A Duke University study shows that trace elements in a fish’s ear bones can be used to identify and track coal ash contamination in the waters where it lived. “Calcified structures—or otoliths—found in a fish’s inner ear are known to store a lot of life history information, including chemical and physical records of the fish’s … Read more
Humans can get by in the most basic of shelters, can scratch together a meal from the most humble of ingredients. But we can’t survive without clean water. And in places where water is scarce—the world’s deserts, for example—getting water to people requires feats of engineering and irrigation that can be cumbersome and expensive. A pair … Read more
The neurological disorder Huntington’s disease causes behavioural and motor changes, which among other things are a result of dysfunctional maturation or formation of glial cells, the brain’s support cells, researchers from the University of Copenhagen demonstrate in a new study based on mouse trials. The researchers’ long-term goal is to be able to use the … Read more
The climate is not only warming, it is also becoming more variable and extreme. Such unpredictable weather can weaken global food security if major crops such as wheat are not sufficiently resilient—and if we are not properly prepared. A group of European researchers, including Professor Jørgen E. Olesen from the Department of Agroecology at Aarhus … Read more
Continuous indoor exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke triggers changes in the heart’s electrical activity, known as cardiac alternans, that can predict cardiac arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death, a new study from UC Davis Health researchers shows. The authors believe the study, conducted in mice, suggests that second-hand smoke exposure alters cells that regulate how the … Read more
University of Queensland researchers have discovered a key mechanism in the brain that may underlie our ability to rapidly focus attention. Our brains are continuously bombarded with information from the senses, yet our level of vigilance to such input varies, allowing us to selectively focus on one conversation and not another. Professor Stephen Williams of … Read more
Some of you may have made a New Year’s resolution to hit the gym to tackle that annoying belly fat. But have you ever wondered how physical activity produces this desired effect? A signaling molecule called interleukin-6 plays a critical role in this process, researchers report December 27 in the journal Cell Metabolism. As expected, … Read more
Using MAGIC telescopes and NASA’s Fermi spacecraft, an international team of astronomers has discovered a new source of very high energy gamma-ray emission around the supernova remnant (SNR) G24.7+0.6. The detection of the new source, designated MAGIC J1835–069, is detailed in a paper published December 12 on the arXiv pre-print server. Supernova remnants are basically … Read more
In a recent publication in Science, researchers at the University of Paderborn and the Fritz Haber Institute Berlin demonstrated their ability to observe electrons’ movements during a chemical reaction. Researchers have long studied the atomic-scale processes that govern chemical reactions, but were never before able to observe electron motions as they happened. Electrons exist on … Read more
Researchers analysing soil from Ireland long thought to have medicinal properties have discovered that it contains a previously unknown strain of bacteria which is effective against four of the top six superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics, including MRSA. Antibiotic-resistant superbugs could kill up to 1.3 million people in Europe by 2050, according to recent … Read more
A team of researchers at Yamagata University and Teikyo University of Science, in Japan, have recently developed a new roving biologger, or whale rover, which can travel along a sperm whale’s body surface and collect valuable behavioural data. Biologging entails the biological tracking of individual animals, typically by attaching small dataloggers directly to their bodies. … Read more
Every month or two, a massive pulse of clouds, rainfall and wind moves eastward around the Earth near the equator, providing the tropics their famous thunderstorms. This band of recurring weather, first described by scientists in 1971, is called the Madden-Julian Oscillation. It has profound effects on weather in distant places, including the United States. … Read more
Scientists have long struggled to explain how tropical forests can maintain their staggering diversity of trees without having a handful of species take over—or having many other species die out. The answer, researchers say, lies in the soil found near individual trees, where natural “enemies” of tree species reside. These enemies, including fungi and arthropods, … Read more
Advances in artificial intelligence have created new threats to the privacy of health data, a new UC Berkeley study shows. The study, led by professor Anil Aswani of the Industrial Engineering & Operations Research Department (IEOR) in the College of Engineering and his team, suggests current laws and regulations are nowhere near sufficient to keep an … Read more
A new Tel Aviv University study describes a process to make bioplastic polymers that don’t require land or fresh water—resources that are scarce in much of the world. The polymer is derived from microorganisms that feed on seaweed. It is biodegradable, produces zero toxic waste and recycles into organic waste. The invention was the fruit … Read more