Tag Archive for 'Sterol'

Pictorial representation of the timeline for ancient steranes, highlighting key compounds and their possible biogenic sources. Image credit: Shawar et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2503009122.

Ancestors of Modern Demosponges Were Earth’s First Animals: Study

Sep 30, 2025 by News Staff

Scientists from MIT and elsewhere have identified chemical fossils that may have been left by ancient sponges in rocks more than 541 million years old....

Representative confocal images of whole mounts organ of Corti from the medial region of the cochlea stained for filipin to label cholesterol (green) and phalloidin for visualizing actin in stereocilia (blue) from young (top) and old (bottom) C57BL/J mice. Scale bar - 30 μm. Rectangles indicate the region of the zoomed-in areas shown on the right using a 63x objective. Scale bar - 8 μm. Pink dotted lines represent the diameter of individual inner hair cells and outer hair cells. Image credit: Sodero et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002257.

Phytosterols May Help Reduce Age-Related Hearing Loss, Animal Study Suggests

Aug 30, 2023 by News Staff

Dietary supplementation with phytosterols — plant sterols with structure and function similar to cholesterol — prevented sensory dysfunction...

An artist’s impression of Kimberella. Image credit: Oleg Kuznetsov, 3Depix.

Study: Ediacaran Animals Ate Green Algae and Bacteria

Nov 23, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

The oldest animals appear in the fossil record among Ediacaran biota communities. In new research, paleontologists from the Australian National University...

Tube sponges Callyspongia sp. attracting cardinal fishes, golden sweepers and wrasses. Image credit: Nick Hobgood / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Study: Simple Sea Sponges Were Earth’s First Animals

Feb 25, 2016 by News Staff

Sea sponges appeared on our planet about 640 million years ago, much earlier than any other animal, according to a study published this week in the Proceedings...