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"Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler", Albert Einstein
Browsing All Posts filed under »BIOLOGY«
Life Before Earth
Alexei A. Sharov, Richard Gordon An extrapolation of the genetic complexity of organisms to earlier times suggests that life began before the Earth was formed. Life may have started from systems with single heritable elements that are functionally equivalent to a nucleotide. The genetic complexity, roughly measured by the number of non-redundant functional nucleotides, is […]
In the footsteps of Schrödinger: understanding the physics of life
April 8, 2013
It’s an old but unsolved problem that requires new ways of shared working between physicists and biologists Athene Donald(*) Erwin Schrödinger, the Austrian physicist whose eponymous equation lies at the heart of quantum mechanics, strayed beyond his normal disciplinary boundaries when he wrote a book called The Physics of Life in 1944. He was bringing […]
Discoveries Suggest Icy Cosmic Start for Amino Acids …
March 1, 2013
… and DNA Ingredients Using new technology at the telescope and in laboratories, researchers have discovered an important pair of prebiotic molecules in interstellar space. The discoveries indicate that some basic chemicals that are key steps on the way to life may have formed on dusty ice grains floating between the stars. The scientists used […]
What is life? The physicist who sparked a revolution in biology
February 7, 2013
Erwin Schrödinger introduced some of the most important concepts in biology, including the idea of a ‘code’ of life Matthew Cobb Seventy years ago, on 5 February 1943, the Nobel prizewinning quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger gave the first of three public lectures at Trinity College, Dublin. His topic was an unusual one for a physicist: […]
Life in the Cold and Dark Under Antarctic Ice
February 7, 2013
For the first time, scientists report, they have found bacteria living in the cold and dark deep under the Antarctic ice, a discovery that might advance knowledge of how life could survive on other planets or moons and that offers the first glimpse of a vast ecosystem of microscopic life in underground lakes in Antarctica […]
Gold-digging bacterium makes precious particles
February 4, 2013
Biochemical trick could aid in recovery of the metal from waste. Gold prospectors may one day use Petri dishes to help with their quests. A species of bacterium forms nanoscale gold nuggets to help it to grow in toxic solutions of the precious metal, reports a paper published online today in Nature Chemical Biology. The […]
Dung Beetles Use the Milky Way for Orientation
January 25, 2013
Marie Dacke, Emily Baird1, Marcus Byrne, Clarke H. Scholtz, Eric J. Warrant When the moon is absent from the night sky, stars remain as celestial visual cues. Nonetheless, only birds [1 and 2], seals [3], and humans [4] are known to use stars for orientation. African ball-rolling dung beetles exploit the sun, the moon, and […]
Tiny molecular machine apes cellular production line
January 12, 2013
developed a tiny molecular machine that mirrors the function of the ribosome, which builds the proteins in our body’s cells. Just a few millionths of a millimetre in size, the minute machine resembles a ring threaded on a rod. As this ring moves along the rod, it picks chemical units and assembles them into chains, […]
Proteins boost quantum coherence in bacteria
January 11, 2013
A new theory of how plant photosynthesis involves quantum coherence has been suggested by physicists in the UK, Germany and Spain. This latest research is based on the study of organisms that live deep under the sea yet are able to convert sunlight into energy. The study suggests that molecular vibrations do not destroy the […]
You can’t see DNA unless you look properly
December 1, 2012
We know what DNA looks like and have been looking at it for nearly 60 years. So why has a new analysis of DNA structure been reported so poorly? by Stephen Curry I’m not an angry man but a new analysis of the structure of DNA using electron microscopy made me cross yesterday. It wasn’t […]
Physicist Derives Laws of Thermodynamics For Life Itself
September 10, 2012
The laws of thermodynamics must apply to self-replicating systems. Now one physicist has worked out how Here’s an interesting thought experiment. Imagine a box filled with a variety of atoms and molecules in proportions roughly equivalent to the composition of the prebiotic soup in which life thrives. How likely is it that these molecules will […]
Quantum dynamics of the avian compass
August 22, 2012
Zachary B. Walters The ability of migratory birds to orient relative to the Earth’s magnetic field is believed to involve a coherent superposition of two spin states of a radical electron pair. However, the mechanism by which this coherence can be maintained in the face of strong interactions with the cellular environment has remained unclear. […]
Molecular Visualizations of DNA
August 21, 2012
