Melatonin shrinks bird gonads. What does the popular supplement do in humans?
... E. Bentley, an assistant professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley. In humans, GnRH one of various short protein or peptide hormones referred to as neuropeptides brings on puberty. "This is quite exciting in terms of potential effects of melatonin on the reproductive axis, that is, the link between...Sexual cooperation: Mating increases longevity in ant queens
...ful driving force in the evolution of reproductive biology for many animal species. Males often try to manipulate their female mates during copulation--for example, by traumatic inseminations (as in the case of bed bugs) or by the transfer of toxic seminal fluids (as in the case of the fruitfly Drosophila). ...Children's taste sensitivity and food choices influenced by taste gene
...n. This difference could be due to taste receptor biology or it could be because those who are most bitter sensitive use more sugar to mask unpleasant tastes in food, and thus come to prefer it more. Whatever the explanation, this is an important puzzle to solve." Unlike children, bitter receptor genotype ...Examination of internal 'wiring' of yeast, worm, and fly reveals conserved circuits
...eker. "Ultimately, we think this kind of a systems biology approach will have a very beneficial impact on drug design and human health."...Fritz Lipmann lecture will look at enzyme biosynthesis of peptide natural products
...drate chemistry, mechanistic enzymology, molecular biology and X-ray crystallography to elucidate and exploit the pathways for natural antibiotic synthesis. This body of work not only defines pathways for antibiotic synthesis, the molecular targets of antibiotic action, and the mechanisms of antibiotic resis...Falling ants glide back to trunk to avoid dangers of forest floor
...nts." Yanoviak, Dudley, a professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley, and zoologist Michael E. Kaspari, an ant ecologist at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, report the discovery in the Feb. 10 issue of Nature. After Yanoviak's initial observation, he conducted further drop studies and established tha...New RNA polymerase discovered in plants
...ikaard, Ph, D., Washington University professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, has discovered a fourth kind of RNA polymerase found only in plants and speculated to have been a plant feature for more than 200 million years. RNA polymerase is an enzyme, or protein machine, essential for carrying out functio......e now marketed by companies for general structural biology applications. As the PSI pilot centers have put ...at are incredibly important to understanding human biology and medicine, yet we know very little about most of them," said Norvell. "The PSI will provide impor...Prehistoric jawbone reveals evolution repeating itself
... said James Hopson, Ph.D., professor of organismal biology and anatomy of the University of Chicago and one of the authors of the paper. Many paleontologists have doubted that such a seemingly complex adaptation could have originated more than once in mammals, but according to the authors of the paper, the e...UCSD discovery may help extend life of natural pesticide
... the paper and a former graduate student with UCSD biology professor Raffi Aroian. "This latest paper demonstrates what these sugars actually do. They provide a receptor for the toxin that allows the toxin to recognize its "victim"--a roundworm or an insect. This paper also brings us from the conceptual rea...Research focusing on why estrogenic hormones produce differing results
... integrative physiology and of cell and structural biology in the College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign, recently have produced a series of synthesized, non-steroidal estrogenic compounds that seek out and bind with ER-beta very selectively. In a paper appearing online in advance of regular publication in ...Emory researchers find more evidence for children's growth spurts, pain
...in her research will be to identify and define the biology behind the growth, and what triggers it. "This study helps us know what kinds of questions to ask," Lampl says. What may be occurring is that when an animal is at rest, pressure on the growth plates of long bones such as the tibia is eased, permitti...Why do insects stop 'breathing'? To avoid damage from too much oxygen, say researchers
...thy Bradley, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCI, and Stefan Hetz, assistant professor of physiology at Humboldt University, Germany, report their findings in the Feb. 3 issue of Nature. The insect respiratory system is designed to accommodate occasions when the insect is active. For example...HHMI professor, 138 undergraduates identify essential genes in eye formation
...aster. The undergraduates are students in a unique biology class taught by HHMI professor Utpal Banerjee at t...$1 million grants in 2002 to improve undergraduate biology education. "In fact, this could easily be the first paper ever published with that many undergraduat...Charles Yanofsky named National Medal of Science winner
...r expanding the frontier of knowledge in molecular biology and earning a reputation as one of the most important molecular biologists of the 20th century. His major contributions include establishing the ''one gene, one protein'' relationship; demonstrating the RNA-based regulation of gene expression; and hi...Diabetes' link to obesity broken in mice
...fessor of medicine, of pediatrics and of molecular biology and pharmacology. The study appears in the February 2005 issue of Cell Metabolism. It reveals new details of the activities of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs), a family of receptors that affects the way cells respond to energ......open up new prospects in several areas of physics, biology and materials science. ...Genomics champion Eric Lander receives 2004 AAAS Public Understanding of Science & Technology Award
...the Broad Institute, Lander is also a professor of biology at MIT, a professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School, and a member of Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. His earlier...Novel sulfide-binding mechanism found in deep-sea tubeworms
...ritional needs," says Charles Fisher, professor of biology at Penn State, whose research team includes Penn State graduate assistant Jason Flores, the lead author of the research paper, and William Royer, professor of biochemistry and molecular pharmacology at the University of Massachusetts. "Our discovery......ant commensal microflora. An understanding of the biology at these sites is critical to understanding both health and disease and to developing effective means to prevent infection." As mammalian defenses evolve to protect against infection, pathogens are simultaneously evolving to circumvent new barriers a...