By Antonino Puglisi One of my heroes of the current COVID-19 pandemic is the Hungarian biochemist Katalin Karikó. Coming from a very humble background, she decided to become a scientist and immigrated to the US to pursue her research. For years, Katalin struggled to find a permanent position, clinging on by her fingernails to research…
Communication among plants
By Zsuzsa Román Several studies have explored the topic of communication among plants, including some articles on this blog, such as Catherine Belzung’s Trees too collaborate and Maria Florencia Decarlini’s A hidden giant of our planet. Beyond the underground “information” networks formed by fungal roots there are also communication routes established by chemical and electrical…
Social life inside a cell
By Catherine Belzung Vertebrates, but also other animals such as insects, are characterized by social behavior, i.e., interactions between individuals from the same species. This enables cooperation, coordination, emergence of complex behaviors, and reciprocal help, which increase the fitness of a social group. Interestingly, this is not found only among multicellular organisms, but also among…
The center and boundary of the Universe
By Gabriel Ferrero The most accepted explanation about the beginning of the universe, usually known as the Big Bang theory, is founded on several observational facts. One of them is an astonishing discovery made by Edwin Hubble and Georges Lemaître in the late 1920s. They realized, both observationally and theoretically, that the farthest galaxies move…
The Fractal Structure of the Universe
By Wiesław M. Macek The basic concept of a fractal is coined from the Latin adjective fractus and the corresponding verb frangere, which means ‘to break into irregular fragments’ (Mandelbrot, 1982). More specifically we can say that a fractal is a rough or fragmented geometrical object that can be subdivided into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy…
Dopamine: a special orchestra conductor in the brain
By Ornella Valenti Neurotransmitters are brain chemicals that allow cells to communicate and to interconnect. They function like small boats that transfer important messages from one brain cell, the neuron, to the others. In Figure 1, orange spheres are representative of neurotransmitters, released from one neuron and directed to neighbouring ones. Over the past years, several…
Empathy and compassion: can they be learned?
By Catherine Belzung Sociality is facilitated by the capacity to draw inferences about the emotions, the thoughts, the beliefs and the intentions of others. It includes a cognitive aspect that allows, e.g., to understand that others might have views that are different from mine, and this is referred to as “theory of mind”, and an…
Seeing eye to eye
By Ján Morovič Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) is a disease that results in a sudden loss of vision in both eyes, either at the same time or one after the other. It is a genetic mutation transmitted via DNA in human mitochondria, the small cell structures responsible for energy generation. The mutation results in…
Underlying interactions in cell engineering
By Francesca Ceroni In “Emergent properties at the DNA level” I shared how the prediction of the behaviour of DNA heterologous systems (i.e. artificial DNA fragments that are non-native for the cell) from their individual components is still a challenge in cell engineering. Here, I would like to move from the DNA level to the…
The incredible relationship between the clownfish and the sea anemone
By Stefania Papa The clownfish, which became famous thanks to the film “Finding Nemo”, is one of the favourite models of photographers. They are small, easy to find, charismatic fish that often seem to play hide and seek among the anemone’s tentacles. But this is much more than a game … Clownfish and anemones live…
Wonderverse 