These DNA molecular visualizations were created for the multifaceted ‘DNA’ project, celebrating the 50th anniversary in 2003 of the discovery of the double helix. The ‘DNA’ project includes a five-part documentary series, museum film and ‘DNAi’ online resources for teachers and students. The dynamics and molecular shapes were based on X-ray crystallographic models and other […]
Magnetic bacteria may be building future bio-computers
May 7, 2012
Magnet-making bacteria may be building biological computers of the future, researchers have said. Leeds and Japan’s Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have used microbes that eat iron. As they ingest the iron, the microbes create tiny magnets inside themselves, similar to those in PC hard drives. The research may lead to the creation of […]
The Single Theory That Could Explain Emergence
May 7, 2012
Organisation And The Origin of Life Biochemists have long imagined that autocatalytic sets can explain the origin of life. Now a new mathematical approach to these sets has even broader implications One of the most puzzling questions about the origin of life is how the rich chemical landscape that makes life possible came into existence. […]
The first successful implant of ‘bionic’ eye microchips
May 4, 2012
Microchips restore sight to people suffering retinitis pigmentosa – an incurable condition that leads to blindness Condition affects one in every 3,000-4,000 people Clinical trial with two sufferers ‘exceeds expectations’ Sufferers able to detect outlines of objects ‘within days’ Vision expected to improve further as 3mm chip ‘beds in’ Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk -www.bbc.co.uk
The Secret Life of Plankton (video)
April 12, 2012
New videography techniques have opened up the oceans’ microscopic ecosystem, revealing it to be both mesmerizingly beautiful and astoundingly complex. Marine biologist Tierney Thys has used footage from a pioneering project to create a film designed to ignite wonder and curiosity about this hidden world that underpins our own food chain. http://youtu.be/xFQ_fO2D7f0
The sensitive plant (video)
April 7, 2012
I am sure many of you have met sensitive plants, Mimosa pudica, on your travels through the local glasshouses and plants nurseries. This plant is native to Central and South America, but now it seems to have escaped captivity and has established itself in several parts of the world. Neither this plant nor its flowers are […]
Information Theory of DNA Sequencing
April 2, 2012
Abolfazl Motahari, Guy Bresler, David Tse DNA sequencing is the basic workhorse of modern day biology and medicine. Shotgun sequencing is the dominant technique used: many randomly located short fragments called reads are extracted from the DNA sequence, and these reads are assembled to reconstruct the original sequence. A basic question is: given a sequencing […]
A Surprising New Kind of Proton Transfer
March 19, 2012
Berkeley Lab scientists and their colleagues have discovered an unsuspected way that protons can move among molecules – revealing new opportunities for research in biology, environmental science, and green chemistry When a proton – the bare nucleus of a hydrogen atom – transfers from one molecule to another, or moves within a molecule, the result […]
Dead for 32,000 Years, an Arctic Plant Is Revived
February 20, 2012
A plant that last flowered when woolly mammoths roamed the plains is back in bloom. Biologists have resurrected a 30,000-year-old plant, cultivating it from fruit tissue recovered from frozen sediment in Siberia. The plant is by far the oldest to be brought back from the dead: the previous record holder was a sacred lotus, dating […]
A classification scheme of Amino Acids in the Genetic Code by Group Theory
February 5, 2012
Sebastian Sachse, Christian Roeder We derive the amino acid assignment to one codon representation (typical 64-dimensional irreducible representation) of the basic classical Lie superalgebra osp(5|2) from biochemical arguments. We motivate the approach of mathematical symmetries to the classification of the building constituents of the biosphere by analogy of its success in particle physics and chemistry. […]
Non-destructive imaging of an individual protein
January 24, 2012
Jean-Nicolas Longchamp, Tatiana Laytychevskaia, Conrad Escher, Hans-Werner Fink The mode of action of proteins is to a large extent given by their ability to adopt different conformations. Τhis is why imaging single biomolecules at atomic resolution is one of the ultimate goals of biophysics and structural biology. The existing protein database has emerged from X-ray […]
Robotic space explorers powered by bacteria
January 9, 2012
Today’s robotic space missions take careful steps to avoid carrying tiny bacterial life from Earth that could contaminate the surface of Mars or other planets. That may all change if a NASA-funded effort can harness microbes as an almost endless power source for the next generation of robotic explorers. Such microbial fuel cells could power […]
RNA, DNA… TNA
January 8, 2012
Before DNA, before RNA: Life in the hodge-podge world Take note, DNA and RNA: it’s not all about you. Life on Earth may have began with a splash of TNA – a different kind of genetic material altogether. Because RNA can do many things at once, those studying the origins of life have long thought […]
