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Digestion on the cellular level: two mysteries examined

Written byMary Beth Aberlin
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When Alice went down the rabbit hole, she had some mighty strange adventures feeding herself: a quaff from a bottle labeled “Drink Me” and she began “shutting up like a telescope”; a nibble of a cake marked “Eat Me” and she was suddenly “opening out like the largest telescope that ever was!” Clearly possessed of an iron stomach, she went on undeterred to one adventure after another.

Eating behavior at the cellular level is the topic of features this month. “Curiouser and curiouser” truly describes the molecular bases for the very different types of digestion discussed in the two articles. In “The Enigmatic Membrane,” Muriel Mari, Sharon A. Tooze, and Fulvio Reggiori review the latest research on the mysterious origins of the double-bilayer membranes of ...

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