molecular biology – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:10:47 -0400 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2 Cells Across the Tree of Life Exchange ‘Text Messages’ Using RNA https://www.quantamagazine.org/cells-across-the-tree-of-life-exchange-text-messages-using-rna-20240916/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/cells-across-the-tree-of-life-exchange-text-messages-using-rna-20240916/#respond Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:10:47 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140852 The post Cells Across the Tree of Life Exchange ‘Text Messages’ Using RNA first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> For a molecule of RNA, the world is a dangerous place. Unlike DNA, which can persist for millions of years in its remarkably stable, double-stranded form, RNA isn’t built to last — not even within the cell that made it. Unless it’s protectively tethered to a larger molecule, RNA can degrade in minutes or less. And outside a cell? Forget about it. Voracious, RNA-destroying enzymes are everywhere...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/cells-across-the-tree-of-life-exchange-text-messages-using-rna-20240916/feed/ 0 The Cellular Secret to Resisting the Pressure of the Deep Sea https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-cellular-secret-to-resisting-the-pressure-of-the-deep-sea-20240909/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-cellular-secret-to-resisting-the-pressure-of-the-deep-sea-20240909/#respond Mon, 09 Sep 2024 14:18:08 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140436 The post The Cellular Secret to Resisting the Pressure of the Deep Sea first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> The bottom of the ocean is cold, dark and under extreme pressure. It is not a place suited to the physiology of us surface dwellers: At the deepest point, the pressure of 36,200 feet of seawater is greater than the weight of an elephant on every square inch of your body. Yet Earth’s deepest places are home to life uniquely suited to these challenging conditions. Scientists have studied how the...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-cellular-secret-to-resisting-the-pressure-of-the-deep-sea-20240909/feed/ 0 How Colorful Ribbon Diagrams Became the Face of Proteins https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-colorful-ribbon-diagrams-became-the-face-of-proteins-20240823/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-colorful-ribbon-diagrams-became-the-face-of-proteins-20240823/#respond Fri, 23 Aug 2024 14:43:59 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140004 The post How Colorful Ribbon Diagrams Became the Face of Proteins first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Jane Richardson never considered herself an artist. Then, in the late 1970s, the structural biologist found herself in need of some colored pencils, pastels and sketching paper. Richardson, a professor of biochemistry at Duke University, studied proteins, the biomolecules that underpin all the workings of life. At the time, structural biologists were getting better at creating 3D models of...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-colorful-ribbon-diagrams-became-the-face-of-proteins-20240823/feed/ 0 How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn’t End It https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-ai-revolutionized-protein-science-but-didnt-end-it-20240626/ Wed, 26 Jun 2024 14:23:51 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=138623 The post How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn’t End It first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> In December 2020, when pandemic lockdowns made in-person meetings impossible, hundreds of computational scientists gathered in front of their screens to watch a new era of science unfold. They were assembled for a conference, a friendly competition some of them had attended in person for almost three decades where they could all get together and obsess over the same question. Known as the protein...

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]]> New AI Tools Predict How Life’s Building Blocks Assemble https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-ai-tools-predict-how-lifes-building-blocks-assemble-20240508/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-ai-tools-predict-how-lifes-building-blocks-assemble-20240508/#respond Wed, 08 May 2024 15:00:29 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=137793 The post New AI Tools Predict How Life’s Building Blocks Assemble first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Proteins are the molecular machines that sustain every cell and organism, and knowing what they look like will be critical to untangling how they function normally and malfunction in disease. Now researchers have taken a huge stride toward that goal with the development of new machine learning algorithms that can predict the folded shapes of not only proteins but other biomolecules with...

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