Scientists from the Monell Center report the surprising finding that two proteins involved in oral taste detection also play a crucial role in sperm development. In addition, the human form of one protein is blocked by the lipid-lowering drug clofibrate, perhaps linking this and related compounds to the rising global incidence of human infertility.
University of Utah researchers developed a new weapon to fight poachers who kill elephants, hippos, rhinos and other wildlife. By measuring radioactive carbon-14 deposited in tusks and teeth by open-air nuclear bomb tests, the method reveals the year an animal died, and thus whether the ivory was taken illegally.
A new study that calculates the influence of cloud behavior on climate doubles the number of potentially habitable planets orbiting red dwarfs, the most common type of stars in the universe.
Scientists have discovered the role of the membrane protein TonB in bacteria that cause a wide variety of diseases, including typhoid fever, plague, meningitis and dysentery. Results may lead to new and improved human and animal antibiotics.
Locally, changes in coastal ocean temperatures may be much more extreme than global averages imply. New research published in the June 18 edition of Public Library of Science (PLoS ONE) entitled “Decadal Changes in the World's Coastal Latitudinal Temperature Gradients,” is highlighting some of the distinct regional implications associated with global climate-change.
A team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and Ohio University has developed a new, simpler way to discern molecular handedness, known as chirality, which could improve drug development, optical sensors and more.
Ocean experts had predicted a large “dead zone” area in the Gulf of Mexico this year, and according to the results from a Texas A&M University researcher just back from studying the region, those predictions appear to be right on target.
Arizona State University researchers have discovered for the first time that temperature determines where key soil microbes can thrive — microbes that are critical to forming topsoil crusts in arid lands. And of concern, the scientists predict that in as little as 50 years, global warming may push some of these microbes out of their present stronghold with unknown consequences to soil fertility and erosion.
Data from NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft continues to provide new insight on the outskirts of our solar system, a frontier thought to be the last that Voyager will cross before becoming the first man-made object to reach interstellar space.
A hardy algae species is showing promise in both reducing power plant pollution and making biofuel, based on new research at the University of Delaware.
Using colorful world maps, a North Carolina State University study maps out priority areas for protection to save species and preserve biodiversity. The scale is 100 times finer than previous assessments.
Virginia Tech wildlife researchers have found that tigers in central Sumatra live at very low densities, lower than previously believed.
New research from Johns Hopkins suggests that bits of genetic material from plants eaten by mice can NOT enter the bloodstream intact as previous research from another institution had indicated.
George Washington University researcher, in upcoming Nature study, collected motion data from baseball players to uncover why humans are such good throwers.
An international team of astronomers has found that a nearby star previously thought to host two or three planets is in fact orbited by six or seven worlds, including an unprecedented three to five "super-Earths" in its habitable zone.
The goal of restoring or creating wetlands on agricultural lands is almost always to remove nutrients and improve water quality. But new research shows that constructed marshes also excel at pulling carbon dioxide from the air and holding it long-term in soil, suggesting that farmers and landowners may also want to build wetlands to "farm" carbon.
A Kansas State University researcher finds that during the next 50 years, future generations of bison will be smaller in size and weigh less. Climate is likely to reduce the nutritional quality of grasses, causing the animals to grow more slowly.
Innovative machine learning technology developed by Columbia Engineering is the driving force—in effect, the brain—behind Di-BOSS™, a new digital building operating system that integrates all building operating systems into one, easy-to-use cockpit control interface for desktops and portable devices. The system has been successfully piloted in NYC by Rudin Management, saving them energy costs and resources.
This collision between a spiral galaxy and an elliptical galaxy resembles a celestial bird. The gravitational pull has stretched the spiral into an elongated shape. Lying 326 million light-years away, this colliding galaxy pair, known as Arp 142, is captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
The results of a new survey by the University of Massachusetts Amherst show that a majority of Americans across the political spectrum oppose the outsourcing of lethal military and defense targeting decisions to machines. The opposition to autonomous weaponry is bipartisan, with the strongest opposition on the far left and far right, and among active and former members of the military.
A team of Vanderbilt researchers has provided important validation of maps of the brain at rest that may offer insights into changes in the brain that occur in neurological and psychiatric disorders.
The ongoing global growth in the human population will inevitably crowd out mammals and birds and has the potential to threaten hundreds of species with extinction within 40 years, new research shows.
Spring floods across the Midwest are expected to contribute to a very large and potentially record-setting 2013 Gulf of Mexico "dead zone," according to a University of Michigan ecologist and colleagues who released their annual forecast today, along with one for the Chesapeake Bay.
A Cornell University study offers further proof that the divergence of humans from chimpanzees some 4 million to 6 million years ago was profoundly influenced by mutations to DNA sequences that play roles in turning genes on and off.
A new paper in PLOS Biology this week shows that taking the unusual step of including parasites in ecological datasets does alter the structure of resulting food webs, but that's mostly due to an increase in diversity and complexity rather than the particular characteristics of parasites. The work answers some longstanding questions about the unique role parasites play in ecological networks.
Astrophysicists using high-powered computer simulations demonstrate that gas spiraling toward a black hole inevitably results in X-ray emissions.
After laboring under other theories that never seemed to add up, McMaster University researchers have concluded that menopause is an unintended outcome of natural selection, generated by men's historical preference for younger mates.
