Plants provide model for new shape-changing materials
...the intended victim. As the raptor changes gear to fly southward at lightening speed, it must sense what the outside forces and pressures are for its trajectory. Similarly, for an aircraft wing, engineers would need a material that's mechanically flexible. But the designers also need a material with a s...Dying cells encourage neighbors to grow
...hat when cells from the imaginal disc in the fruit fly Drosophila are stimulated to undergo apoptosis but experimentally manipulated so that they do not actually die ("undead cells"), they stimulate the growth of neighboring tissue. The researchers demonstrate that the undead cells promote cell growth in...Study in Royal Society journals presents evidence for inherited factors in homosexuality
...expression level of over 14,000 genes in the fruit fly and identified 27 that were strongly associated with differences in male reproductive success. One of these genes is known to cause pesticide resistance, and our results suggest that there is a cost to resistance in terms of decreased male success. G...Channel protein converts vibrations to electrical signal
... a TRP channel that is mechanosensory in the fruit fly a molecule known as NOMPC, identified by HHMI investigator Charles S. Zuker. In other parts of the nervous system, however, the TRPA1 channel is activated by such stimuli as painfully cold temperatures and pungent chemicals like mustard, cinnamon oi...Flies have morning and evening clocks
...rdiac output, and oxygen consumption. In the fruit fly Drosophila, however, the circadian clock has it...e to the existence of dual circadian clocks in the fly was the observation that flies have two activity peaks. "It was always intriguing that flies had two...Using fruitflies to examine alcohol tolerance
...f chronic but not of rapid tolerance. Second, a fly mutant that lacks octopamine a neuromodulator that serves as the fly version of norepinephrine showed reduced rapid tolerance but unchanged chronic tolerance. In sum...Scientists explain how morphogens work
... membrane. The Lin study is based on the fruit fly model (Drosophila). He and his colleagues studied the fruit fly protein called Decapentaplegic (Dpp). Dpp is a morphogen molecule that is similar in structure to th...UF scientist: 'Brain' in a dish acts as autopilot, living computer
...rida scientist has grown a living "brain" that can fly a simulated plane, giving scientists a novel way t.... As living computers, they may someday be used to fly small unmanned airplanes or handle tasks that are dangerous for humans, such as search-and-rescue mi...Nitric oxide is essential for animal development
..., unlike those of mammals, the genome of the fruit fly has only one NOS gene and is thus more amenable to mutagenesis and genetic analysis. After a large genetic screen, the researchers found several mutations that inactivate the Drosophila NOS gene. Their work provides the first conclusive evidence that...Singled out: Spotting mutant neurons in normal brains offers clues to Fragile X
...n defect has remained a mystery. Employing a fruit fly model of the disease, the researchers utilized a new technique that allows the generation of single mutant nerve cells that are marked by their expression of a glowing fluorescent protein, making these nerve cells distinctly visible in an otherwise n...Fly gut's 'sticky spot' for leishmaniasis parasite
...e molecular receptor inside the midgut of the sand fly Phlebotomus papatasi that provides the "flypaper" for the parasite that causes the major form of leishmaniasis, a tropical disease with both mild and fatal forms. PpGalec is the receptor protein that the parasite uses to bind to the fly's midgut and ...Scientists advocate genomic sequencing of 'living fossil'
...rs are not present in invertebrates, such as fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) or roundworm (Caenorhabditis elegans), but they are found in more evolutionarily complex species, including all vertebrates. Protocadherin gene clusters are composed of a tandem array of multiple gene copies, making them pa......10 cells per hemisphere, these neurons provide the fly with an internal clock, driving circadian rhythms of behavior even in the absence of light. While Lmo is found throughout the body, it is enriched in the brain. By expressing normal Lmo in over-sensitive mutants, the researchers discovered that Lmo's...This is your fly's brain on drugs
... ventral lateral neurons (LNvs), which provide the fly with an internal clock, driving circadian activities even in the absence of light. However, it appears that these neurons modulate cocaine sensitivity independently of their role in controlling circadian rhythms. Because Lmo -related proteins ...The logic of life brings order to our genes
...genetic network here than in humans. "In the fruit fly one can find almost 200 rules that are canalyzing, and this property is most likely general and applicable to genetic networks in other organisms," Carsten Peterson notes. "With 'canalyzing' we mean that there is a controlling gene that decides the v...Alcohol vulnerability linked to action of insulin
...entists had also examined different regions of the fly brain to determine where the Protein Kinase had its effect. In the new research they zeroed in on a small group of neurons in the brain, specifically cells producing so-called insulin-like peptides, or DILPs. The scientists also tested flies w...Loss of fruit fly retina protein delays blinding light damage
...sure to light." The light-detecting cells of fruit fly retinas share similarities with rod and cone cells of the human retina and also rely on rhodopsin to detect light and create an electrical signal that is transmitted to the brain. In the researchers' experiments, this electrical signal was measured b...Hummingbirds lose power at high altitudes
...u release them from the floor of the chamber, they fly up to escape, lifting progressively more weight," Altshuler explained. "This gives us in a single test their maximum lift, because they go as high as they can trying to escape. And then they tend to hover briefly, a second or less, and at that moment...Urban ecology study witnessing the birth of a 'designer ecosystem'
...distribute it over a very, very large area. If you fly in you can see this you can see that we have a lot more plant biomass, a lot more trees. There are little lakes scattered all over the place. Scottsdale since 1940 has gone from zero to 167 little lakes." However, the larger populations of birds tha...Human complexity and diversity spring from a surprisingly few (relatively speaking) genes
...ngs. The rice genome contains 50,000 genes and the fly 14,000, to cite two examples. The lack of correlation between genome size and an organism's complexity raised a question - how do complexity and diversity arise in higher life forms? The unexpected finding, says Stefan Maas, necessitates a clearer un...