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Researchers at ETH Zurich working together with an international team have been able to use seismic data to look inside Mars for the first time. They measured the crust, mantle and core and narrowed down their composition. The three resulting articles are being published together as a cover story in the journal Science.

The rapid spread of the Alpha variant of COVID-19 in the UK resulted from biological changes in the virus and was enhanced by large numbers of infected people 'exporting' the variant around the country, in what the researchers call a 'super-seeding' event.

A new tool that enables thousands of tiny experiments to run simultaneously on a single polymer chip will let scientists study enzymes faster and more comprehensively than ever before.

Using information obtained from around a dozen earthquakes detected on Mars by the Very Broad Band SEIS seismometer, developed in France, the international team of NASA's InSight mission has unveiled the internal structure of Mars. The three papers published on July 23, provide, for the first time, an estimate of the size of the planet's core, the thickness of its crust and the structure of its mantle, based on the analysis of seismic waves reflected and modified by interfaces in its interior.

As a newborn mammal opens its eyes for the first time, it can already make visual sense of the world around it. But how does this happen before they have experienced sight?

New European Union regulations on batteries could offer a huge boost to the global decarbonisation mission - but only if it leverages its political and economic weight to ensure a fairer global marketplace.

Using recordings of marsquakes, seismologists have gained a precise picture of the structure and thickness of the red planet's crust / findings from NASA's InSight mission published in 'Science'

Like dreaming of walking through a world they've not yet experienced, the retinas of neonatal mice practice for what mature eyes must later process by generating spontaneous patterns of activity that mimic the perception of directional movement through space, according to a new study.

Of the nearly 100 SARS-CoV-2 vaccines currently undergoing clinical trials, only seven are delivered intranasally - despite this vaccine type's long success in providing protection from influenza.

In the suburbs of Sydney, Australia, sulphur-crested cockatoos routinely loot lidded household waste bins to scavenge for food. In a new study, researchers document the emergence and geographic spread of innovative bin-opening behaviors in urban parrot populations, revealing the presence of a complex social learning culture in these birds.

The first direct seismic observations from NASA's InSight lander, presented in three studies in this issue, provide clues to the composition of Mars.

Infection with dengue virus makes mosquitoes more sensitive to warmer temperatures, according to new research led by Penn State researchers. The team also found that infection with the bacterium Wolbachia, which has recently been used to control viral infections in mosquitoes, also increases the thermal sensitivity of the insects. The findings suggest that global warming could limit the spread of dengue fever but could also limit the effectiveness of Wolbachia as a biological control agent.

Researchers from Osaka University have found that the attachment of a ubiquitin molecule to a protein called PCNA at the lysine 107 position causes gross chromosomal rearrangements. This lysine is located where two PCNA molecules interact, and the ubiquitin attachment to it may change the ring structure they form. The ubiquitin attachment occurs through the action of Rad8 (a ubiquitin ligase) and Mms2-Ubc4 (a ubiquitin conjugating enzyme). This implies that inhibiting the human equivalent of this ubiquitination could prevent cancer.

From a dozen earthquakes detected on Mars by the SEIS seismometer, developed in France, the InSight team reveals the internal structure of Mars. The three studies published in Science and involving many co-authors from French institutions, reveal, by analyzing the seismic waves, an estimate of the size of the core, the thickness of the crust and the structure of the mantle.

World-first research proves 'cockies' learn unique bin-opening behavior by copying others

The neurotransmitters GABA and glutamate have complementary roles -- GABA inhibits neurons, while glutamate makes them more active. Published 22nd July in PLOS Biology, researchers led by Roi Cohen Kadosh and George Zacharopoulos from the University of Oxford show that levels of these two neurotransmitters in the intraparietal sulcus of the brain can predict mathematics ability. The study also found that the relationships between the two neurotransmitters and arithmetic fluency switched as children developed into adults.

A computational analysis of COVID-19 tests suggests that, in order to minimize the number of infections in a population, the amount of testing matters more than the sensitivity of the tests that are used. Philip Cherian and Gautam Menon of Ashoka University in Sonipat, India, and Sandeep Krishna of the National Centre for Biological Sciences TIFR, Bangalore, India, present their findings in the open-access journal PLOS Computational Biology.

A computational analysis of COVID-19 tests suggests that, in order to minimize the number of infections in a population, the amount of testing matters more than the sensitivity of the tests that are used. Philip Cherian and Gautam Menon of Ashoka University in Sonipat, India, and Sandeep Krishna of the National Centre for Biological Sciences TIFR, Bangalore, India, present their findings in the open-access journal PLOS Computational Biology.

A new study, led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities engineering researchers, shows that the stiffness of protein fibers in tissues, like collagen, are a key component in controlling the movement of cells. The groundbreaking discovery provides the first proof of a theory from the early 1980s and could have a major impact on fields that study cell movement from regenerative medicine to cancer research.

Researchers at Cornell have developed a way to analyze how individual immune cells react to the bacteria that cause tuberculosis. It could pave the way for new vaccine strategies and provide insights into fighting other infectious diseases.