Seeing through objects may seem like something straight out of a comic book, but researchers have found a way to make entire animals transparent – from their brains to their bones. The method lets fluorescent proteins visibly shine through bodies, lighting up entire vascular systems (above) and other structures.

To produce such light shows, researchers treat euthanized rodents with several organic solvents to remove the water and lipids that made them opaque. The technique is dubbed uDISCO because it’s a variant of the original DISCO technique, which stands for 3D imaging of solvent-cleared organs. This technique allows the highest resolution images yet for a whole body, its creators report online today in Nature Methods, and it can create ...

Researchers have uncovered the mechanism that allows spiders to build such strong webs. According to the study, both ends of the spider's silk grand have different pH levels, which helps these proteins become a solid fibre that can be spun into a solid web. The researchers also found that the pH level has different effects on the stability of the two regions at each end of the spidroin proteins.

“While one of the ends tended to pair up with other molecules at the beginning of the duct (N-terminal) and became increasingly stable as the acidity increased along the duct, the other end (C-terminal) destabilised as the acidity increased, and gradually unfolded until it formed the structure characteristic of silk at the acidic pH of 5.5”, ex ...