Neuroscience

Brain research gets a boost from mosquitoes

Can a protein found in a mosquito lead to a better understanding of the workings of our own brains? Prof. Ofer Yizhar and his team in the Weizmann Institute of Science's Neurobiology Department took a light-sensitive protein ...

Ophthalmology

Shedding light on rhodopsin dynamics in the retina

Photoreceptor cells in our eyes can adjust to both weak and strong light levels, but we still don't know exactly how they do it. Emeritus Professor Fumio Hayashi of Kobe University and his colleagues revealed that the photoreceptor ...

Ophthalmology

Newly discovered chemical reaction in eye may improve vision

A light-sensing pigment found in everything from bacteria to vertebrates can be biochemically manipulated to reset itself, an important therapeutic advantage, according to new research out of Case Western Reserve University ...

Neuroscience

Visual pigment rhodopsin forms two-molecule complexes in vivo

The study of rhodopsin—the molecule that allows the eye to detect dim light—has a long and well-recognized history of more than 100 years. Nevertheless, there is still controversy about the structure in which the molecule ...

Medical research

Team finds dissimilar proteins evolved similar 7-part shape

Solving the structure of a critical human molecule involved in cancer, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found what they call a good example of structural conservation—dissimilar genes that keep very ...

Medical research

New understanding of how we see colors

(Medical Xpress)—Scientists have until now not fully understood how animals see in color, since visual pigments in eyes contain exactly the same chromophore (light absorbing segment of the molecule) and yet can absorb different ...

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