Scientists develop the first CRISPR-Cas9-based gene drive in plants which may breed crops better able to withstand drought and disease.
Scientists have discovered a unique form of cell messaging occurring in the human brain that’s not been seen before. Excitingly, the discovery hints that our brains might be even more powerful units of computation than we realized.
Early last year, researchers from institutes in Germany and Greece reported a mechanism in the brain’s outer cortical cells that produces a novel ‘graded’ signal all on its own, one that could provide individual neurons with another way to carry out their logical functions.
By measuring the electrical activity in sections of tissue removed during surgery on epileptic patients and analysing their structure using fluorescent microscopy, the neurologists found individual cells in the cortex used not just the usual sodium ions to ‘fire’, but calcium as well.