cell & molecular biology, evolution

Is the model of early life as a freak occurrence in a disordered, primordial soup of chemicals wrong?

The findings may have implications for radiotherapy, a cancer treatment that can cause damage to salivary glands and leave lasting complications.

Aminoacyl tRNA synthetases picked up new protein domains that participate in vasculature formation around the same time that organisms evolved key adaptations in the circulatory system.

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, which help translate the genetic code into protein, also function in angiogenesis, fat metabolism, and more.

Contrary to popular thinking, the period of arrested development is an active state of maintaining muscle integrity.

Planarian flatworms grow to double their normal size when scientists inhibit a gene that suppresses growth.

Researchers identify changes to a pain receptor and to an ion channel that appear to enable the rodents to colonize otherwise inhospitable burrows.

The 12-year-long endeavor reveals Prometheoarchaeum as a tentacled cell, living in a symbiotic relationship with methane-producing microbes.

The silver spinyfin has an extraordinary diversity of rod photopigments, which researchers propose may allow it to see color in the deep, dark sea.

A clock constructed of rDNA methylation sites can estimate both chronological and biological age across species.

The microscopic marine animal Trichoplax adhaerens may use rapid changes in cell shape to avoid being ripped apart by forces in the ocean.

Researchers are resurrecting proteins from millions of years ago to understand evolution and lay the groundwork for bioengineering custom molecules.

Species with larger pancreatic cells tend to have shorter lives, according to a study.  

Meet some of the people featured in the June 2018 issue of The Scientist.

The finding confirms that a cluster of cells that directs the fate of other cells in the developing embryo is evolutionarily conserved across the animal kingdom.

A device dubbed the “mother machine” enables real-time observation of mutagenesis in single bacterial cells.  

The presence of similar light-emitting enzymes in the distantly related organisms lends new insight into bioluminescence evolution.

Report finds that pathologist involved in anonymous defamation case committed multiple acts of misconduct; growing eggs from stem cells; neutrophils’ role in metastasis; convergent evolution in birds