The greatest diversity of life is not counted in the number of species, says Utah State University evolutionary geneticist Zachariah Gompert, but in the diversity of interactions among them.
Electroencephalogram (EEG) tests revealed fentanyl’s effects on the brain and indicated that the drug stops people’s breathing before other noticeable changes and before they lose consciousness.
In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Moffitt Cancer Center used mathematical and computer modeling to demonstrate the impact of skin homeostasis on driver and passenger mutations.
Amoebae receive surprising support in defense against viruses: The bacteria they are infected with prevent them from being destroyed by giant viruses. A research team led by microbiologist Matthias Horn from the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science at the University of Vienna have investigated how a virus infection proceeds when the amoebae are simultaneously infected with chlamydia. The research team shows for the first time that intracellular bacteria known as symbionts protect their host against viruses. Amoebae are protists, i.e. single-celled microorganisms with a cell nucleus. Protists play a key role in food webs and ecosystem processes. Consequently, the results of the study suggest that the interaction between symbionts and viruses influence the flow of nutrients in ecosystems. The study is now published in the journal PNAS.
Male bottlenose dolphins form the largest known multi-level alliance network outside humans, an international team led by researchers at the University of Bristol have shown. These cooperative relationships between groups increase male access to a contested resource.
A single mutation in a gene, Kcnc3, which encodes a potassium channel in neurons, causes learning deficits in mice, UT Southwestern researchers report in a new study in PNAS. The novel mutation decreases the activity of neurons in the hippocampus, the area of the brain important for learning and memory, and highlights a new role for potassium channels.
Adults aged 60 and older who sit for long periods watching TV or other such passive, sedentary behaviors may be at increased risk of developing dementia, according to a new study by USC and University of Arizona researchers.
Why do individuals from single cells to humans cooperate with each other and how do they form well-functioning networks? A research team led by Prof. Dr Thilo Gross from the University of Oldenburg has come a step closer to answering this question.
The COVID-19 pandemic, bigger and more frequent wildfires, devastating floods, and powerful storms have become unfortunate facts of life. With each disaster, people depend on the emergency response of governments, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector for aid when their lives are upended. However, a complicating factor in delivering that aid is that people tend to disperse with such disasters.
A new study corrects an important error in the 3D mathematical space developed by the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger and others and used by scientists and industry for more than 100 years to describe how your eye distinguishes one color from another. The research has the potential to boost scientific data visualizations, improve TVs and recalibrate the textile and paint industries.
Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have developed a three-dimensional structure that allows them to see how and where disease mutations on the twinkle protein can lead to mitochondrial diseases. The protein is involved in helping cells use energy our bodies convert from food. Prior to the development of this 3D structure, researchers only had models and were unable to determine how these mutations contribute to disease. Mitochondrial diseases are a group of inherited conditions that affect 1 in 5,000 people and have very few treatments.
Researchers have identified a species of human gut bacterium that makes a protein containing a sequence of amino acids that mimics the insulin peptide targeted by the immune system in type 1 diabetes.
Scientists have discovered how to potentially design root systems to grow deeper by altering their angle growth to be steeper and reach the nutrients they need to grow, a discovery that could also help develop new ways to capture carbon in soil.
Scientists discovered that ultrasonic defenses moths use to avoid bats are widespread in the insects, and that many harmless moths seem to mimic their toxic cousins to avoid becoming prey.
Scientists have long thought the unique geography of the Philippines — coupled with seesawing ocean levels — could have created a “species pump” that triggered massive diversification by isolating, then reconnecting, groups of species again and again on islands.
Scientists have developed an artificial protein that could offer new insights into chemical evolution on early Earth. All cells need energy to survive, but because the kinds of chemicals available during the planet’s early days were so limited compared to today’s vast scope of chemical diversity, multicellular organisms had a lot less energy to build the complex organic structures that make up the world we know today.
A new study from the Georgia Institute of Technology suggests that an elephant’s muscles aren’t the only way it stretches its trunk — its folded skin also plays an important role. The combination of muscle and skin gives the animal the versatility to grab fragile vegetation and rip apart tree trunks.
Peer comparison, a commonly used behavioral intervention comparing primary care physicians' performance to that of their peers, has no statistically significant impact on preventive care performance. It does, however, decrease physicians’ job satisfaction while increasing burnout.
A research group led by Rohit Pappu in the McKelvey School of Engineering and Anthony Hyman at the Max Planck Institute have discovered a new, relevant level of structure in cells.
The same four factors that explain how people change their beliefs on a variety of issues can account for the recent rise in anti-science attitudes, a new review suggests.
The amount of carbon stored by microscopic plankton will increase in the coming century, predict researchers at the University of Bristol and the National Oceanography Centre (NOC).
Researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine provide some of the first empirical evidence that brain ripples exist. These electrical waves have long been hypothesized as a way for the brain to integrate and encode memories.
Researchers developed lithium-ion batteries that perform well at freezing cold and scorching hot temperatures, while packing a lot of energy. This could help electric cars travel farther on a single charge in the cold and reduce the need for cooling systems for the cars' batteries in hot climates.
Using artificial intelligence, UT Southwestern researchers have discovered a new family of sensing genes in enteric bacteria that are linked by structure and probably function, but not genetic sequence. The findings, published in PNAS, offer a new way of identifying the role of genes in unrelated species and could lead to new ways to fight intestinal bacterial infections.
Using biological experiments, robot models, and a geometric theory of locomotion, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology investigated how and why intermediate lizard species, with their elongated bodies and short limbs, might use their bodies to move. They uncovered the existence of a previously unknown spectrum of body movements in lizards, revealing a continuum of locomotion dynamics between lizardlike and snakelike movements.
Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology offer a new method to disrupt spiral waves that uses less energy and that may be less painful than traditional defibrillation.
Over a 30-year period, endangered African wild dogs shifted their average birthing dates later by 22 days, which allowed them to match the birth of new litters with the coolest temperatures in early winter. But as a result, temperatures increased during the critical, post-birth "denning period," which fewer pups survived.
Researchers at the John T. Macdonald Department of Human Genetics and John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine have found that inherited mutations in the MINAR2 gene caused deafness in four families. The gene variation mostly affects the inner ear hair cells, which are critical to hearing. The authors believe the progressive nature of this hearing loss, in some affected individuals and in mice, could offer opportunities for treatment.
Delivering a targeted immunotoxin into breast ducts via openings in the nipple wiped out all visible and invisible precancerous lesions in laboratory studies, led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, of very early stage breast cancers
Researchers have discovered epidermal immunity from nighttime bacterial invasion in mice when the expression of the CXCL14 signaling protein was higher than during the daytime. The circadian-dependent role of CXCL14 is crucial as it transports important DNA into immune cells.
A collaborative study from UT Southwestern scientists has identified a new function for a protein called TAO2 that appears to be key to inhibiting replication of the influenza virus, which sickens millions of individuals worldwide each year and kills hundreds of thousands. The findings were published in PNAS.
Rutgers researcher, Grace Brannigan, has co-authored a study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that centers around the connection between gene mutations in protein sequences and diseases.
Each mistletoe berry can produce up to two metres of a gluey thread called viscin. It allows the seeds of this parasitic plant to stick to and infect host plants.
Allergy-suffering city dwellers, take note. A new study from Iowa State University scientists shows how artificial light in U.S. cities lengthens pollen season and impacts other seasonal processes in plants.
Scientists have reported good news on the pandemic preparedness front: A cocktail of four manufactured antibodies is effective at neutralizing a virus from the Henipavirus family, a group of pathogens considered to be a global biosecurity threat.
A University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led research team has solved a longstanding mystery surrounding strontium titanate, a metal oxide semiconductor, providing insight for future research on the material and its applications to electronic devices and data storage.
A molecule in mosquito spit has been identified as a potential new target for vaccination against a range of diseases for which there is no protection or medicine.
The emergence of a mysterious area in the South Atlantic where the geomagnetic field strength is decreasing rapidly, has led to speculation that Earth is heading towards a magnetic polarity reversal.
Could the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use’s ambitions be too ambiguous? An international team of researchers looked into this question.
Brain scans of people taken while they performed various tasks – and even did nothing – accurately predicted whether they were politically conservative or liberal, according to the largest study of its kind.
One of the most exciting moments of the new Jurassic Park sequel, Jurassic World Dominion, is when the Quetzalcoatlus swoops down from the sky and attacks the heroes’ aircraft.
Archaeological excavations led by Wyoming’s state archaeologist and involving University of Wyoming researchers have confirmed that an ancient mine in eastern Wyoming was used by humans to produce red ocher starting nearly 13,000 years ago.
Giraffes have the highest blood pressure of all mammals — up to 300/200, more than double that of a typical human. But pregnant giraffes don’t suffer from pre-eclampsia, a dangerous disorder caused by hypertension.
… for Atg5, the stem cell loss in vivo was more pronounced than in vitro, suggesting
that additional cell populations likely depend upon Atg5 function to support ileum
health. We first tested whether ATG5-dependent WNT signaling was required for …
Researchers have identified distinct differences among the cells comprising a tissue in the retina that is vital to human visual perception. The scientists from the National Eye Institute (NEI) discovered five subpopulations of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE)—a layer of tissue that nourishes and supports the retina’s light-sensing photoreceptors. Using artificial intelligence, the researchers analyzed images of RPE at single-cell resolution to create a reference map that locates each subpopulation within the eye.