Octopuses do not need to see or smell their prey to identify it. Researchers have shown that the suckers lining each arm ...

Dan Berkowitz might never have noticed the phenomenon if not for the new lights. In 2012, Johns Hopkins University’s Berkowitz had just moved to a lab space where the lights were motion-activated, and ...

Our ability to feel a harmful touch or sense dangerous heat relies on specialized receptor proteins embedded in nerve cell membranes. But how do these receptors maintain their exquisite sensitivity?

Transduction is the changing of one form of energy into another, such as a spoken voice changed into radio waves by a cellphone. Ten years ago, three research teams published a breakthrough—the first ...

For most of us, the sense of smell is an integral part of everyday life; it plays a critical role in providing information about our surroundings, alerting us to potential dangers, enhancing our sense ...

We’re used to thinking about the basic five senses—vision, hearing, touch, smelling, and taste—but researchers are learning that there are a lot more ways that we experience the physical world, than ...

For roughly 30 years, biology students have learned the same tidy diagram of the inside of the nose: four broad zones, each peppered with smell receptors in no particular order. Two studies published ...

This modulation is essential for maintaining normal somatosensory responses mediated by these sensory molecules. When ePLs are depleted, avoidance behaviors against mechanical stimulation and warmth ...

Ten years ago, three research teams published a breakthrough — the first description of the molecular mechanism for transduction in fingertip sensory Merkel cells that can transduce gentle touch, a ...