Earth

The menstrual cycle appears to have an effect on nicotine cravings, according to a new study by Adrianna Mendrek of the University of Montreal and its affiliated Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal. "Our data reveal that incontrollable urges to smoke are stronger at the beginning of the follicular phase that begins after menstruation. Hormonal decreases of oestrogen and progesterone possibly deepen the withdrawal syndrome and increase activity of neural circuits associated with craving," Mendrek said.

A new study sheds light on space weather's impact on Earth. The authors show for the first time that plasma waves buffeting the planet's radiation belts are responsible for scattering charged particles into the atmosphere.

The study is the most detailed analysis so far of the link between these waves and the fallout of electrons from the planet's radiation belts. The belts are impacted by fluctuations in "space weather" caused by solar activity that can disrupt GPS satellites, communication systems, power grids and manned space exploration.

A whale that can live over 200 years with little evidence of age-related disease may provide untapped insights into how to live a long and healthy life. In Cell Reports, researchers present the complete bowhead whale genome and identify key differences compared to other mammals. Alterations in bowhead genes related to cell division, DNA repair, cancer, and aging may have helped increase its longevity and cancer resistance.

Researchers have identified for the first time mutations that destabilize a DNA structure that turns a gene off. These mutations occur at four specific sites in what is known as the "hTERT promoter" in more than 75 percent of glioblastomas and melanomas.

Sometimes new insect species are discovered in the wild but a lot of times they are discovered in the drawers of old museum collections.

And sometimes they are discovered by accident, which is how Dr. J. E. McPherson, professor emeritus at Southern Illinois University, discovered a new species of assassin bug.

It's a comfortable narrative that being obese will lead to diabetes, heart disease and stroke, and it is certainly a risk factor, but just like 90 percent of smokers never get lung cancer and half of lung cancer patients never smoked, a comfortable narrative is creating a simplistic view of science.

Plant geneticists have sorted out the gene regulatory networks that control cell wall thickening by the synthesis of the three polymers, cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. The most rigid of the polymers, lignin, represents "a major impediment" to extracting sugars from plant biomass that can be used to make biofuels and so their genetic advance is expected to "serve as a foundation for understanding the regulation of a complex, integral plant component" and as a map for how future researchers might manipulate the polymer-forming processes to improve the efficiency of biofuel production.

Electrons may be regarded as small magnets that also carry a negative electrical charge. On a fundamental level, these two properties are indivisible, but in certain materials where the electrons are constrained in a quasi one-dimensional world, they appear to split into a magnet and an electrical charge, which can move freely and independently of each other.

A longstanding question has been whether or not similar phenomenon can happen in more than one dimension. A team has uncovered new evidence showing that this can happen in quasi two-dimensional magnetic materials.

Cholera is caused when the bacterium Vibrio cholerae infects the small intestine. The disease is characterized by acute watery diarrhea resulting in severe dehydration. EPFL scientists have now demonstrated that V. cholerae uses a tiny spear to stab and kill neighboring bacteria - even of its own kind - and then steal their DNA. "Horizontal gene transfer" allows the cholera bacterium to become more virulent by absorbing the traits of its prey.

A new species of frog does what no other frog does: It gives birth to live tadpoles instead of laying eggs.

A member of the Asian group of fanged frogs, the new species was discovered a few decades ago by Indonesian researcher Djoko Iskandar and was thought to give direct birth to tadpoles, though the frog's mating and an actual birth had never been observed before.

When the human genome was first sequenced, experts predicted they would find about 100,000 genes but the actual number turned out to be closer to 20,000. The question arose: how can a relatively small number of genes lay the blueprint for the complexities of the human body?

The explanation is that genes are subject to many and varied forms of regulation that can alter the form of that protein and can determine whether and how much of a gene product is made. Much of this regulation occurs during and just after DNA is transcribed into RNA.

An invasive ant species that has become increasingly abundant in eastern North America not only takes over yards and delivers a nasty sting, it's helping the spread of an invasive plant species. The ants are very effective dispersers of invasive plant seeds and new research suggests that together they could wreak havoc on native ecosystems.

University of Toronto researchers have found that the European fire ant, Myrmica rubra, disperses seeds of both native and invasive plants, but it does a much better job of helping an invasive plant to spread.

Tropical storm Jangmi, known in the Philippines as Seniang, weakened to a tropical depression as it moved into the Sulu Sea and NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of the storm that showed its eastern side was still affecting the central and northern Philippines on Dec. 30.

A group of scientists led by researchers at the Université de Versailles' Institut Lavoisier in France has worked out how to stably gift-wrap a chemical gas known as nitric oxide within metal-organic frameworks. Such an encapsulated chemical may allow doctors to administer nitric oxide in a more highly controlled way to patients, suggesting new approaches for treating dangerous infections and heart conditions with the biologically-active substance.

In the already weird world of neutrinos, physicists have found evidence that these tiny particles might be involved in a weird reaction, even for neutrinos.