Earth
Scientists engineering valuable microbes for renewable fuels and bioproducts have developed a fast, efficient way to identify the most promising varieties.
Millions of acres of natural habitat in the U.S. and the wildlife that inhabit these large swaths of private and public lands depend on people who support a myriad of conservation activities. Recreational hunters are an important group of people whose licenses, taxes and fees directly pay for conservation efforts. However, the number of people who hunt as a sport has steadily declined since the 1980s.
Researchers from Prokhorov General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology have developed a novel method for diagnosing and monitoring autoimmune disorders. Within a mere 25 minutes, their new biosensor not only measures the concentration of autoantibodies in human blood serum with extremely high sensitivity, but also -- for the first time -- quantifies their activity. The combination of these parameters permits the elaboration of new diagnostic criteria for autoimmune diseases, as well as new approaches to their treatment.
What drives the evolution of new species of sharks and rays? Traditionally, scientists thought it required species to be separated by geographic or spatial barriers, however a new study of elasmobranchs (the group of sharks and rays) has challenged this expectation - and found evolution is happening faster than many think.
Cats are twice as likely to survive a venomous snakebite than dogs, and the reasons behind this strange phenomenon have been revealed by University of Queensland research.
The research team, led by PhD student Christina Zdenek and Associate Professor Bryan Fry, compared the effects of snake venoms on the blood clotting agents in dogs and cats, hoping to help save the lives of our furry friends.
"Snakebite is a common occurrence for pet cats and dogs across the globe and can be fatal," Dr Fry said.
Barcelona, 18 May 2020.- The Translational Control of Cell Cycle and Differentiation Lab at IRB Barcelona, led by ICREA researcher Raúl Méndez, has published a study in the journal Science Advances that has identified a key factor in the development of luminal breast cancer. Characterised by the expression of estrogen receptors, luminal tumours are the most common subtype of breast cancer. The mammary gland is the only organ in our body to undergo its greatest development after birth, as a result of fluctuations in hormone levels.
CHAPEL HILL, NC - May 18, 2020 - How do cells move? Why do they move? Why do some cancer cells move slowly while others move quickly, causing a cancerous tumor to metastasize and become much more difficult to treat effectively? The answers are not as simple as we would want. They involve tiny proteins and processes that are very difficult to study in real time and space. The UNC Department of Pharmacology labs of Klaus Hahn, PhD, and John Sondek, PhD, are dedicated to overcoming this difficulty.
Summers in Europe will feature more unusually cooler days as well as hotter ones in the future due to climate change, new research has revealed.
While more extreme temperatures, and higher average temperatures, have long been predicted by scientists, a team at the University of Reading have now carried the most sophisticated study yet to fill in the gaps about how global warming will actually influence summer and winter temperatures in the northern hemisphere.
Is COVID-19 more deadly than the flu?
It's a lot more deadly, concludes a new study by the University of Washington published May 7 in the journal Health Affairs. The study's results also project a grim future if the U.S. doesn't put up a strong fight against the spread of the virus.
The national rate of death among people infected with the novel coronavirus -- SARS-CoV-2 -- that causes COVID-19 and who show symptoms is 1.3%, the study found. The comparable rate of death for the seasonal flu is 0.1%.
An analysis of genetic studies covering 266,000 women has revealed 32 new sites on the human genome where variations in DNA appear to alter the risks of getting breast cancer. The study lead and senior authors included researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The findings are thought to be the first to link such risk variants to multiple, detailed subtypes of breast cancer.
DALLAS (May 15, 2020) – Researchers at Center for BrainHealth®, part of The University of Texas at Dallas, recently published findings underscoring differences between men and women’s craving or desire to consume cannabis when exposed to a specific situation.
Many colors in nature are produced using pigments that absorb light to varying degrees and reflect the rest, creating shades of red and brown, for instance. Our clothes and other objects are colored the same way, using chemical dyes. But the iridescent blue and green colors found on insects and other animals are different. These organisms have somehow evolved the ability to grow complex nanostructures that scatter or diffract light to produce metallic-looking colors.
Bird wings adapted for long-distance flight are linked to their environment and behaviour, according to new research on an extensive database of wing measurements, led by the University of Bristol.
The Arctic tern flies from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back again each year, while the Inaccessible Island rail - the world's smallest flightless bird - never leaves its five-square-mile island.
Ocean warming is likely to alter the distribution and lifecycle of ecologically and commercially important Antarctic krill over the rest of this century, according to new IMAS-led research.
Published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the study looked at how krill growth habitat is likely to be affected by changes to ocean temperatures and the concentration of the species' preferred food, phytoplankton.
Dendritic cells (DCs) are one of our bodies' first line of defense against invaders, and are stationed like sentinels at all outer and inner surfaces as well as in most of our organs. When they detect something foreign, they become active and migrate into lymph nodes, where they present the foreign substance to B cells and T cells to initiate a protective response. This crucial role in activating immune responses makes DCs an attractive target for immunotherapy, but so far no technology exists that can effectively label, track, and target DCs in the body.