Telic Thoughts is an independent blog about intelligent design.


« More Convergence
Detecting Design »

Organization at the Heart of Life

by MikeGene

From here:

The cell is understood to be highly organized, with specialized areas for different functions and molecular motors shuttling components around. Researchers from the University of Illinois' Chicago and Urbana-Champaign campuses now offer the first imaging evidence from live cells of ongoing organization and transport within the cell nucleus.

Genes that are active are located mainly in the central region of the nucleus, while inactive genes are at the periphery. But scientists have had no way to track chromosome movement inside the nucleus or to determine whether the location of the chromosomes was the result of random diffusion or if they are moved around by molecular motors.

In a study published in the April 17 issue of Current Biology, UIC and UIUC researchers show that chromosomes in the cell nucleus are capable of directed, long-range movement that depends on actin and myosin, the major molecular motor complex in the cytoplasm.

["¦]

"The movement following activation was radically different from the rapid, but short-range, diffuse movement previously observed in these nuclei," said Dr. Andrew Belmont, professor of cell and developmental biology at UIUC, principle investigator and co-author of the study. It was clear that this was directed movement that required a motor, Belmont said, because the chromosome was moving in a nearly straight line perpendicular to the nuclear envelope. The chromosome traveled further in several minutes than ever observed, even over several hours, in the absence of activation.
"It looked nothing like the random, but localized, bouncing around that had been previously observed," he said.

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Mixx
  • StumbleUpon
  • YahooMyWeb
  • del.icio.us

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 18th, 2006 at 8:21 am and is filed under Biology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. The trackback link is: http://telicthoughts.com/organization-at-the-heart-of-life/trackback/

3 Responses to “Organization at the Heart of Life”

  1. Guts Says:
    April 18th, 2006 at 2:19 pm

    Here's the videos.

  2. Comment by Guts — April 18, 2006 @ 2:19 pm

  3. Bilbo Says:
    April 19th, 2006 at 4:16 pm

    No, no, Mike. It's a hurricane in there. I don't care what they think they see.

  4. Comment by Bilbo — April 19, 2006 @ 4:16 pm

  5. len Says:
    April 19th, 2006 at 11:25 pm

    You indicarating that someone is full of a hot air mass, Bilbo???

  6. Comment by len — April 19, 2006 @ 11:25 pm

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

  • Featured Books


    The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues by Mike Gene
    Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

    Catalyzing Inquiry at the Interface of Computing and Biology

    System Modeling in Cellular Biology: From Concepts to Nuts and Bolts

    The Plausibility of Life By Marc W. Kirschner and John C. Gerhart

    Agents Under Fire by Angus Menuge

    Life's Solution by Simon Conway Morris

    Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life by Hubert P. Yockey

    The Fifth Miracle by Paul Davies

    Nature, Design, and Science by Del Ratzsch

    Origination of Organismal Form by Muller & Newman

    Biased Embryos and Evolution by Wallace Arthur

    Rare Earth by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee

    The Privileged Planet by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards

    The Way of the Cell by Franklin Harold

    The Volitional Brain by Benjamin Libet

    Evolution in Four Dimensions by Eva Jablonka & Marion Lamb

    The Evolution-Creation Struggle by Michael Ruse




Telic Thoughts is proudly powered by WordPress
Hosting provided by College Crunch.

Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).