Jay Swan's List: Current Research

Do parasites use their own microRNAs to hijack host cell pathways?

Cells act like tiny computers, and finally, scientists are figuring out what makes their genetic circuits blink on and off.

If you’ve got a cellphone and a good pair of ears, you can help with the first-ever comprehensive cricket census of New York City.

An incredibly cool look at evolutionary pathways and the relatedness of all life.

But new research comparing mitochondria, which provide energy to animal cells, with their bacterial relatives, shows that the necessary pieces for one particular cellular machine — exactly the sort of structure that’s supposed to prove intelligent design — were lying around long ago. It was simply a matter of time before they came together into a more complex entity.

The pieces “were involved in some other, different function. They were recruited and acquired a new function,” said Sebastian Poggio, a postdoctoral cell biologist at Yale University and co-author of the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mitochondria are descended from free-living bacteria, which several billion years ago were swallowed by complex cells. The mitochondria soon became central to the cells’ function.

Mitochondria couldn’t have lasted in their new home without the help of a protein machine called TIM23, which delivers other proteins harvested from the cell’s body. Bacteria don’t possess TIM23, suggesting that it evolved in mitochondria. This seems to pose a cellular chicken-and-egg question: How could protein transport evolve when it was necessary to survive in the first place?

The essential paradox applies to other protein-transporting cell systems, providing disbelievers of evolution with a key part of their critique. As articulated by intelligent design proponent Michael Behe, “This constant, regulated traffic flow in the cell comprises another remarkably complex, irreducible system. All parts must function or the system breaks down.”

According to evolutionary theory, however, cellular complexity is reducible. It requires only that existing components be repurposed, with inevitable mutations providing extra ingredients as needed. Flagella, the hairlike propellers used by bacteria to move, are one example of this. Their component parts are found throughout cells, performing other tasks.

Intelligent design mavens once cited flagella as evidence of their theory. Scientific fact dispelled

The benefits of "barefoot" running.

Can natural regenerators such as the newt teach scientists about the ingredients needed to grow new limbs and organs? Even in, say, mammals?

More and more synthetic versions of key parts of the human cell, including chromosomes, have been developed by scientists in the past decade or so. Now researchers are aiming even higher, developing the first working artificial prototype of an "organ" of a human cell—the Golgi apparatus, which helps modify biomolecules and package them for delivery around the cell.

The same blue food dye that gives your Gatorade its turquoise tint and turns your tongue a peculiar shade of purple might also protect your nerves in the case of spinal cord injury.

The Why Files is a resource designed for students to learn about the science of stories in the news. The Why Files doesn't cover every news story, just the stories that have clear connections to science concepts.

Navy engineers aren’t the only ones who can jam sonar. Scientists have discovered a species of tiger moth that thwarts hungry bats by emitting extra-loud clicks to block the bats’ ability to echolocate.

A new study finds that a change in a single gene has sent two closely related bird populations on their way to becoming two distinct species. The study, published in the August issue of the American Naturalist, is one of only a few to investigate the specific genetic changes that drive two populations toward speciation.

Scientists have revealed a spectacular insight into turtle evolution - how the unique animals get their shells.

The Rosetta Stone of bacterial communication may have been found. Although they have no sensory organs, bacteria can get a good idea about what's going on in their neighborhood and communicate with each other, mainly by secreting and taking in chemicals from their surrounding environment. Even though there are millions of different kinds of bacteria with their own ways of sensing the world around them, Duke University bioengineers believe they have found a principle common to all of them.

You don't need to be "some old guy" to do great things in science.