Hoxful Monsters

Australopithecus sediba : A new hominin fossil discovery

Nagraj — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 20:42:34 +0000

Skeletal remains found by an international team, in a cave about 30 miles northwest of Johannesburg South African cave may yield new clues to human development and answer key questions of the evolution of the human lineage. The team consisting of members from U.S., African, European and Australian universities, named the new species, Australopithecus sediba, in April 2010. They found skeletal remains in a cave of many individuals of Australopithecus sediba possibly belonging to a family group. They all seemed to have died suddenly in the same event about ...

China’s new Dinosaur fossil discovery- Knocking Archaeopteryx off its perch?

Nagraj — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 02:05:44 +0000

Archaeopteryx is considered by many to be the first bird, being of about 150 million years of age. Archaeopteryx was discovered in 1861, two years after Charles Darwin published ” On the Origin of Species”,ever-since it has become a textbook example for transitional fossil In the 150th anniversary of its discovery, the position of Archaeopteryx as the earliest-known bird has been weakened thanks to the discovery of increasing numbers of feathered, bird-like dinosaurs over the past decade and a half. These claims are now further strengthened by a new fossil discovery ...

Potato genome sequence cracked

Nagraj — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 01:31:48 +0000

The Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium (PGSC), a team of scientists from institutions worldwide, including Virginia Tech, has published its findings in the Sunday July 10 online issue of the journal Nature. The successful sequencing of the genome of the world’s third most important crop began when Richard Veilleux, who is the Julian and Margaret Gary Professor of Horticulture in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech, wondered if the then new applications of plant tissue culture could be used to develop parent ...

Jewel beetles, obtained from local people, turn out to be 4 species unknown to science

Nagraj — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:25:03 +0000

A team of researchers from the Czech University of Life Sciences discovered four new species of jewel beetles (Buprestidae) from South-eastern Asia. This family of beetles is named for their particularly beautiful body and fascinating, shiny colours. “All new species belong to the genus Philanthaxia. Before the publication of this study, 61 species had been known from this genus. Currently, it comprises of 65 species, with a primarily Southeast-Asian distribution, except for two species extending to the Australasian region”, said Oto Nakládal, a co-author of the study. Caption: Philanthaxia jakli (left) and ...

A chaperone system guides tail-anchored membrane proteins to their destined membrane

Nagraj — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:48:37 +0000

A newly synthesized protein is as fragile as a newborn baby. It could never fold into its correct three dimensional structure if it was not protected by chaperones within the densely populated cytosol. In case of membrane proteins chaperones do not only pre-vent their aggregation, but also escort them to their destination and aid in membrane insertion. The underlying molecular mechanism of how a certain family of membrane proteins is targeted and inserted into membranes has now been resolved by an international research team with participation of the Goethe University ...