how lobsters' hairy noses capture smells from the sea
... The lobsters sniff when they flick, and with each flick their antennules capture a detailed map of the swi...antennule moves very rapidly - at the speed of the flick downstroke. What this means is that, in the lobster's real world, small differences in odor concentr......pture food. Crabs and lobsters, on the other hand, flick antennules bearing tiny chemosensory hairs to sniff the water. "All of us in the biomechanics group are at the interface between biology and engineering," she said. "While engineers need to design structures to perform specific functions, we are stu......ions, the flies do not sing a note, thoughthey can flick their wings and can use them to fly. (courtesy: JeffreyHall, Brandeis University) Geneticists have known for years that the gene, called fruitless and nicknamed fru , influences sexual orientation in the fly Drosophila melanogaster . Male flies wit...