Scientists have shown that prions, bits of infectious protein that can cause fatal neurodegenerative disease such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or "mad cow disease," have the ability to ...

Prions, mysterious shape-shifting proteins, can lead to brain disorders such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, "mad cow disease" in cattle, yet they can also ...

Special proteins known as prions, which are perhaps best known as the agents of mad cow and other neurodegenerative diseases, can also serve as an important source of beneficial variation in nature.

Prions are not rare, usually are not harmful and may even help organisms adapt, a new study in yeast suggests. Prions are shape-shifting proteins that change function along with their shapes, and can ...

There’s something unfeasibly sinister about prions. These infectious entities are incredibly simple, but they can cause fatal and untreatable diseases like mad cow disease, CJD, and others. Prions are ...

Discover how prions in yeast strains may contribute to evolution by providing beneficial traits and acting as an epigenetic inheritance form. found prions in 1/3 of yeast strains, and 40% of the ...

Prion proteins, best known as the agents of deadly brain disorders like mad cow disease, can help yeast survive hard times and pass the advantageous traits down to their offspring, according to a new ...

Prions are a class of misfolded proteins that form aggregates called amyloid fibrils. These aggregates are the main culprit behind severe mammalian neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. What ...

Prion diseases aren't common, but they are scary. Incurable and inevitably fatal, they can be either genetic or infectious, although the latter only occurs via contact with infected tissue. However, a ...

Prions, which cause diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob and BSE (commonly called mad cow), are pretty scary stuff. They don’t have any genetic material; instead, they’re made from a protein that’s ...

In the novel Cat's Cradle, an eccentric scientist develops a substance called Ice-9 that crystallizes every drop of water it touches. Eventually, it freezes the world's oceans. Now, 40 years after ...

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has been described as a disorder of memory. It has become quite apparent that there are two types of memory in PTSD: the first being the involuntary intrusions of ...