[Yoshinori Ohsumi], who is currently a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Yokohama, was recognized for his experiments in the 1990s, when he used baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to identify genes that control how cells destroy their own contents. The same kinds of mechanism operate in human cells — and are sometimes involved in genetic disease.
[...] "Without autophagy our cells won't survive," says Juleen Zierath, a physiologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm who was on the selection committee for the medicine Nobel. When cells are starved, they can consume their own proteins for fuel. The same degradation process can be used to eliminate damaged proteins and organelles — effectively, to renew cells and clear out debris — or to ward off invading bacteria and viruses.
[...] Ohsumi, who will collect 8 million Swedish kronor (US$940,000) for the Nobel prize, also won the ¥50-million (US$626,000) Kyoto Prize in basic sciences in 2012 for his autophagy work.
http://www.nature.com/news/medicine-nobel-for-research-on-how-cells-eat-themselves-1.20721
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Tuesday October 04 2016, @02:16AM
My favorite blogger, whom for some reason I don't understand 75% of what he's talking about but still find his blog entertaining as hell, talks about it here [sciencemag.org]
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @02:30AM
I'm a fan of Dr. Lao myself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @03:22AM
I don't understand 75% of what he's talking about but still find his blog entertaining as hell
I like the popular things so I can popular too. Like! Like! Like like! Like! I'm popular!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @03:27AM
What are you doing on SoylentNews then? Shouldn't you be on Facebook?
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday October 04 2016, @03:32AM
Betty White pretty much said it best: "Facebook seems like an enormous waste of time". Or whatever, google isn't giving me her exact quote.
Facebook is for a bunch of people who need to have likes to feel liked.
I'm perfectly fine with who I am, don't care if you like me or not, and I really don't care how many online 'friends' you have.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:33AM
> I'm perfectly fine with who I am, don't care if you like me or not, and I really don't care how many online 'friends' you have.
But you do seem to care about telling everyone how superior you are.
You are nothing more than hipster version of that obnoxious twerp who goes around bragging that he doesn't own a TV.