Beyond quantum theory: a realist psycho-biological interpretation of reality …
January 4, 2012
…revisited Brian D. Josephson Abstract It is hypothesised, following Conrad et al. (1988) that quantum physics is not the ultimate theory of nature, but merely a theoretical account of the phenomena manifested in nature under particular conditions. These phenomena parallel cognitive phenomena in biosystems in a number of ways and are assumed to arise from […]
‘Lethal’ radiation doses can be treated with drugs
December 4, 2011
MICE can survive a dose of radiation that should have killed them when given a double-drug therapy – even if they get the drug cocktail 24 hours after exposure. Radiation damages rapidly dividing cells in the intestine, allowing harmful bacteria to leak into the bloodstream. Eva Guinan at Harvard Medical School found that boosting levels of a […]
Video: Rosalind Franklin – My Favourite Scientist
November 9, 2011
Rosalind Franklin is a lesser-known hero in the famous story of DNA’s discovery. http://youtu.be/TZUun93_V18
The 2011 Nobel Prize in Medicine
October 3, 2011
(Unfortunately, Ralph Steinman died on Friday, days before it was announced he had won the Nobel prize for medicine). Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries about the immune system that opened new avenues for the treatment and prevention of infectious illnesses and cancer. American Bruce Beutler and French scientist […]
A brief history of the brain
September 27, 2011
IT IS 30,000 years ago. A man enters a narrow cave in what is now the south of France. By the flickering light of a tallow lamp, he eases his way through to the furthest chamber. On one of the stone overhangs, he sketches in charcoal a picture of the head of a bison looming […]
Chemists devise means to use bacteria to encode secret messages
September 27, 2011
In the endless search to develop newer and cooler ways to send messages between people without other’s intercepting them, chemists from Tufts University working together have figured out a way to use a strain of bacteria to encode a message on a paper-like material that can then later be de-coded by the receiver. Manuel Palacios […]
Making matter come alive
September 13, 2011
Before life existed on Earth, there were just atoms and molecules…inorganic “dead stuff.” How improbable is it that life arose? Could it use a different type of chemistry than our familiar carbon-based chemistry? Before life existed on Earth, there were just atoms and molecules…inorganic “dead stuff.” How improbable is it that life arose? Could it […]
How To Make Viagra
August 30, 2011
By Enrico Uva Wizards exist in real life, beyond the films and books of Harry Potter. They cook willow bark extract in car battery acid and wood alcohol and convert it into a pleasant-smelling component of candy or of a rubbing compound. In their glassware, petroleum products turn into life-saving medicines. The vastly underrated wizards […]
New Fossils Show Sulfur-Based Microbes Lived on Earth 3.4 Billion Years Ago
August 21, 2011
…Presenting a New Target for Astrobiology Clusters of islands poked through hot oceans 3.4 billion years ago, when the world still had no oxygen and the seas churned under a pallid, overcast sky. But life thrived on Earth even then, scientists say — and now they have the world’s oldest fossils to prove it. There […]
First life: The search for the first replicator
August 15, 2011
Life must have begun with a simple molecule that could reproduce itself – and now we think we know how to make one 4 BILLION years before present: the surface of a newly formed planet around a medium-sized star is beginning to cool down. It’s a violent place, bombarded by meteorites and riven by volcanic […]
DNA Building Blocks Can Be Made in Space
August 9, 2011
NASA-funded researchers have evidence that some building blocks of DNA, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for life, found in meteorites were likely created in space. The research gives support to the theory that a “kit” of ready-made parts created in space and delivered to Earth by meteorite and comet impacts assisted the origin […]
‘It’s Alive! It’s Alive!’ Maybe Right Here on Earth
July 29, 2011
video: Life Out There: Eden in a Test Tube: To better recognize extraterrestrial life should they come upon it, scientists are working to create simple life forms in a lab. But, as Dennis Overbye reports, they first have to agree what life is. Here in a laboratory perched on the edge of the continent, researchers are trying […]
Exquisite Machines
July 24, 2011
By Sean Gibbons The synthesis of non-equilibrium thermodynamics and biology, pursued in fits and starts over the years by an eccentric cast of thinkers, has produced a few scientific red herrings, but the overall idea has expanded our biophysical horizons. I’ll summarize what I’ve come to understand about the development of biological thermodynamics and its implications, […]
Did Life on Earth Originally Spring from Clay as Some Creation Myths Say?
