Long-term memory controlled by molecular pathway at synapses
...ols that facilitate survival in the environment. A fly can learn to avoid what may do it harm, such as a flyswatter, or in the laboratory, an electric shock that happens when it smells a certain odor. "It has been known for some time that learning and long-term memory require synthesis of new proteins, b...Study: Competition for sex is a 'jungle out there'
...f the same species, causing pollinators to have to fly long distances to deliver pollen. When pollinators do arrive, they may deliver lots of unusable pollen from other plant species. Knight and her colleagues found this pattern to be especially true for species that rely heavily on pollinator...Lots of flowers and trees, not enough birds and bees
...iduals of the same species, causing pollinators to fly long distances to deliver pollen. When pollinators do arrive, they may deliver unusable pollen from other plant species. Other authors on the study were Susan J. Mazer of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Martin Burd of Mon...How taste response is hard-wired into the brain
...deed, in studies with the easily manipulable fruit fly Drosophila, Kristin Scott and colleagues reported ...hers explored the behavioral effects of activating fly taste neurons that had either of two chemical taste receptors on their surface. In earlier studies, ...Keeping biological tubes in check: New insights into tube size morphogenesis
...e past few years, the tracheal system of the fruit fly Drosophila has provided important general insights into epithelial organ morphogenesis. The fly's tracheal system is a tubular network that functions in respiration by transporting oxygen throughout the insect body. In two separate new studies, resea...Pleasing plant shapes explained by new computer model
...lant that is to the world of botany what the fruit fly and white mouse are to zoology. The scientists believe their model will enhance biological experiments by providing a tool botanists can use to complement and interpret their traditional laboratory experiments. It also promises to lead to accurate mo...Fruit fly's beating heart helps identify human heart disease genes
...sity research team has found that the common fruit fly can serve as a powerful new model for testing huma... team said, because the entire genome of the fruit fly is well understood and catalogued, enabling researchers to systemically screen genes to identify pot...Three neuronal growth factors may be key to understanding alcohol's effects
...ings were: - Genetic manipulations of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster demonstrate that the insul... the overall growth of an organism. Using a fruit fly model, the Heberlein lab at UCSF recently found that blocking the function of brain cells that produ...UCSD study finds anthrax toxins also harmful to fruit flies
..., EF, cause cellular damage and death in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. These toxins are require...lar mechanism underlying its toxicity, because the fly system is already so well characterized," Guichard said. "We knew how anthrax toxins acted on human ...New measurements prove myosin VI can act as molecular transporter
...ar motors, dynein and kinesin, inside living fruit fly cells. "FIONA is capable of measuring the movement of myosin VI within living cells," Selvin said. "We are working on that now."...Fruit fly reveals a potential connection between dementia and cancer
...cycle proteins accompanied neuronal death in their fly model. Most importantly, loss of neurons could be prevented when the cell cycle was genetically blocked or when flies were fed anticancer drugs. Cell-cycle activation depended upon a hyperactive cell growth molecule, TOR (target of rapamycin), also k...Resveratrol prolongs lifespan and delays onset of aging-related traits in a short-lived vertebrate
... such as yeast, the worm C. elegans, and the fruit fly Drosophila. However, until now, life-long pharmacological trials were performed in the worm or fly model organisms because of their very small size, very short natural lifespan, and affordable cultiv...Cancer researchers found a new mechanism potentially explaining evolution of signalling pathways
... for mammalian homolog of a key regulator of fruit fly Hh signalling pathway, Costal-2. However, further ..., which has a minor role in Hh signalling in fruit fly is critical for Hh pathway regulation in mammals. The finding is the first clear demonstration of a...Scientist uses dragonflies to better understand flight
... size and feasibility remain. "To hover well or to fly for a long time is hard, especially at slow speeds," she said. "Power is limited. So finding these efficient motions is very important." Still, Wang's work moves researchers a step closer to building such a machine. "I want to build insects on a comp...Largest study of human 'interactome' reveals a novel way
...25,000 human, 16,000 yeast, 5,500 worm, and 25,000 fly protein-protein interactions showed that, among these more than 70,000 links, only 16 were common to all four species. Researchers say this low level of interactome overlap among species was surprising. It showed that current rapid-testing methods...Researchers unlock how cells determine their functions
...epigenetic activators (such as Ash1 from the fruit fly Drosophila), bind to their target DNA and activate genes that determine what function a cell will have in the body. "The fact that these epigenetic activators, such as Ash1, turn on the expression of specific target genes has been known for some tim...NYU scientists ID key factor in how fruit fly color receptor cells 'decide' their type
...the journal Nature. The researchers used the fruit fly Drosophila as a genetic model system to study stoc...ensitivity in photoreceptor cells. The eye of the fly contains some 800 optical units, called ommatidia. Each ommatidium contains six outer and two inner ...Researchers convinced satellites are helpful in tracking epidemics
...r located in a box that detects mosquitoes as they fly overhead. The data collected by the sensor is then processed by a program inside the box, which will be placed in hat hutches in high-risk African villages, and indicates the species and numbers of the mosquitoes detected. Malaria is transferred by ...Researchers simulate complete structure of virus -- on a computer
...ferently: They "reverse engineer" life forms, test fly them in the computer, and see if they work in silico the way they do in vivo. This technique previously had been employed for small pieces of living cells, such as proteins, but not for an entire life form until now. The accomplishment, performed by ...... found a complex with striking similarities to the fly DCC in human cells", says Sascha Mendjan from Akhtar's group. "This leaves room for speculations about its role in dosage compensation in mammals. Unlike flies, mammals inactivate one of the female X-chromosomes to match the protein contents between ...