In the evolutionary history of life, the ability of a cell to separate its inner world from the external environment was an ...

Cells manage a wide range of functions in their tiny package — growing, moving, housekeeping, and so on — and most of those functions require energy. But how do cells get this energy in the first ...

image: An MIT-led team designed a sensor that may be deployed to screen patients for hard-to-diagnose cancers, or metastatic tumors. The device draws inspiration from the membrane that surrounds all ...

Researchers shifted the focus to the internal properties of the membrane itself, specifically its viscosity, highlighting its critical role in controlling deformation and dynamics during essential ...

Mitochondria are essential for cell survival, repair, and adaptation. Not only do they generate most of the energy needed ...

A lipid hidden within cells called phosphatidylserine reveals how the body initiates the removal of threats and cellular debris.

A study could open new pathways for understanding how cholesterol influences cell membranes and their receptors, paving the way for future research on diseases linked to membrane organization. A new ...

Proteins long known to be essential for hearing have been hiding a talent: they also act as gatekeepers that shuffle fatty ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: When cells are about to die, they send signals that trigger proteins which are supposed to destroy them, but it doesn’t always happen that way. Some ...

(Nanowerk News) Drawing inspiration from natural sensory systems, an MIT-led team has designed a novel sensor that could detect the same molecules that naturally occurring cell receptors can identify.