Culture

A team of paleontologists led by Prof. Jingmai O'Connor from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with researchers from the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature, have discovered a new specimen of the volant dromaeosaurid Microraptor zhaoianus with the remains of a nearly complete lizard preserved in its stomach. Their findings were published in Current Biology.

A new genome-wide analysis by Marta Pereira Verdugo and colleagues uncovers the complex origins of domestic cattle (Bos taurus), demonstrating why it has been difficult to untangle these origins from studies of modern breeds. Cattle were first domesticated around 10,500 years ago from the extinct Eurasian auroch, Bos primigenius, in northern Mesopotamia. By comparing the auroch genome to the genomes of 67 ancient Bos taurus specimens from archaeological sites in the Near East, Verdugo et al.

What The Study Did: Photographs of 24 men before and after facial cosmetic surgery were part of this survey study to examine whether surgery was associated with perceived changes in attractiveness, masculinity and a variety of personality traits.

Stem cells self-renew and give rise to cells that are differentiated during development. These differentiated cells can change into stem cells under appropriate conditions in most plants, in which this process is more readily apparent, and some animals. Researchers have previously succeeded in forming new shoots from intact leaves by inducing single transcription factors in Arabidopsis. However, it has not been clear whether these transcription factors induce meristematic tissue that subsequently induces stem cells or directly induces them.

When multidisciplinary health care teams were engaged in caring for patients suffering from refractory cardiogenic shock, a severe condition that can occur after a heart attack, the likelihood of survival increased significantly, by approximately 50 percent. The proof of concept study by investigators at University of Utah Health was published online in the July issue of Circulation.

Agriculture contributes to 70% of total emissions by humans of nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent polluting gas and the one to blame for the hole in the ozone layer. The root of this issue is in the widespread use of chemical fertilizers, such as urea and ammonium nitrate. Once these products have been used in soil for crops, a portion of them are lost in the form of N2O, which goes directly into the atmosphere. The pollution problem of fertilizers is heightened with the growing rise in the demand for foods that require these fertilizers in order to attain profitable agricultural production.

Mitosis is the process by which the genetic information encoded on chromosomes is equally distributed to two daughter cells, a fundamental feature of all life on earth. Scientists led by Alexander Dammermann at the Max Perutz Labs, a joint venture of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, now examine how centrioles contribute to this process. The findings, published in "Developmental Cell", help to elucidate the function of these tiny cellular structures in mitosis.