Only recently have scientists directly witnessed this most pivotal of events in biology, thanks to new technology that allows them to observe the process in living cells. It’s teaching them a lot.

A new show at New York’s Museum of Art and Design celebrates olfaction and the science behind modern perfume making.

By Alla Katsnelson Ancient aminos FtsZ mutant of Coxiella burnetii Courtesy of Paul Beare, Bryan Hansen, and Robert Heinzen For the past couple years, biochemist Richard Ludueña has been in the grips of a compelling notion. “I’ve been working on tubulin my whole career,” says Ludueña, based at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. “I’ve always wondered how it evolved.

Can drugs based on epigenetics spark a new era in cancer treatment?

The first genome sequence of a songbird, published in Nature this week, has provided scientists with the tools to begin studying the molecular underpinnings of vocal learning -- an ability present in just a few other animals, including whales, bats and humans. The zebra finch gets its name from the black-and-white stripes on the male finch's throatImage: L. Brian Stauffer, U. of Illinois News Bureau"This is a really important step forward for our field," said linkurl:Allison Doupe,;http://kec

A previously unknown human ancestor may have coexisted with Neanderthals and early modern humans.

Yeast may not have blood vessels, but it could be a powerful model organism for studying angiogenesis, according to linkurl:a study;http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/03/11/0910200107.full.pdf+html published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences yesterday (March 22, 2010) that describes a new, systems-biology approach for identifying surprising model organisms for human diseases. Image: Wikipedia"It's a Eureka moment of, gosh, I can't believe anybody didn't think of th

Researchers have identified a possible mechanism by which DNA regions that don't encode proteins can still determine phenotypic traits such as a person's height or susceptibility to a particular disease, researchers report online in Science today. Image: WikipediaThe scientists found that certain chromatin modifications often considered to be epigenetic -- meaning, regulated by factors other than genetic sequence -- are in fact determined by a person's DNA. Moreover, they found that this c

Pregnancy boosts the regenerative capacity of the liver in mice, a finding that may shed light on a process entirely separate from pregnancy -- aging, researchers report in linkurl:a study;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20231314 published this week in Genes and Development. lithograph of liver, Gray's Anatomy Image: Wikimedia CommonsThe findings are "really unexpected," said linkurl:Nikolai Timchenko,;http://www.bcm.edu/pathology/labs/timchenko/index.htm who studies liver regeneration and

Science might be a high stakes game, but a project's success or failure rarely determines whether the researchers undertaking it will live or die. There are, of course, some exceptions to this; say, for example, your work is funded by Joseph Stalin, and your task is to devise a way to preserve for eternity the body of Stalin's predecessor and the father of Soviet communism, Vladimir Lenin. Boris Zbarsky examines Lenin'sembalmed body, while Vladimir Vorobievand his assistant, Nadia, watch Photo

A cystic fibrosis drug that seemed destined for death when its company faced financial troubles (and eventually linkurl:went belly up;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55982/ last year) is being revived by another company. Image: Wikipedia A new company launched by a veteran of the defunct company (Altus Pharmaceuticals, which linkurl:we profiled;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55882/ last year) plans to submit the drug, a pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy, to the US Foo

Do fish have personalities?

By Alla Katsnelson Package delivery Courtesy of John HeissYour body is teeming with mysterious particles called vaults. With an average of 10,000 to 100,000 of them in every human cell, they’re thought to be one of the most abundant particles in the body. But no one knows their function. This mystery doesn’t phase the discoverer of vaults, University of California, Los Angeles cell biologist Leonard Rome. To him, what matters about vaults is no

NIH tweaks stem cell rulesThe US National Institutes of Health on Friday (Feb 19) proposed a change to its definition of a human embryonic stem cell. Presently, stem cell lines are defined as being derived from a blastocyst-stage embryo. The proposed revision would amend that wording to "up to and including the blastocyst stage." The policy, published in the linkurl:Federal Register,;http://www.federalregister.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2010-03527_PI.pdf is open for public comment. The issue was rais

Biology department casualtiesThe Chronicle of Higher Education has posted linkurl:remembrances;http://chronicle.com/article/Remembering-the-Victims/64199/ of the three researchers killed on Friday when Amy Bishop, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, opened fire in a faculty meeting, reportedly because she had been denied tenure. linkurl:Media reports;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/us/15alabama.html?ref=us revealed this weekend that Bishop had fatally