New Tools to Fight Germs...from Frog Skin?

Early in the 20th century, brilliant chemists generated pharmaceuticals in laboratories. But the cost/reward ratio of painstaking lab experiments turned out to be far greater than the cost/reward ratio of extracting chemicals from living things. It turns out that the chemists were not doing nearly as good a job at providing effective drugs as God already had through nature.


Did 'Nature' Invent Oxygen-Carrying Systems...Twice?

An animal wouldn't grow larger than an insect without specialized equipment designed to transport oxygen to and carbon dioxide from cells deep inside its body. Fortunately, thousands of different animal kinds have been outfitted with tiny machines called hemoglobins that directly and specifically interact with individual oxygen molecules, making larger body sizes possible.


Breakthrough Shows Protein's 'Elegant' Eggshell Construction

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Since there could be neither a chicken nor an egg without each already existing in a fully functional state, they both had to have been put in place at the same time. But there are many interdependent parts in the chicken system, and new research has uncovered one of the tiniest--yet most vital--of them.


Highlander Tibetans Show Adaptation, Not 'Natural Selection'

Some Tibetans live at altitudes of 14,000 feet. Other than a few genetic differences, they are similar to Han Chinese, who live much closer to sea level. It is believed that ancient Han peoples migrated to Tibet and were able to adapt to the very thin air at this high altitude. But what kind of adaptation was necessary for this, and how did it occur?


Genome Study Shows Purpose, Not 'Selection'

The human genome has become a leading area of biological investigation. Its massive amounts of data have been digitized, which allows the information to be more easily studied. Much of genomic function remains a mystery, so new discoveries are common--and often quite surprising to the researchers making them.

Pages

Subscribe to Bioengineering