The inviting smell of a freshly baked cookie immediately triggers a motor response to search for the source of that smell. Often the cookie can be easily found. This everyday event that we perform without a thought is an amazing feat that combines our superior ability to smell the cookie and computational prowess to determine […]
It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and love is in the air. Or in the waxy coating on your skin, if you are a vinegar fly. That’s where flies encounter pheromones that play an important role in regulating sexual attraction. Flies use pheromones to ensure that they court and mate with members of the same species. As […]
Yehuda Ben-Shahar, PhD, professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, won a $190,388 supplemental award from the National Science Foundation for his project “Molecular mechanisms for signal-receptor functional coupling in phenomenal systems.” Originally published on The Source.
For a honey bee, few things are more important than recognizing your nestmates. Being able to tell a nestmate from an invader could mean the difference between a honey-stocked hive and a long, lean winter. New research from Washington University in St. Louis shows that honey bees rely on chemical cues related to their shared […]
Most people with a medical condition called long QT syndrome have a mutation in a gene that causes bouts of fast, chaotic heartbeats. They also experience fainting spells and seizures. The clinical approach has largely assumed that when the heart beats erratically, the brain eventually does not get enough oxygen — which in turn causes […]
It is a classic coming-of-age story, in many ways. A honey bee hatches and grows up deep inside a hive. Surrounded by 40,000 of her closest relatives, this dark and constantly buzzing place is all that she knows. Only after she turns 21 days old does she leave the nest to look for pollen and […]