News & Events

As people age, they become increasingly prone to strokes and dementia that often lead to death. Frequently these problems begin with damage to small blood vessels, triggering a loss of...

Our thoughts and sensations originate as electrochemical signals that are passed along complex networks of nerves. They begin when a nerve generates an electrical charge that runs along the cell...

The brain of a human or another vertebrate begins in the early embryo as a simple tube made of cells. As it develops, it expands like a shaped balloon that...

When the human body becomes infected with new influenza viruses, the immune system rapidly activates an inborn protective mechanism to inhibit the intruding pathogen. A protein known as Mx plays an important role in this process, keeping the spread of viruses in check. Exactly how Mx accomplishes this task was previously unknown. Now virologists from the Institute of Medical Microbiology at the Freiburg University Medical Center and biochemists from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin-Buch, Germany, have unraveled the structure of the Mx protein and are able to explain how it develops its anti-viral effect (Nature, doi: 10.1038/nature08972)*.

Before the invention of the telephone, telegraph lines were used to communicate over long distances. An operator pushed a key and interrupted an electrical current flowing through the line, allowing...

Every day toxins, other kinds of environmental stress, or simply random events cause breaks in our DNA molecules that are potentially dangerous. Usually cells manage to repair the breaks or...