Recent studies suggest animals and people alike have close and complex relationships with the bacteria around and within them. The human gut microbiome, for instance, has been associated with both depression and Parkinson’s disease. To go beyond association toward understanding of the actual mechanisms that enable the bacterial microbiome to influence brain function, a new […]
Read More
Animal behavior reflects a complex interplay between an animal’s brain and its sensory surroundings. Only rarely have scientists been able to discern how actions emerge from this interaction. A new open-access study in Nature Neuroscience by researchers in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT offers one example by revealing how circuits of […]
Read More
What if the Trojan horse had been pulled to pieces, revealing the ruse and fending off the invasion, just as it entered the gates of Troy? That’s an apt description of a newly characterized bacterial defense system that chops up foreign DNA. Bacteria and the viruses that infect them, bacteriophages — phages for short — […]
Read More
Cells rely on tiny molecules called microRNAs to tune which genes are active and when. Cells must carefully control the lifespan of microRNAs to prevent widespread disruption to gene regulation. A new study led by researchers at MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Germany’s Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry reveals how cells selectively eliminate […]
Read More
Some genetic mutations that are expected to completely stop a gene from working surprisingly cause only mild or even no symptoms. Researchers in previous studies have discovered one reason why: Cells can ramp up the activity of other genes that perform similar functions to make up for the loss of an important gene’s function. A […]
Read More