Proteins long known to be essential for hearing have been hiding a talent: they also act as gatekeepers that shuffle fatty ...

Cell membranes protect and organize cells. All cells have an outer plasma membrane that regulates not only what enters the cell, but also how much of any given substance comes in. Unlike prokaryotes, ...

Researchers at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders have identified a previously unknown mechanism that destroys the sensory hair cells of the inner ear, a discovery ...

Unlike our organs, cell organelles such as mitochondria are not fixed in place, but when, where, how, and why organelles move remain unclear. Research published in the Biophysical Journal shows that ...

Scientists have uncovered an elegant biophysical trick that tuberculosis-causing bacteria use to survive inside human cells, ...

The human body is a dynamic place. Blood pumps, spinal fluid flows, oxygen comes in and carbon dioxide goes out. Deeper still, charged molecules pass through cell walls, quietly keeping the body's ...

An enduring challenge for the commercialization of genetic therapies is delivering the therapeutic molecules to the proper destination within the body. Viruses are natural delivery systems for nucleic ...

Researchers shifted the focus to the internal properties of the membrane itself, specifically its viscosity, highlighting its critical role in controlling deformation and dynamics during essential ...

In a bid to better understand how cancer cells power their explosive growth and spread, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have shed new light on the location and function of ...

Cancer cells often invade different tissues by forming rounded protrusions called blebs. However, the exact mechanism behind this expansion remained unclear. Now, researchers at Kyushu University have ...

The original version of this story appeared in 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 ...