Latest science news in Biology & Nature
Gut Bacteria Free Hidden Mycotoxins From Food
Health: Current detection methods don’t look for toxin derivatives
Poachers slaughtering African elephants
LIBREVILLE, Gabon, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- A national park in Gabon, once home to Africa's largest forest elephant population, has lost more than 11,000 of the animals to poaching,...
What Causes Lou Gehrig's Sticky Masses?
Scientist home in on protein tangles behind amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases
Tapping into the rubber plant genome
A group of international scientists have sequenced the draft genome sequence of the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis, the major commercial source of natural rubber. The manuscript describing the draft genome...
Preserving biodiversity can be compatible with intensive agriculture
Preserving genetically diverse local crops in areas where small-scale farms are rapidly modernizing is possible, according to a geographer, who is part of an international research project investigating the biodiversity...
Genetic variation doubles risk of aortic valve calcification
Researchers have found a genetic variant that doubles the likelihood that people will have calcium deposits on their aortic valve. Such calcification, if it becomes severe, can cause narrowing or...
Sensing the light, but not to see: Primitive organism's photosensitive cells may be ancestral to 'circadian receptors' in mammalian retina
In a primitive marine organism, scientists find photosensitive cells that may be ancestral to the "circadian receptors" in the mammalian retina.
Scientists identify genetic mechanism that contributed to Irish Famine
Plant pathologists studied the pathogen that triggered the Irish Famine of the 19th century by infecting potato plants, and deciphered how it succeeded in crippling the potato plant's immune system.
Bt Corn Benefits: More Than Rootworm Resistance
Bt corn, which is engineered to produce the bacterial toxin, Bt, that organic farmers spray on foods all of the time, is better than a pesticide because is naturally resists attack...
How new corals species form in the ocean
Biological sciences professors have investigated how corals specialize to particular environments in the ocean. They propose that the large dispersal potential of coral larvae in open water and the proximity...
Researchers discover how new corals species form in the ocean
Since the observations made by English naturalist Charles Darwin on the Galapagos Islands, researchers have been interested in how physical barriers, such as isolation on a particular island, can lead...
New light shed on the mysteries of spider silk
Researchers have now measured all of the elastic properties of an intact spider's web, drawing a remarkable picture of the behavior of one of nature's most intriguing structures. The work...
Video: Zebra finch may hold secret to improving human speech
The common zebra finch may hold the key to improving the lives of people with speech impediments. Researchers in Denmark are looking closely at the birds' vocalisation anatomy and say...
Romantic Jays Take Care To Feed Their Mates What They Particularly Crave
Jay Couple courtesy Cambridge UniversityIn advance of Valentine's Day, a new study finds sweet behavior in bird couples. Cambridge researchers took pairs of mated jaybirds and put them in adjoining compartments, so that...
Scientists discover how chromosomes keep their loose ends loose
We take it for granted that our chromosomes won’t stick together, yet this kind of cellular disaster would happen constantly were it not for a protein called TRF2. Now, scientists...
In sync: stem cells work together to make hair grow, give it color
Researchers in Elaine Fuchs's Laboratory of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development have elucidated how adult stem cells in hair follicles communicate with each other and what keeps them silent for...
Thailand: Astonishing 10 new species of semi-aquatic freshwater earthworms revealed
The semi-aquatic earthworms in the genus Glyphidrilus are somewhat unfamiliar species that live between the terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems of rivers, streams, canals, ponds, swamps and paddy systems. Remarkably, each...
New light shed on reprogramming mature cells to pluripotency, to divide and differentiate into specialized cell types
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) represent a milestone in stem cell research, however many of the biochemical processes that underlie reprogramming are still not understood. Scientists now shed new...
Oral Mystery: Are Agriculture and Rats Responsible for Tooth Decay?
Next time you are waiting for your turn at the dentist's chair, why not let your mind wonder about something more appealing? Here’s a relevant topic: A long time ago...
Pest uses plant hairs for protection: Trichomes save insect from beetle predation
Guam cycads' hairy problem allows invasive insect to flourish. Everyone needs to eat. But it's a dog-eat-dog world, and with the exception of the top predators, everyone also gets eaten....
Is This Guy Actually Trying To Fight Me? (Songbird Edition)
Song Sparrow Richard LevineHow to tell whether the sparrow heckling you from the next branch is just bluffing Okay, so let's say you're a sparrow, right? And you're just hanging out on...
Tadpoles not just baby frogs
(Phys.org)—Tadpoles may be vital in helping maintain the ecosystems of freshwater streams, a James Cook University researcher is discovering.
Royal Institution's chemical heritage for sale
If the Royal Institution is to have a future, it cannot be separated from its past, says Mark Peplow
Biocontrol research on Brazilian peppertree in Florida discovers new cryptic species
Dr Michael Pogue, a Research Entomologist in the ARS Systematic Entomology Laboratory, at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, was sent a series of moth specimens from Bahia, Brazil, for identification....
Central Texas Wildfire Recovery Helped by Wildflower Center Raising 700,000 Pine Trees in Two Years
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center of The University of Texas at Austin has been selected to grow 700,000-plus loblolly pines to restore wildfire-damaged Bastrop County, home of the endangered...
Medusa and the giant squid: Camera system captures first video
Researchers from The University of Queensland played a key role in filming the first video images of a live giant squid in its natural habitat, in lightless water up to...
X-rays reveal uptake of nanoparticles by soya bean crops
Scientists have, for the first time, traced the nanoparticles taken up from the soil by crop plants and analysed the chemical states of their metallic elements. Zinc was shown to...
Funding for shark drug research
A team developing anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory drugs from research based on the immune systems of sharks receives a £1.5m funding boost.