Cell Biology
Category archives for Cell Biology
Insect Wings Can Shred Bacteria To Pieces
Posted by Greg Laden on March 5, 2013 
The “clanger cicada” can physically kill bacteria by poking and shredding them with tiny pointy structures that seem to look a little like an old fashioned cheese grater. Keep in mind that this happens at a very small spacial scale, so the relationship between objects is different than in normal human experience. Essentially, the membrane…
Primary Cilia Connect
Posted by Greg Laden on April 23, 2012 Here is a press release from BioMed Central that is just so interesting I had to give it to you as it is without delay: Connecting cilia: cellular antennae help cells stick together Primary cilia are hair-like structures which protrude from almost all mammalian cells. They are thought to be sensory and involved in sampling…
Craig Venter unveils “synthetic life”
Posted by Greg Laden on May 25, 2010 Craig Venter and team make a historic announcement: they’ve created the first fully functioning, reproducing cell controlled by synthetic DNA. He explains how they did it and why the achievement marks the beginning of a new era for science.
Apparently, cells have been created from … Science!
Posted by Greg Laden on May 20, 2010 Scientists are reporting that they have made a living cell from DNA that was originally synthesized in a lab. This isn’t quite a synthetic organism. But the result is an important, and some would say troubling step on the road to creating life in the lab. Craig Venter is the scientist behind the effort. Many…
Science Pornography: You must be 18 years or older to view this blog post
Posted by Greg Laden on December 16, 2009 It turns out I write academia erotica! I can tell you that the three dimensional visual imagery in the post to which Stephanie refers was a replacement for the actual visual imagery I had in mind when I wrote it. But I couldn’t use that because …
Diatoms Large and Small
Posted by Greg Laden on February 19, 2009 Diatoms are algae with hard parts. They make up a major part of the plankton found in fresh and salt water environments. Usually, diatoms exist as single celled free floating organisms, but they can also be colonies of several single cells. Their tiny little ‘shells’ are made up of silica (these shells are called “fustules”).
I do not advocate this cookbook.
Posted by Greg Laden on January 28, 2009 But it might be worth thumbing through it just for fun … You must be over 18 to read the rest of tis blog post. ————————- the fold —————————–
When biology nerds get themselves a camera
Posted by Greg Laden on January 4, 2009 The original video couldn’t make it, so here’s a substitute teacher video:
Allen’s Rule, Phenotypic Plasticity, and The Nature of Evolution
Posted by Greg Laden on December 5, 2008 Allen’s Rule. One of those things you learn in graduate school along with Bergmann’s Rule and Cope’s Rule. It is all about body size. Cope’s Rule … which is a rule of thumb and not an absolute … says that over time the species in a given lineage tend to be larger and larger. Bergmann’s…
Human Cell Chasing Bacteria
Posted by Greg Laden on December 4, 2008 hat tip IBY
The role of vitamin D in beta-cell function
Posted by Greg Laden on November 29, 2008 Sue Lynn Lau chose classical ballet and highly kinetic party dancing as the way to interpret her Ph.D. thesis, “The role of vitamin D in beta-cell function.” As The Nutcracker Suite lilts in the background, Lau, a graduate student from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, appears as the Sugarplum Fairy, delivering…
Giant Gromia (amoebas) may account for ancient sea floor tracks
Posted by Greg Laden on November 22, 2008 A protist is a single celled eukaryotic organism, and they are usually pretty small. You can often see them, though! Before you put that sample of pond water under the microscope, take a close look: Many protists are at the boundary of visibility for humans. Then, there are the giant protists, grape size, living on…
Can Evolution “Learn” From Past Environments?
Posted by Greg Laden on November 14, 2008 The paper I’m about to discuss is a minefield of potential misconceptions that arise from the way we often use language do describe natural phenomena. This is a situation where it would be easier to start with a disclaimer … a big giant obvious quotation mark … and then use the usual misleading, often anthropomorphic…
Cellular safety shelters allow TB agent to survive in infected individuals
Posted by Greg Laden on November 13, 2008 Imagine that you are a bad guy running from the law, and the sheriff is about to catch up to you. If you want, you can be Butch Cassidy or the Sundance Kid or any other charismatic bad guy. Or maybe you’re a wizard in Harry Potter and Dementors are about to catch up to…
Cultural Evolution from Mosquitos to Worm Grunting
Posted by Greg Laden on October 13, 2008 A very good day of grunting worms. Credit: Ken Catania So-called Gene-Culture Co-Evolution can be very obvious and direct or it can be very subtle and complex. In almost all cases, the details defy the usual presumptions people make about the utility of culture, the nature of human-managed knowledge, race, and technology. I would like…
Figuring out DNA looping with unbelievably advanced technology
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2008 An article just out in PLOS Biology explores one of the most important, but also difficult to observe, phenomena related to DNA regulation. Figure 1 from the paper: “Atomic Force Microscopy of Lac Repressor-DNA Complexes (A) Schematic structures of biotin (bio)- and digoxigenin (dig)-labeled DNA constructs with one (O-539 and O-349) or two (O-153-O and…
How brains work, how brain imaging works: Astrocytes
Posted by Greg Laden on June 20, 2008 Blood flow in the brain is linked to neuronal activity. Therefore, various ‘brain scanning’ techniques can be used to observe neuronal activity in the brain. This has led to an astonishing revolution in knowledge of how the brain works. Of course, you knew that already. Also astonishing is that the reason for changes in blood…
New Research on How Visual Memory Works
Posted by Greg Laden on April 25, 2008 Life is complex. The way a living system works can be described in a series of increasingly refined models, each fleshing out details of the previous model. Typically, description at one level raises questions about what is happening at the finer level. These questions induce hypotheses which drive experimental work which produces ever more detailed…
What’s in the air?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 18, 2008 Good question … what IS in the air? The simple answer is that the air … the Earth’s atmosphere … is about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, with a tiny amount of some other gases including water vapor. Then, there’s dirt. I want to talk a little about the oxygen, one of the other gases (carbon…
Is Blood Ever Blue? Science Teachers Want to Know!
Posted by Greg Laden on April 5, 2008 According to one of the leading experts on the human circulatory system, blood flowing through veins is blue.
The quality of YouTube biology projects is going up
Posted by Greg Laden on March 18, 2008 Photosynthesis Video
Posted by Greg Laden on March 11, 2008 Photosynthesis; This is how the British to it (teaching, not photosynthesis). From Crackle: Biology Education – Photosynthesis for GCSE / K12 …
AP Biology Gene Therapy Expose
Posted by Greg Laden on March 9, 2008 (Includes footage of a stuffed octopus)
Two Cell Level Animations
Posted by Greg Laden on February 29, 2008 are here: HIV infection at Wissen schafft Kommunikatioin Other cellular stuff (an oldie but a goodie) at WeiterGen!
Mitosis Interpretive Dance and Rap
Posted by Greg Laden on February 20, 2008 Mitosis in Synchronized Swimming
Posted by Greg Laden on February 16, 2008 What is a disease?
Posted by Greg Laden on February 12, 2008 “Disease” is a big word. I’d like to address this question by focusing on the difference, or lack of difference, between a poison, a disease, and a yummy thing to eat. It turns out that they may all be the same. Yet different.
, which is now available for the 
