Mitochondria: To most people, they’re little more than a ghostly memory fragment from middle school biology. However, these tiny “powerhouse(s) of the cell” are much more than they seem. They’re actually the shape-shifting descendants of ancient bacteria that were eaten by a larger archaebacterium billions of years ago. . (If you want to know more …
[Computer rendering of DNA. Via Caroline Davis2010 on Flickr & CC 2.0] The Talk: “DNA-mediated Signaling with Metalloproteins” In Plain English: DNA can conduct electricity–like metal wire–and that helps the cell life The Speaker: Jacqueline Barton of Caltech The Sponsor: MIT Inorganic Chemistry (invited by the grad students) What It Covered: When Jacqueline Barton’s lab …
[Image via the NIH Image Gallery. Photo by Alex Ritter, Jennifer Lippincott Schwartz, and Gillian Griffiths. Full video, complete with narration here.] Under the Radar: A series of listicles about biology concepts you definitely won’t find in newspaper headlines. #1: Be a Navigation App for Immune Cells Natural killer cells, or “NK cells” are the …
[This post is part of a series called “Brown Bag Lunch Reports” where I recap some of the academic talks given at college campuses in and around the city of Boston. Let me know what you think of the post format and what kinds of talks you think I should recap next!] The Talk’s Title: …