Latest science news in Biology & Nature
New drug targets for lethal brain cancer discovered
More than 200 genes with novel and known roles in glioblastoma - the most aggressive type of brain cancer - offer promising new drug targets. Researchers engineered a new mouse...
Tigers' Miguel Cabrera records first multi-homer game since 2016
Miguel Cabrera turned back the clock with his first game with multiple home runs since 2016 with two long balls in a Detroit Tigers loss to the Kansas City Royals...
10 things we do that puzzle and scare horses
Horses, like our dogs and cats, are familiar to many of us, be they racehorses, police horses, or much-loved pony club mounts. So it might surprise you that horses, in...
Detective work in the cell: Scientists uncover a new RNA-modifying enzyme
Scientists led by Javier Martinez from the Max Perutz Labs, a joint venture of the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Vienna, have identified a unique chemical reaction...
Mice need kinetochores rich in a microtubule crosslinker to achieve error-free oocyte division
The error-free division of mouse oocytes—the precursors of eggs—needs kinetochores that are rich in a specific microtubule crosslinker, RIKEN researchers have discovered. This finding could explain why the division of...
Research reveals why it's hard to get the smell out of polyester
Why does that favourite shirt, the one you've been wearing around the house since COVID-19 started, still stink, even after regular washing?
Sharks are thriving at the Kermadec Islands, but not the rest of New Zealand, amid global decline
A recent global assessment of shark populations at 371 coral reefs in 58 countries found no sharks at almost 20% of reefs and alarmingly low numbers at many others.
3-D nanometer-thin membrane borrows from biology
Mimicking the structure of the kidney, a team of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) have created a three-dimensional nanometer (nm)-thin...
Beat the heat with a walrus retreat
Much of western Europe was sweltering in a heatwave on Friday, but visitors to one Belgian safari park could at least seek shelter in an igloo with a cool view.
Do Animals Really Anticipate Earthquakes? Sensors Hint They Do
Cows, sheep and dogs increased their activity before tremors, seemingly reacting in part to one another -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
This parasitic plant consists of just flashy flowers and creepy suckers
Doorknobs in skirts. Microphones in tutus. There are lots of ways to describe Langsdorffia flowers, but parasitic-plant specialist Chris Thorogood says they “absolutely look to me like deep-sea creatures.” Whatever you compare them...
Flinders Ranges, South Australia
Image: The many colourful curves and folds of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia are featured in this false-colour image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.
Blue crab invasion spells doom for Albanian fishermen
The blue crab may be pretty but it is a menace along Albania's coast.
New understanding of CRISPR-Cas9 tool could improve gene editing
Of the CRISPR-Cas9 tools created to date, base editors have gotten lots of attention because of their seemingly simple editing: they neatly replace one nucleic acid with another, in many...
Dragonfly larvae serve as biosentinels for mercury pollution
Citizen scientists use the insects to investigate freshwater habitats in national parks
An immune system quirk may help anglerfish fuse with mates during sex
For deep-sea anglerfishes, sex resembles an organ transplant. It’s hard to find a partner in the dark depths, so a tiny male anglerfish fuses its tissues to a more massive female during mating,...
Swiss prosecutor launches criminal proceedings against FIFA head Gianni Infantino
FIFA President Gianni Infantino faces criminal proceedings in Switzerland in connection with undocumented meetings with former Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber.
The virus that causes COVID-19 has been silently brewing in bats for decades
The viral lineage leading to the novel coronavirus—SARS-CoV-2—might have been “circulating unnoticed in bats for decades.” (Pixabay/)Scientists have been searching for the origins of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) since the pandemic began....
Studying interactions between ground-nesting bees and soils
Research gives possible answers to increase pollinator populations on farms.
Scientists expose fascinating 'compartments' in bacteria
A new review article casts light on organelles, the internal compartments in bacterial cells that house and support functions essential for their survival and growth.
Images of Antibodies as They Neutralize the COVID-19 Virus
As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe in the first half of 2020, researchers worldwide worked around-the-clock to understand and combat it. Caltech postdoctoral scholar Christopher Barnes is one...
Long-lost sisters reunite more than 50 years later thanks to COVID-19
A pair of Nebraska sisters who hadn't seen each other in more than 50 years were reunited when one ended up as the other's medication aide while she was recovering...
Erratum for the Report "Global distribution of earthworm diversity" by H. R. P. Phillips, C. A. Guerra, M. L. C. Bartz, M. J. I. Briones, G. Brown, T. W. Crowther, O. Ferlian, K. B. Gongalsky, J. van den Hoogen, J. Krebs, A. Orgiazzi, D. Routh, B. Schwarz
Structural insights into differences in G protein activation by family A and family B GPCRs
Family B heterotrimeric guanine nucleotide–binding protein (G protein)–coupled receptors (GPCRs) play important roles in carbohydrate metabolism. Recent structures of family B GPCR-Gs protein complexes reveal a disruption in the α-helix of transmembrane segment 6...
Genomic surveillance reveals multiple introductions of SARS-CoV-2 into Northern California
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread globally, with >365,000 cases in California as of 17 July 2020. We investigated...
Allele-specific open chromatin in human iPSC neurons elucidates functional disease variants
Most neuropsychiatric disease risk variants are in noncoding sequences and lack functional interpretation. Because regulatory sequences often reside in open chromatin, we reasoned that neuropsychiatric disease risk variants may affect...
In-cell architecture of an actively transcribing-translating expressome
Structural biology studies performed inside cells can capture molecular machines in action within their native context. In this work, we developed an integrative in-cell structural approach using the genome-reduced human...
Human-specific ARHGAP11B increases size and folding of primate neocortex in the fetal marmoset
The neocortex has expanded during mammalian evolution. Overexpression studies in developing mouse and ferret neocortex have implicated the human-specific gene ARHGAP11B in neocortical expansion, but the relevance for primate evolution...