Latest science news in Biology & Nature
Body of missing hiker discovered at Mount Rainier National Park
National Park Service officials announced Tuesday they discovered the body of Matthew Bunker, one of three hikers who have gone missing at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington within a...
Scientists shed new light on how seabirds cruise through air and water
New insight on how four species of seabirds have developed the ability to cruise through both air and water has been published today in the open-access journal eLife.
Scientists investigate epigenetic impact across whole genome
All life depends on a genome, which acts as an instruction manual for building all the products essential for development and survival. But knowing which of these individual instructions—or genes—need...
How a protein's small change leads to big trouble for cells
In molecular biology, chaperones are a class of proteins that help regulate how other proteins fold. Folding is an important step in the manufacturing process for proteins. When they don't...
Microscope allows gentle, continuous imaging of light-sensitive corals
Corals are "part animal, part plant, and part rock—and difficult to figure out, despite being studied for centuries," says Philippe Laissue of University of Essex, a Whitman Scientist at the...
Next-generation sequencing to provide precision medicine for rare metabolic disorders
Advances in next-generation-sequencing technology that allow researchers to look at billions of pieces of genetic information are changing the way a disease is diagnosed. Correct identification of changes in the...
Wild bees depend on the landscape structure
Sowing strips of wildflowers along conventional cereal fields and the increased density of flowers in organic farming encourage bumblebees as well as solitary wild bees and hoverflies. Bumblebee colonies benefit...
Researchers: Asian flying snakes wriggle their bodies for stability
Researchers at Virginia Tech University said they have figured out why a species of flying snake native to Asia wriggle their bodies up and down when they glide through the...
Revisiting energy flow in photosynthetic plant cells
By developing innovative methods to visualize energy changes in subcellular compartments in live plants, researchers recently solved a controversial question in photosynthesis: what is the source of NADH (Reduced Nicotinamide...
Plant tissue engineering improves drought and salinity tolerance
After several years of experimentation, scientists have engineered thale cress, or Arabidopsis thaliana, to behave like a succulent, improving water-use efficiency, salinity tolerance and reducing the effects of drought. The...
How worms move: Dopamine helps nematodes coordinate motor behaviors
For a nematode worm, a big lawn of the bacteria that it eats is a great place for it to disperse its eggs so that each hatchling can emerge into a nutritive...
'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' CG-animated film in development, Seth Rogen producing
Nickelodeon announced on Tuesday that a new, CG-animated "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie is in development.
New genomic atlas of the developing human brain
Researchers have created a comprehensive region-specific atlas of the regulatory regions of the genome linked to human embryonic brain development.
New stinging ant species could cause problems for Kentuckians
University of Kentucky entomologists want people to be aware of a new stinging pest in the state, the Asian needle ant.
Brain receptor pulls open electrical gate like a puppet master
For the first time, researchers in the lab of CSHL Professor Hiro Furukawa have been able to track each atom in the NMDA receptor, an important brain protein, as it...
Plant tissue engineering improves drought and salinity tolerance
After several years of experimentation, scientists have engineered thale cress, or Arabidopsis thaliana, to behave like a succulent, improving water-use efficiency, salinity tolerance and reducing the effects of drought. The...
Wild bees depend on the landscape structure
Sowing strips of wildflowers along conventional cereal fields and the increased density of flowers in organic farming encourage bumblebees as well as solitary wild bees and hoverflies. Bumblebee colonies benefit...
Bubbling and burping droplets of DNA
Liquid droplets formed from DNA display a peculiar response to enzymes. An international collaboration between LMU and UCSB has now been able to explain the mechanisms behind bubble formation.
Lab-grown 'mini-brains' suggest COVID-19 virus can infect human brain cells
Researchers have found that organoids known as 'mini-brains' can be infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
Scientists develop novel predictable multi-nucleotide deletion systems in plants
Many small regulatory elements, including miRNAs, miRNA binding sites, and cis-acting elements, comprise only five to 24 nucleotides and play important roles in regulating gene expression, transcription and translation, and...
Novel species of fungi discovered on bat carcasses in the limestone caves of southwest China
A subterranean expedition led by Prof. Xu Jianchu from the Kunming Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences highlights the importance of understanding the ways in which the...
Spider silk can create lenses useful for biological imaging
Spiders—what are they good for? The answer, it turns out, is more than just insect control.
Police chase zoo's escaped peacock through New York neighborhood
Police in New York ended up in an unusual chase when a peacock escaped from the Prospect Park Zoo and went for a run through Brooklyn.
Malaria's secret to surviving in the blood uncovered
New research from the Francis Crick Institute has found how the malaria parasite protects itself from toxic compounds in red blood cells.
Soil in Amazon found to host a large number of fungi types
In a paper published in the journal Ecology and Evolution, an international team of researchers reports finding that soil in the Amazon River Basin hosts a surprisingly large number of...
Whales used to identify Arabian horses
A computer program that mimics in software the social interactions of the humpback whale has been used by researchers in Egypt to build a system for the identification of Arabian...
Researchers access both enantiomers by varying reaction time
Homochirality is a fundamental feature of all living organism. It is well known that a pair of enantiomers of chiral drug molecules, whose structures have a non-superimposable mirror-image relationship to...
Ecologists detect warning signals of malaria outbreak
Researchers at the University of Georgia have demonstrated that disease surveillance data can be used to predict certain infectious disease outbreaks. The team detected early warning signals of a 1993...