Curated News: PNAS

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Unifying phase diagrams could be used to find materials with useful applications in magnetic memory.

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Mechanism of genome replication arrest provides pioneering insight about cell life span and aging

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Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast and University College London have discovered that a drug, originally developed to treat cardiovascular disease, has the potential to reduce diabetes related blindness.

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An oft-quoted proverb says it takes a village to raise a child, and new research from ecologists at LSU and Rice University suggests that a similar concept may be at work in natural ecosystems. The research, which appears in this week’s Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that the early life experiences of individual animals can have wide-reaching impacts on entire species.

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Study dates the first movements of bison through an ice-free corridor that opened between the ice sheets after the last glacial maximum

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While the latter half of the 20th century showed a widening gap between the more and less educated with respect to marriage and fertility, this trend has not significantly altered the genetic makeup of subsequent generations, a team of researchers has found.

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University of Washington statisticians have developed what is believed to be the first method for incorporating the uncertainties of migration into population projections.

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A unique and pioneering study of the ancient and modern DNA of the 'ship of the desert' -- the single humped camel or dromedary -- has shed new light on how its use by human societies has shaped its genetic diversity.

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Nearly 30 years of data collected on painted turtles in the Mississippi River near Clinton, Iowa, show that females suffer a steep dip in fertility before the end of their lives, a finding that flies in the face of what scientists have believed about turtles and aging.

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Ever search desperately for something, then realize you're looking straight at it the whole time? Research indicates that vision is controlled by the part of the brain associated with thinking. And in sight, too, it can be absent minded.

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Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have for the first time designed a drug candidate that decreases the growth of tumor cells in animal models in one of the hardest to treat cancers—triple negative breast cancer.

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Biological manufacturing process, pioneered by three Lehigh University engineers, produces equivalent quantum dots to those made chemically--but in a much greener, cheaper way.

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In 2012, the United States experienced the warmest spring on record followed by the most severe drought since the Dust Bowl. A team of scientists used a network of Ameriflux sites to map the carbon flux across the United States during the drought.

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T cells use a kind of mechanical handshake, or tug test, to determine whether a cell they encounter is a foreign invader.

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In the late 1980s and over the 1990s, researchers at Lund University in Sweden pioneered the transplantation of new nerve cells into the brains of patients with Parkinson’s disease. The outcomes proved for the first time that transplanted nerve cells can survive and function in the diseased human brain. Some patients showed marked improvement after the transplantation while others showed moderate or no relief of symptoms. A small number of patients suffered unwanted side-effects in the form of involuntary movements.

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 A team of chemical engineers at Penn State has developed a beneficial biofilm with the ability to prevent the biofouling of reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. The development may lead to more efficient membrane water filtration and purification processes around the globe.May 03, 2016UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A team of chemical engineers at Penn State has developed a beneficial biofilm with the ability to prevent the biofouling of reverse osmosis (RO) membranes.

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WSU scientists discover mechanism critical to pathogens' success.

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Long before there were fish swimming in the oceans, tiny microorganisms were using long slender appendages called cilia and flagella to navigate their watery habitats. Now, new research reveals that species of single-celled algae coordinate their flagella to achieve a remarkable diversity of swimming gaits.

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Earth could contain nearly 1 trillion species, with only one-thousandth of 1 percent now identified, according to a study from biologists at Indiana University. The estimate, based on the intersection of large datasets and universal scaling laws, appears today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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How birds' beaks evolved characteristic shapes to eat different food is a classic example of evolution by natural selection.