When it comes to naming the world’s fastest creature, it’s tempting to think of peregrine falcons, cheetahs, or marlins, but as researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology are apt to point out, we mustn’t forget Spirostomum ambiguum—a worm-like creature that reaches breakneck speeds through rapid shrinkage.
Cells, they’re all different. Even two similar-looking cells that are supposed to work together in the same tissue might express completely different traits, and make different proteins. So how do you make left and right of it all?
The best part of high school biology was the movies. Some of them basically amounted to weird close-up fetish porn, sure. Other high school biology videos were actually educational, including the only one that ever taught me anything about the human cell, Inner Life of a Cell. But a new video puts them all to shame.
A new microscope developed at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts is allowing scientists track the position and orientation of individual molecules in living cells. It has the potential to reveal unknown aspects of molecular behavior, including those that turn cells into agents of disease.
Using state-of-the art microscopy, scientists have peered inside cardiac cells while they beat, revealing tube-like structures that buckle and then snap back into shape, much like shock absorbers. The details now appear in Science.
Scientists from China have made history by taking a cell that’s not a sperm cell and then used it to create a live animal. A similar technique could be used one day to treat infertility in humans.
This is a transistor, but not as you know it. Instead of acting as a tiny switch to control the flow of electrons, this devices controls the flow of living cells.
For the first time ever, molecular biologists have filmed the death of a human white blood cell. But the video shows something else, too. These integral components of our immune system do not go quietly into that good night. Rather, they go down alerting their neighbors to the presence of potential pathogens.
The Y chromosome, a chunk of genetic code that is unique to male mammals, isn’t just physically smaller than the X. It also contains far fewer genes. The X has more than 1000 genes, while the Y has fewer than 200 —and most of them don’t even work. Why do men have this odd, stunted chromosome in their genomes?
It's like wearing X-ray goggles, but better. Caltech researchers have created two new techniques that allow them to identify individual cells within 3D, intact organisms or tissues. And the results are jaw-droppingly beautiful.
If you have ever experienced going to a music festival and sleeping in a tent you already know how shitty that can be. Well, these Belgian designers came up with a cool looking and comfortable solution for that: Hexagonal sleeping cells each containing a king-size bed.
Andy Lomas made this music video for a song called Seething by Max Cooper. Lomas created software that emulates biological cell growth. Just by adjusting certain parameters, such as the forces between cells or the source and quantity of nutrients, he obtains different forms.
Some artists find inspiration from the grand and vast, painting galaxies and taking photos of expansive landscapes. But Rogan Brown finds his inspiration through a microscope, focusing on the infinite mystery of nature's smallest parts.
Staying healthy is a lot like medieval warfare. Cells vs viruses. There are cells defending their castles and viruses trying to break through. If a sneaky virus manages to attack a cell, the cell fights it and notifies all the other castles about what to build to defend it. Man, learning about biology is so much…
To get a super-detailed X-ray view inside a cell—right down to the individual molecules—scientists dunk the cell they're looking at in preservative chemicals. That not only kills the cell, it changes its internal structure ever so slightly, meaning researchers aren't getting an exact look at the cell's natural state.…
Scientists have long been toiling to create artificial life, managing to produce man-made cell walls and even synthetic DNA. But now, a team of chemists has produced a functioning cell made from polymers.
Every year, GE Healthcare runs a competition to find the best microscopic cell images of the year—and here are some of our favorites from the shortlist.
