Hardworking sodium/ potassium pump fundamentally similar to free-flowing ion channel
Right now, in your body, tiny pumps in the fatty membranes surrounding all your cells are hard at work pushing select charged ions, such as sodium, potassium or calcium, through those membranes. Like a water pump in a high-rise apartment building overcoming the force of gravity to move water up to a tank on its roof, these ion pumps work against “electrochemical gradients” to transport ions from one s
Somewhere in the distant, old Universe, a population of stars hide undetected. They were the first to form after the birth of the Universe and are supposed to be far bigger in mass than any star visible today.
Astronomers know they must have been out there: only in this way could they solve the riddle of the origin and composition of stars in todays Universe. A couple of ESA missions will help astronomers search for this elusive population.
When the Universe formed, there was
Testing Begins This Winter
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) are testing a Web-based system for weather forecasting and winter road treatment that could soon save lives, cut costs, and help keep millions of drivers on the move. Highway officials and road crews in Des Moines and Ames, Iowa, will test the Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS) February 3 to April 4.
Motor vehicle accidents involving bad weather
Compound could lead to a new generation of antibiotics that battle resistance
University at Buffalo scientists have discovered a promising new drug lead that works by inhibiting the sophisticated bacterial communication system called quorum sensing.
The new compound is active against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the gram-negative infection that strikes — and usually kills — cystic fibrosis patients and many others whose immune systems are compromised. The bacteria, like many o
Using atomic-force microscopy, vision researchers have taken pictures of some of the eyes photon receptors in their natural state, and have analyzed their packing arrangement. Their findings, published in the Jan. 9 issue of Nature, offer insight on how light signaling might be controlled in the retinas outer edge.
The retina receives light through rods and cones. Rods, which are most heavily concentrated on the retinas outer edge, are sensitive to dim light and to movemen
Scientists at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UCSD analyzing traffic to one of the 13 Domain Name System (DNS) “root” servers at the heart of the Internet found that the server spends the majority of its time dealing with unnecessary queries. DNS root servers provide a critical link between users and the Internet’s routing infrastructure by mapping text host names to numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. Researchers at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) at