Damage From Wayward Weedkiller Keeps Growing

Terrifying. 🎃

¿Recuerdas cuando sólo sabías que esto era una célula, y pensabas que eso era todo lo que tenía? 

Era casi tierna cuando tenía sólo unos organelos con funciones que se resumían en unas pocas líneas, y la mitocondria era lo más complejo y abundante que podía existir porque la materia que te pasaban de ella ocupaba dos páginas del cuaderno…

Y qué importaba cómo se relaciona? Para eso tenía unas lindas proteínas en la membrana que comunicaban y hacían magia…

…

Todo ese simple concepto queda atrás cuando tienes biología celular…

Simple concepto escolar de célula, ¡te extraño!

Noche de estudio de Biología Celular, ¡voy por ti!

Amazing shots of a cell splitting in two! [Photos via María José Calasanz]

The microscopic diversity of a single droplet of water. 

From the observed rate of expansion, astronomers can estimate the age of the universe. For every year, light travels one light-year across space. So the farthest parts of the universe that we can see are as distant in light-years as the universe is old in years. Light from more distant regions has not had time to reach us. This distance marks the limits of the observable universe–our “cosmic horizon.” Image: NASA Hubble Space Telescope

Scientists accidentally create mutant enzyme that eats plastic bottles

The breakthrough, spurred by the discovery of plastic-eating bugs at a Japanese dump, could help solve the global plastic pollution crisis

Scientists have created a mutant enzyme that breaks down plastic drinks bottles – by accident. The breakthrough could help solve the global plastic pollution crisis by enabling for the first time the full recycling of bottles.

The new research was spurred by the discovery in 2016 of the first bacterium that had naturally evolved to eat plastic, at a waste dump in Japan. Scientists have now revealed the detailed structure of the crucial enzyme produced by the bug.

The international team then tweaked the enzyme to see how it had evolved, but tests showed they had inadvertently made the molecule even better at breaking down the PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic used for soft drink bottles. “What actually turned out was we improved the enzyme, which was a bit of a shock,” said Prof John McGeehan, at the University of Portsmouth, UK, who led the research. “It’s great and a real finding.”

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Kinesin (a motor protein) pulling some kind of vesicle along some kind of cytoskeletal filament.

ProtoPhotosynthesis™

The honey badger of the microbe world.