E. coli that produce a toxin dangerous to humans may survive longer in water than benign counterparts, a new study finds.The findings have implications for water quality testing, suggesting that a lake's overall E. coli population may be a poor indicator of danger.
The keen vision of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has detected a mysterious gap in a vast protoplanetary disk of gas and dust swirling around the nearby star TW Hydrae, located 176 light-years away in the constellation Hydra (the Sea Serpent). The gap's presence is best explained as due to the effects of a growing, unseen planet that is gravitationally sweeping up material and carving out a lane in the disk, like a snow plow.
Stress felt by dad—whether as a preadolescent or adult—leaves a lasting impression on his sperm that gives sons and daughters a blunted reaction to stress, according to a new preclinical study in the Journal of Neuroscience by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings point to a never-before-seen epigenetic link to stress-related diseases such as anxiety and depression passed from father to child.
University of Washington researchers have demonstrated that when humans use brain-computer interfaces, the brain behaves much like it does when completing simple motor skills such as kicking a ball, typing or waving a hand. Learning to control a robotic arm or a prosthetic limb could become second nature for people who are paralyzed.
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have confirmed the particle-by-particle mechanism by which lithium ions move in and out of electrodes made of lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4, or LFP), findings that could lead to better performance in lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles, medical equipment and aircraft. The research is reported in the journal Nano Letters, 2013, 13 (3), pp 866-872.
New research sheds light on how the tropics came to be teeming with species while the poles harbor relatively few. Furthermore, it confirms that the tropics have been and continue to be the Earth’s engine of biodiversity.
The reason dark matter, which makes up 85 percent of all the matter in the universe, is invisible could be because it possesses a rare, donut-shaped type of electromagnetism instead of the more exotic forces that have been proposed, according to an analysis of a pair of Vanderbilt theoretic physicists.
If you think keeping up with what’s happening via Twitter, Facebook and other social media is like drinking from a fire hose, multiply that by 7 billion – and you’ll have a sense of what Court Corley wakes up to every morning. Corley has created a powerful digital system capable of analyzing billions of tweets and other social media messages in just seconds.
An international team of researchers using the new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope has discovered an intriguing clue that could help explain how rocky planets are able to evolve out of a swirling disk of dust and gas.
A new set of long-term climate records based on cave stalagmites collected from tropical Borneo shows that the western tropical Pacific responded very differently than other regions of the globe to abrupt climate change events.
Humans have been raising cows for their meat, hides and milk for millennia. Now it appears that the cow immune system also has something to offer. A new study led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) focusing on an extraordinary family of cow antibodies points to new ways to make human medicines.
U.S. paleontologists led by Jason Head of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln announced fossils of giant lizard Barbaturex morrisoni this week. Their analysis shows that it is one of the biggest known lizards ever to have lived on land. They've named the creature after Doors lead singer Jim Morrison.
A new study by researchers at Wake Forest University shows Bertholdia trigona, a species of tiger moth found in the Arizona desert, can tell if an echo-locating bat is going to attack it well before the predator swoops in for the kill – making the intuitive, tiny-winged insect a master of self-preservation.
Researchers at the University of Adelaide have found that a lake on an island off the coast of Queensland, Australia, has been relatively untouched by changes in climate for the past 7000 years, and has so far also resisted the impact of humans.
Another piece of the puzzle to better understand and treat obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) has fallen into place with the publication of new research that shows that the structural brain abnormalities of Doberman pinschers afflicted with canine compulsive disorder (CCD) are similar to those of humans with OCD. The research suggests that further study of anxiety disorders in dogs may help find new therapies for OCD and similar conditions in humans.
Most apes eat leaves and fruits from trees and shrubs. New studies spearheaded by the University of Utah show that human ancestors expanded their menu 3.5 million years ago, adding tropical grasses and sedges to an ape-like diet and setting the stage for our modern diet of grains, grasses, and meat and dairy from grazing animals.
The fate of a species may rest upon a single butterfly captured in late May by University of Florida lepidopterists.
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded researchers at the University of California, Riverside a $60,000 grant to continue their development of face-recognition software to help identify unknown subjects of portrait art.
Climate is greatly influenced by the flow of heat energy carried by ocean currents. But precisely quantifying the mixing between the ocean and the atmosphere is hampered by a lack of detail in models of the ocean and of the water cycle. And in both models, knowing the salt content of the water is essential.
University of Arkansas researchers conducted a life-cycle analysis of fluid milk that will provide guidance for producers, processors and others throughout the dairy supply chain.
Researchers have found that a 260-million-year-old reptile is the earliest known version of the turtle. The discovery fills a large gap in the turtle fossil record and provide clues on how the turtle's unique shell evolved.
Whether damaged by injury, disease or age, your body can’t create new bone, but maybe science can. Researchers at North Dakota State University, Fargo, are making strides in tissue engineering, designing scaffolds that may lead to ways to regenerate bone. Published in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, the research of Dr. Kalpana Katti, Dr. Dinesh Katti and graduate student Avinash Ambre includes a novel method that uses nanosized clays to make scaffolds to mineralize bone minerals such as hydroxyapatite.
Astronomers led by McGill research group discover new phenomenon in neutron star.
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