A small peptide produced in the skin of predatory nematodes prevents them from cannibalizing their immediate family members, while they feed upon their close relatives, a new study finds. The ability to recognize self is an important trait and regulates many crucial biological processes. While it's observed in a wide variety of organisms, the molecular mechanisms that underlie self-recognition systems are not well understood.
Tucked away in the noncoding regions of bird DNA, researchers have discovered molecular roots of the loss of flight seen in so many disparate paleognathous birds. In contrast with previous work, which emphasized changes to protein-coding DNA as driving flightlessness, this study associates loss of flight more strongly with regulatory evolution in noncoding DNA. The results provide an example for future genome studies of so-called convergent phenotypes throughout the animal kingdom. Over time, species of divergent lines of the tree of life can develop similar evolutionary traits.
DURHAM, N.C. -- In late 2018, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service proposed a rule change that would reverse current policy and allow the agency to use public funds to underwrite low-interest, fixed-term loans for the construction of new commercial fishing vessels.
The proposed change, which is still pending final approval, lacks scientific merit and should be rejected, according to a new analysis by a Duke University economist.
Although separated by more than one billion years of evolution, plants and animals have hit upon similar immune strategies to protect themselves against pathogens. One important mechanism is defined by cytoplasmic receptors called NLRs that, in plants, recognize so-called effectors, molecules that invading microorganisms secrete into the plant's cells. These recognition events can either involve direct recognition of effectors by NLRs or indirect recognition, in which the NLRs act as 'guards' that monitor additional host proteins or 'guardees' that are modified by effectors.
With the growth of 3D printing, it's entirely possible to 3D print your own prosthetic from models found in open-source databases.
But those models lack personalized electronic user interfaces like those found in costly, state-of-the-art prosthetics.
Now, a Virginia Tech professor and his interdisciplinary team of undergraduate student researchers have made inroads in integrating electronic sensors with personalized 3D-printed prosthetics -- a development that could one day lead to more affordable electric-powered prosthetics.
Inside the body, disease and injury can leave behind quite the mess -- a scattering of cellular debris, like bits of broken glass, rubber and steel left behind in a car accident.
Inside the central nervous system (CNS), a region that includes the brain and spinal cord, it is the job of certain cells, called microglia, to clean up that cellular debris. Microglia have counterparts called macrophages that serve similar function outside the CNS in the peripheral nervous system (PNS), the region that contains most of the sensory and motor nerves.
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has published a briefing note outlining the factors that can contribute to disagreements between parents and healthcare staff about the care and treatment of critically ill babies and young children. It concludes that the Government and NHS leaders could do more to foster good, collaborative relationships between parents and healthcare staff across the UK.
New research has indicated that people with autism have an altered sense of self, which may explain some of the differences shown in social functioning.
The study, which was carried out by scientists at Anglia Ruskin University and published in the journal Autism, involved a group of 51 adults, half with and half without autism.
It is the first time that responses to the self-altering 'full body illusion', which simulates an out of body experience, have been measured in people with autism.
Plants can't run away to avoid being eaten, so instead they employ a variety of chemical defenses to keep herbivores at bay. Understanding plant chemical defenses is critical for keeping crops healthy, and for answering a variety of more academic questions about ecology and evolution. However, current techniques for assessing plant chemical defenses are time consuming and require impractically large amounts of plant tissue.
ORLANDO, Fla., April 3, 2019 -- Lead leaching from pipes into the water supply is a serious public health concern. And if water sources or treatment regimens are changed, the new chemistry can cause water distribution systems that were previously safe to begin releasing toxic lead, as the crisis in Flint, Michigan, demonstrated a few years ago. Today, scientists will describe a cost-effective and quick method that could overcome these problems and make lead pipes safe for carrying drinking water.
DETROIT - Allowing for more quality measures in the federal government's Quality Star Rating program would create a fairer and more equitable model for assessing the level of quality at U.S. acute-care hospitals, according to a Henry Ford Health System study.
Researchers found that recognizing four fundamental quality factors in the safety of care category and assigning more equal weights to the eight measures in that category would modify the rating system's current scoring methodology and produce more accurate and informative results.
During the period in which the papaya (Carica papaya) is ripening, its cell walls separate, making the tissue softer and more digestible because the cell contents become accessible and the sucrose in the fruit is more easily extracted.
Sugarcane roots have recently been found to undergo a similar process. Their cell walls are modified during development to form gas-filled intercellular spaces in a type of tissue known as aerenchyma.
CORVALLIS, Ore. - Efforts to curtail the flow of cocaine into the United States from South America have made drug trafficking operations more widespread and harder to eradicate, according to new research published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Melanomas tend to be "hot" or "cold" - if they're hot, immunotherapy lights melanoma tumors like beacons for elimination by the immune system; but 40-50 percent of melanomas are cold, making them invisible to the immune system, and patients with cold tumors tend to show little benefit from immunotherapies. The problem is that it's been impossible to distinguish a hot melanoma from a cold one - the solution has been to administer immunotherapy and hope for the best, often leading to wasted time and resources.
Virtually everyone has heard of Ernest Hemingway. But you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who knows of Ellen N. La Motte.
People should.
She is the extraordinary World War I nurse who wrote like Hemingway before Hemingway. She was arguably the originator of his famous style – the first to write about World War I using spare, understated, declarative prose.