Search the life sciences

19+ min ago   (529+ words) A global study has challenged one of ecology’s most persistent assumptions about invasive plants: that their success is consistently powered by a special relationship with soil fungi. The research, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, finds that the mycorrhizal strategy of…...

5+ hour, 12+ min ago   (618+ words) A new review in Nature Reviews Bioengineering presents cellular assemblies as a potential new class of “living therapeutics” — biological systems built from organized groups of cells rather than from isolated cells delivered as a suspension. The concept draws on a…...

5+ hour, 50+ min ago   (629+ words) A new serum-profiling study is bringing molecular evidence to one of the most difficult diagnostic questions in connective-tissue medicine: how closely are hypermobile Ehlers–Danlos syndrome and hypermobility spectrum disorders biologically related? Using a technology known as proximity extension assay,…...

6+ hour ago   (55+ words) A heart transplant can restore circulation, reverse advanced heart failure and give patients years of life, but the new organ remains under constant surveillance by the immune system. The recipient’s body recognizes the transplanted heart as biologically foreign, creating the…...

7+ hour, 9+ min ago   (526+ words) Spatial biology has promised a more complete view of how cells behave inside tissues, but that promise has often come with a steep technical price. Researchers who want to measure both gene activity and protein abundance while preserving each molecule’s…...

12+ hour, 12+ min ago   (55+ words) A previously unrecognized layer of genome organization has been identified in the mammalian brain, where exceptionally long genes and the enormous enhancers that regulate them assemble into a distinct nuclear territory. The discovery, reported in Nature Cell Biology, suggests that…...

12+ hour, 42+ min ago   (616+ words) Researchers have introduced a synthetic “cell” platform designed to do something conventional biomaterials and biochemical assays have struggled to achieve: reproduce the mechanical, chemical and structural complexity that governs real cell–cell interactions. Called kpiCells, the system is engineered to…...

21+ hour, 4+ min ago   (596+ words) They created fertile female mice from cells carrying the male genome. How many parents does it take to make a family? According to a new study, just one. In a striking experiment, researchers in Japan used cells from male mice…...

23+ hour, 37+ min ago   (421+ words) EasyGrid Simplifies Cryo-Electron Microscopy Sample Preparation Labroots EasyGrid Simplifies Cryo-Electron Microscopy Sample Preparation A new method published in Nature Methods removes much of the guesswork and time-consuming optimization from sample preparation for cryo-electron microscopy and tomography (cryo-EM/ET). To image…...

20+ hour, 10+ min ago   (609+ words) A new study in Arabidopsis thaliana has identified the polymerase-associated factor 1 complex, or PAF1C, as a central component of the plant response to DNA replication stress. The findings reveal that PAF1C does more than support transcription: it also helps protect replication forks…...