Funnel-web spider venom contains powerful neurotoxins that instantly paralyze prey (usually insects). Millions of years ago, however, this potent poison was just a hormone that helped ancestors of these spiders regulate sugar metabolism, similar to the role of insulin in humans. Surprisingly, this hormone's weaponization—described on June 11 in the journal Structure—occurred in arachnids as well as centipedes, but in different ways.
Professor Ioannis Ieropoulos of the Bristol BioEnergy Centre at the University of the West of England has created a bioenergy system that uses urine circulated by your footsteps to power wearable electronics.
In his mind, Basil Hubbard can already picture a new world of therapeutic treatments for millions of patients just over the horizon. It's a future in which diseases like muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis and many others are treated permanently through the science of genome engineering. Thanks to his latest work, Hubbard is bringing that future closer to reality.
Dividing cells are prone to errors, and so they must be prepared to summon sophisticated emergency systems to deal with potential damage. One type of division-derailing mishap can occur when assault by certain chemicals causes two strands of DNA to permanently connect when they shouldn't, in what scientists call interstrand crosslinks (ICLs). Properly fixing these crosslinks is crucial to preventing cancer, maintaining tissues, and fertility.
Okay... However, the article fails to conclude with what seems to be its ulterior purpose; how is this useful for combating diabetes?