Month: September 2022

BIOCHEMISTRY OF BACTERIAL MEMORIES. https://lnkd.in/d-cfkR2 View in LinkedIn

MOLECULES MORPHING INTO MEMORIES. “Efforts to discover how neurons make memories have long confronted a major roadblock: Neurons are extremely sensitive to any kind of disruption, yet only by probing their innermost workings can scientists view the molecular processes that culminate in memories.” https://lnkd.in/dcQaUQX View in LinkedIn

PRION-LIKE PROTEINS. “Long-term Memories Are Maintained by Prion-like Proteins. As long as these aggregates are present, Kandel says, long-term memories persist. Prion aggregates renew themselves by continually recruiting newly made soluble prions into the aggregates. "This ongoing maintenance is crucial," said Dr. Kandel. "It's how you remember, for example, your first love for the rest of your life." https://lnkd.in/dgF6U_j View in LinkedIn

PROFESSOR GRAHAM COLLINGRIDGE (also a winner of the Brain Prize) “suggests we may feel able to remove distressing memories using drugs.” https://lnkd.in/dnaUMmN View in LinkedIn

THE TRACE. “Memory is not a carbon copy, but rather a reconstruction, of the world we've experienced.” http://io9.gizmodo.com/memory-implantation-is-now-officially-real-909746570 View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE contemplates plant-pollinator interactions for this and next weekend. The emergence of green plants on Earth changed the world by providing an abundant food source, a habitat, and an ecosystem for nested hierarchies of diverse creatures. Key amongst these were the pollinators that co-evolved with plants, and permitted their complex reproductive cycles. This complex mutualistic co-evolution of flowering plants and pollinators has been pieced together over time and tells the story of how evolution is more about cooperation than competition. View in LinkedIn

SEXUAL MESSENGERS. "Plants are immobile, and therefore they cannot choose their own sex partners. To cope with this handicap, several lineages of plants have invented a trick to facilitate the directed transfer of gametes: harnessing animals as go-betweens. This is known in some gymnosperms and even mosses, but it is in the angiosperms where animal pollination is most commonly encountered and where, in many cases, it has evolved exquisite complexity." https://lnkd.in/dHD-ddW View in LinkedIn

SURROGATE PARTNERS. "This means that the morphology of angiosperm sex organs (flowers), rather than fitting those of the opposite sex, must generate a lock-and-key fit with the animals that visit them. These visitors do not normally come for sex; instead they are paid for their services, typically by means of sugary nectar or surplus pollen. Plants advertise these rewards with showy displays to assist pollinators in finding them." https://lnkd.in/dHD-ddW View in LinkedIn