Earth
As species across the world adjust where they live in response to climate change, they will come into competition with other species that could hamper their ability to keep up with the pace of this change, according to new University of Colorado Boulder-led research.
In a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study involving both mice and patients who are part of an NIH Clinical Center trial, researchers discovered that a gene, called PIEZO2, may be responsible for the powerful urge to urinate that we normally feel several times a day. The results, published in Nature, suggest that the gene helps at least two different types of cells in the body sense when our bladders are full and need to be emptied. These results also expand the growing list of newly discovered senses under the gene's control.
Light from distant galaxies reveals important information about the nature of the universe and allows scientists to develop high-precision models of the history, evolution and structure of the cosmos.
The gravity associated with massive pockets of dark matter that lie between Earth and these galaxies, however, plays havoc with those galactic light signals. Gravity distorts galaxies' light -- a process called gravitational lensing -- and also slightly aligns the galaxies physically, resulting in additional gravitational lensing light signals that contaminate the true data.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Children who are later diagnosed with autism and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder visit doctors and hospitals more often in their first year of life than non-affected children, suggesting a potential new way to identify the conditions early.
An international collaboration has provided the first insights into a new type of silk produced by the very unusual Australian basket-web spider, which uses it to build a lobster pot web that protects its eggs and trap prey.
The basket-web spider weaves a silk that is uniquely rigid and so robust that the basket-web doesn't need help from surrounding vegetation to maintain its structure.
"As far as we know, no other spider builds a web like this," said Professor Mark Elgar from the School of BioSciences at the University of Melbourne.
BEER-SHEVA, Israel...October 19, 2020 -- What if an MRI scan could determine whether a weight loss program was likely to be effective? Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have discovered a neural subnetwork of connected regions between the brain and gastric basal electric frequency that correlates with future weight loss based on connectivity patterns.
The Columbia River is home to one of the West Coast's most important Chinook salmon runs. Through late spring and early summer, mature fish return from the sea and begin their arduous journey upriver to spawn. In recent years, these fish have faced an additional challenge: hungry California sea lions.
A new University of Washington and NOAA Fisheries study found that sea lions have the largest negative effect on early-arriving endangered Chinook salmon in the lower Columbia River. The results of this study will publish Oct. 18 in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
The Western Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming places on earth. It is also home to threatened humpback and minke whales, chinstrap, Adélie and gentoo penguin colonies, leopard seals, killer whales, seabirds like skuas and giant petrels, and krill - the bedrock of the Antarctic food chain.
With sea ice covering ever-smaller areas and melting more rapidly due to climate change, many species' habitats have decreased. The ecosystem's delicate balance is consequently tilted, leaving species in danger of extinction.
Vanderbilt University researchers have reported the counterintuitive discovery that certain chemotherapeutic agents used to treat tumors can have the opposite effect of tissue overgrowth in normal, intact mammary glands, epidermis and hair follicles. The researchers also are the first to report the discovery of an innate immune signaling pathway in fibroblasts--the spindle-shaped cells responsible for wound healing and collagen production--that causes cells to proliferate. Such signaling pathways previously were attributed only to immune cells.
Here we report that Reelin-Dab1 signaling regulates the proliferation and radial distribution of OPCs in the late embryonic mouse neocortex. OPCs express Reelin signaling molecules and respond to Reelin stimulation. Reelin-Dab1 signaling suppresses the proliferation of OPCs both in vitro and in vivo. Reelin repels OPCs in vitro, and the radial distribution of OPCs is altered in mice with either attenuated or augmented Reelin-Dab1 signaling. This is the first report identifying the secreted molecule that plays a role in the radial distribution of OPCs in the late embryonic neocortex.
A pioneering technique which captures precisely how mountains bend to the will of raindrops has helped to solve a long-standing scientific enigma.
The dramatic effect rainfall has on the evolution of mountainous landscapes is widely debated among geologists, but new research led by the University of Bristol and published today in Science Advances, clearly calculates its impact, furthering our understanding of how peaks and valleys have developed over millions of years.
Sea floor sediments of the Arctic Ocean can help scientists understand how permafrost responds to climate warming. A multidisciplinary team from Stockholm University has found evidence of past permafrost thawing during climate warming events at the end of the last ice age. Their findings, published in Science Advances, caution about what could happen in the near future: That Arctic warming by only a few degrees Celsius may trigger massive permafrost thawing, coastal erosion, and the release of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) into the atmosphere.
Nearly all of Madagascan megafauna - including the famous Dodo bird, gorilla-sized lemurs, giant tortoises, and the Elephant Bird which stood 3 meters tall and weighted close to a half ton - vanished between 1500 and 500 years ago. Were these animals overhunted to extinction by humans? Or did they disappear because of climate change? There are numerous hypotheses, but the exact cause of this megafauna crash remains elusive and hotly debated. The Mascarene islands east of Madagascar are of special interest because they are among the last islands on earth to be colonized by humans.
Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have discovered a uniquely quantum effect in erasing information that may have significant implications for the design of quantum computing chips. Their surprising discovery brings back to life the paradoxical "Maxwell's demon", which has tormented physicists for over 150 years.
During metastasis, cancer cells actively interact with microenvironments of new tissues. How metastatic cancer cells respond to new environments in the secondary tissues is a crucial question in cancer research but still remains elusive. Recently, researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), along with their international collaborators, discovered a novel mechanical mechanism of metastatic cancer cells in substrates of different stiffness, which could contribute to developing diagnostic tools for metastatic cancer cells and cancer therapeutics.