Ancient chemoreceptors retain their flexibility

Ancient chemoreceptors retain their flexibility.

B acterial and archaeal microbes possess a wide array of surfacedeployed receptors for monitoring their chemical and physical surroundings. Particularly prominent among microbial chemoreceptors are the so-called methyl-accepting chemotaxis proteins (MCPs), which sense changes in the cell’s chemical environment and generate intracellular signals that control the organism’s pattern of locomotion ...

How evaporating carbon nanotubes retain their perfection?

We present a mechanism of high-temperature sublimation of carbon nanotubes that does not destroy their ordered makeup even upon significant loss of mass. The atoms depart to the gas phase from the pentagon-heptagon dislocation cores, while the bond disruption is immediately repaired, and the 5|7 seamlessly propagate through the lattice. This explains a broad class of unsettled phenomena when at...

Ancient lentiviruses leave their mark.

O ne of the most remarkable insights from the human genome project was that more genetic material is devoted to vertically transmitted and defective remnants of once-infectious retroviruses, commonly referred to as endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), than to human protein-coding DNA (1). Current estimates place the ERV component of the human genome at 5–8%, comprising at least 31 distinct families,...

Nitroxyl donors retain their depressor effects in hypertension.

Nitroxyl (HNO), the redox congener of nitric oxide, has numerous vasoprotective actions including an ability to induce vasodilation and inhibit platelet aggregation. Given HNO is resistant to scavenging by superoxide and does not develop tolerance, we hypothesised that HNO would retain its in vivo vasodilatory action in the setting of hypertension. The in vitro and in vivo vasodilator propertie...

Stenberg v. Carhart: women retain their right to choose.