July 20, 2011
Not necessarily, but it does provide a possible mechanism for explaining how life initially arose from nonliving molecules. Szostak’s team at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital showed that the presence of clay aids naturally occurring reactions that result in the formation of fatty sacks called vesicles, similar to what scientists expect […]
Yeast Rising to the Space Station
July 15, 2011
Chefs across the globe may not know it yet, but their baker’s yeast just left the kitchen and blasted off into low Earth orbit. Hitching a ride on the space shuttle Atlantis on July 8, 2011, the samples will be grown on the International Space Station as part of the Genotypic and Phenotypic Changes in […]
“The DNA Code” -Is Life Written Into the Laws of Physics?
July 12, 2011
A recent mathematical analysis says that life as we know it is written into the laws of reality. DNA is built from a set of twenty amino acids – the first ten of those can create simple prebiotic life, and now it seems that those ten are thermodynamically destined to occur wherever they can. For […]
Bees, frogs, monkeys and jellyfish… the weird and wonderful creatures that joined Nasa’s shuttle programme over the years
July 10, 2011
With the final lift-off in Nasa’s space shuttle programme only hours away, weather permitting, people across the world are turning their attention to what has been a remarkable 30 years. Most of the focus is be on the scientific achievements and tragic loss of 14 lives in the Challenger and Columbia disasters. But it wasn’t […]
Astronomers to develop potential new cancer radiation treatment
June 27, 2011
Astronomers’ research on celestial bodies may have an impact on the human body. Ohio State University astronomers are working with medical physicists and radiation oncologists to develop a potential new radiation treatment – one that is intended to be tougher on tumors, but gentler on healthy tissue. In studying how chemical elements emit and absorb […]
Nanoparticles play at being red blood cells
June 24, 2011
Nanoparticles disguised as red blood cells could be used to deliver anti-cancer drugs directly to a tumour. So say researchers at the University of California at San Diego, whose new technique is unique in its approach to harnessing nanoparticles…..
Can humans sense the Earth’s magnetism?
June 22, 2011
For migratory birds and sea turtles, the ability to sense the Earth’s magnetic field is crucial to navigating the long-distance voyages these animals undertake during migration. Humans, however, are widely assumed not to have an innate magnetic sense. Research published in Nature Communications this week by faculty at the University of Massachusetts Medical School shows that a […]
Origin Of Life At CERN
June 13, 2011
When you think of Cern, the enormous particle accelerator under Geneva, you probably think of particle physics. But the institution is also helping out biologists too. On 20 May, a small group of biologists and chemists arrived at Cern for a workshop from the institution’s experts on how to organise a disparate community of research groups all […]
Laser is produced by a living cell
June 13, 2011
A single living cell has been coaxed into producing laser light, researchers report in Nature Photonics. The technique starts by engineering a cell that can produce a light-emitting protein that was first obtained from glowing jellyfish. Flooding the resulting cells with weak blue light causes them to emit directed, green laser light. The work may have […]
“Molecular Machines” –Proof of Evolution at Cellular Level
June 9, 2011
“Our cells, and the cells of all organisms, are composed of molecular machines. These machines are built of component parts, each of which contributes a partial function or structural element to the machine. How such sophisticated, multi-component machines could evolve has been somewhat mysterious, and highly controversial.” Trevor Lithgow of Australia’s Monash University. An international […]
Magnetic fields reduce blood viscosity
June 9, 2011
Researchers in the US claim that exposing a person to a magnetic field could reduce their risk of a heart attack by streamlining the flow of blood around their body. While the work currently remains just a proof-of-principle, the researchers believe that their technique could ultimately provide an alternative to drugs in treating a range […]
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