All of life is based on interactions of signaling entities—communities, people, organs, cells, and even viruses. Remarkable progress has been made in deciphering the conversations between cells, but it is much harder to track signals among organelles. Observation is much more difficult because they are so much smaller. It does appear that the same types of ongoing communication occur as in cells. Recently, signals have been found for organelle communication about building and

A previous post noted how microbes can help cancers in all stages of their development. Now, it has been found that the one-time microbe now the mitochondria is also vital for cancer to start, to grow, to survive and to metastasize. These microbes and the mitochondria use back and forth communication to help cancers in many ways. This post describes the recent research about mitochondria and its vital relationship to cancer. Mitochondria Joined Forces With Our Cells Two billi

Previous posts have described the very complex pathways that create membranes to surround the entire cell and to build vital cell compartments and well known organelles. A post noted how different types of fatty membranes are built for each organelle with many different complex shapes. These include mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum, the nucleus and many kinds of vesicles. Vesicles are used for transport, to combat invading microbes and to send information such as with neur

Dendrites have been considered passive calculators of input signals. In fact, they are extremely dynamic and can produce their own electrical spikes. Dendrites have a vast array of different ways to function when helping to determine the next axon action potential. Recent research has begun to scratch the surface of the complexity of dendrite calculations. A previous post described details about the ever changing and varied dendrite spines and necks with many unique shapes th

Living among trillions of microbes, it is necessary to determine which are going to cause disease. This is done by recognizing patterns with special receptors on immune cells—pattern recognition receptors or PPRs. Once triggered, receptors activate powerful mechanisms to cause inflammation that is life saving but, also, can attack our own cells with chronic inflammation and autoimmune diseases. In fact, as with every other critical aspect of physiology, pattern recognition re

Microbes demonstrate incredible sophistication in making effector molecules that have multi-layered effects. A previous post described how some of these newly created proteins are the exact shapes that alter epigenetic tags in host cells. They produce very particular genetic changes influencing cascades in the nucleus, mitochondria and Golgi that make life easier for an invading microbe. Just as microbes manipulate these vastly complex multi level processes, the secretory mac

Human cells are massively larger and more complex than bacteria and yet microbes keep up relentless intelligent warfare. Previous posts documented surprisingly sophisticated, multi level attacks by microbes using protein molecules and micro RNA against plants and animals. Recently, new microbe techniques have been discovered that specifically target organelles of the human cell. These complex assaults can directly manipulate genes to produce unique proteins. These altered pro

The common wisdom that myelin is just an insulator to make faster neuronal communication has been overthrown by recent research that finds much more complexity in how myelin is used by the brain. The old “neuron doctrine” (one of many useless dogmas) was that each neuron sends a signal to the next neuron, and so on, in computer like fashion. In fact, the process is vastly more complex and variable and the new myelin code adds to brain complexity in very important ways. Resear

A view of DNA from 2014 which continues to unexplained by modern scientific theories.