After insects attack, plants bunker sugars for later regrowth
... the best strategy for a plant caught in cycles of defensive escalation with its herbivores to extricate itself. Wild tobacco, which is native to North America, has developed sophisticated methods to fend off Manduca sexta larvae. For example, jasmonic acid produced after insect attack elicits the emission ...Rapid-fire jaws propel ants to safety
...y produced power for predation or for two types of defensive propulsion, the researchers report. The first ty...truder to bounce away as well. The second type of defensive propulsion was the escape jump. When a threat was too large, the ant would snap its jaws off the gro...BGSU biologist trying to crack microscopic code
...acteria, which are cloaked by an outer membrane--a defensive barrier against the harsh elements of their enviro...ed the Tol system, is important in maintaining the defensive barrier, although which proteins it delivers energy to as part of that process isn't known. Findin...Ancient war paint in fight against breast cancer
...ture DOI: 10.1002/jsfa.2571).This compound plays a defensive role in plants, and the researchers found that wounding the leaves can increase levels by 30%. When leaves are damaged, for example, by insects, glucobrassicin is released as a defence mechanism. Its derivatives can kill some plant pests, and also ap...Role of protein in immune response may aid HIV research
...entists report that various organs mount different defensive responses with PGLYRP when exposed to bacteria. The skin produces these proteins only when exposed to virulent or high numbers of bacteria. In contrast, the liver, whose function is to continuously monitor the blood and fight acute infection, prod...UC Riverside researchers show how the brain turns on innate behavior
...include courtship and sexual behaviors, escape and defensive maneuvers, and aggression. Using the common fruit fly as a model organism, the researchers found through laboratory experiments that the innate behavior is initiated by a "command" hormone that orchestrates activities in discrete groups of pepti...Mice lacking key immune component still control chronic viral infections
... killing them or sounding alarms that summon other defensive measures. To enable this recognition process, other cells regularly chop up viral proteins found in their interiors and display them on their surfaces. MHC Class I molecules act as a kind of stage for this inspection process, binding to the protein p...Vaccine combined with short-term postexposure antibiotics protects monkeys from inhalational anthrax
.... The toxins are thought to act mainly by damaging defensive cells called phagocytes, causing the immune system to malfunction. The organism then spreads unimpeded to all major organs of the body, causing tissue damage and death. While most spores probably germinate within a few days, some spores can remain do...Gene thwarts some pathogens, gives access to others, could save crops
...e gene BIK1 recognizes the pathogen and sets off a defensive reaction. Botrytis is a type of pathogen that can infect and obtain nutrients from dead cells on a plant and actually secretes toxic substances into plant tissue in order to gain entry. Another type of pathogen, called a biotroph, must feed on live p...Penguins okay with human visitors for now
..., habituation is rapid. The authors monitored the defensive head turns and the level of a hormone secreted in response to stress (plasma corticosterone) of penguins when encountering humans. "Head turns of penguins visited for 10 days were significantly lower than those of penguins visited for 5 days and wer...Sea slug mixes chemical defense before firing at predators
...n with L-lysine and L-arginine that results in the defensive secretion. Using a variety of chemical and molecular techniques, the scientists identified L-lysine and L-arginine in the opaline gland, which produces the sticky white component of the secretion, and escapin in the ink gland, which produces the purp...Creeping crinoids! Sea lilies crawl to escape predators, new video shows
...some way to pushing crinoids into developing these defensive strategies."...Greasing interferon's gears may pave way to greater therapeutic benefits, fewer side effects
...enhance the way interferon produces its beneficial defensive effects, the body could respond to its normal level of interferon and receive enhanced benefit without side effects," Holtzman says. The group engineered a mutant Stat1 protein in which the identities of two amino acids were switched. Investigations...Variation in HIV's ability to disable host defenses contributes to rapid evolution
...es a protein, called Vif, that can disable the two defensive proteins. Vif is full of variation, both in seq...k at all; others counteract only one of the host's defensive proteins. "It's a leaky system," according to Paul D. Bieniasz, senior author of the study and asso...Study in Royal Society journal on world's only horned rodent
...llion years ago drove Ceratogaulus to evolve these defensive weapons. Contacts : Ms. SSB Hopkins, Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, 3060 VLSB, BERKELEY, 94720, USA Ravens, Corvus corax, differentiate between knowledgeable and ignorant competitors by Thomas Bugnyar, Bernd Heinrich (rspb....When in danger humans are similar to a deer in the headlights
... stimuli, mediated by neural circuits that promote defensive survival," author Eliane Volchan explains. This study is published in the current issue of Psychophysiology. Media wishing to receive a PDF of the full article please contact journalnews@bos.blackwellpublishing.net Psychophysiology reports on new...Study: Plants use dual defense system to fight pathogens
...ct various infection-causing molecules and trigger defensive responses." A next step in this line of work is to look at other pathogen effector proteins and analyze their role in causing infections. Mackey conducted the study with Ohio State colleagues Min Gab Kim, a graduate student in the department of pla...Leprosy microbes lead scientists to immune discovery
... a rapid immune response by two separate armies of defensive cells. The finding helps explain why, when threate...the detection of foreign bacteria. One category of defensive cells, macrophages, seek out and engulf the infectious bugs. The other group consists of dendritic, ...Human cells can 'silence' HIV genes
...ar evidence that RNA silencing plays a role in the defensive repertoire of mammals and other vertebrates. Dr. J...e HIV using RNAi, does HIV have a way to evade the defensive maneuver? The answer to all three questions, the scientists determined, is yes. The most unexpected...... long been recognized as a condition that involves defensive cells from the body's immune system mistakenly attacking healthy joint tissues. Scientists once thought the cells that were most active in these attacks were adaptive immune cells including T cells. Most of these cells are like guided missiles: they ...