People need to sleep, and sleep deprivation can cause many changes in the brain. But we have a poor understanding of why sleep is so crucial. New research has examined a fruit fly model to assess how ...

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have mapped key steps in the assembly of the mitochondrial ribosome, offering new clues to how defects in this ...

Elizabeth Jonas first got interested in mitochondria by chance. In 1995, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Yale, working at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where she was ...

An evolutionary trait of humans and most animals is that they inherit mitochondrial DNA exclusively from the mother, even though the father's spermatozoa have mitochondria. If spermatozoa have ...

As befits the child of a scientist, Martin Picard's young son, 3, is already learning about biology with an age-appropriate textbook, "Cell Biology for Babies." Picard winces a little whenever the ...

In a recent study published in Nature Communications, researchers at Karolinska Institutet report that the molecular ...

Researchers have uncovered that mitochondria divide into two distinct forms when cells are starved, a finding that could help explain how some cancers thrive in hostile conditions. Mitochondria are ...

Copper is essential for life. Our cells need the metal to make energy and stay healthy, but if it is in the wrong place or present in excess, copper can be deadly. Texas A&M AgriLife Research ...

Vitamin B12 is needed in microscopic amounts, but a shortage can have major effects on health and energy. The vitamin was first linked to a lifesaving liver treatment for pernicious anemia nearly 100 ...

Many of us remember from high school biology class that mitochondria are the cell's "power plants." These small kidney-bean-shaped structures are what convert nutrients from food into ATP—the cell's ...

Changes in the number, shape, efficiency and interconnectedness of organelles in the cells of flight muscles provide extra energy for birds’ continent-spanning feats. Weighing in at a single ounce, ...