Culture
A team of scientists has discovered an ancient form of rubisco, the most abundant enzyme on Earth and critical to life as we know it.
Found in previously unknown environmental microbes, the newly identified rubisco provides insight into the evolution of the photosynthetic organisms that underlie the planet's food chains.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, most universities across the United States transitioned from face-to-face classes to remote learning, closed campuses and sent students home this past spring. Such changes, coupled with social distancing guidelines, have altered social interactions and limited our access to fitness facilities, parks and gymnasiums. This is concerning as positive social interaction and access to exercise facilities both promote physical activity.
HERSHEY, Pa. -- Researchers at Penn State College of Medicine now better understand the role of a protein, interleukin-21 (IL-21), in the immune system response to infections in the nervous system. The results of their recent study support further investigation into using IL-21 as a therapeutic agent for persistent central nervous system infections.
CD4 T cells in the immune system produce IL-21, which is critical for the development of CD8 tissue-resident-memory (TRM) cells during persistent viral infections of the central nervous system with polyomavirus.
In the United States, where food is relatively easy to come by for most of the population, roughly $165 billion worth of it is wasted every year. That's enough to fill 730 college football stadiums. And of the food that is wasted, the majority of it is at the household level.
Technology that helps to quickly extract and analyse genetic material could be used for cheap, accurate and mobile COVID-19 testing, including at airports and remote testing centres.
'Dipstick' technology, developed by the University of Queensland's Professor Jimmy Botella and Dr Michael Mason, allows genetic material to be extracted in as little as 30 seconds, with a full molecular diagnosis in 40 minutes.
Since 2004, Claude Knauf (INSERM) and Patrice Cani (UCLouvain) have been collaborating on molecular and cellular mechanisms in order to understand the causes of the development of type 2 diabetes and above all to identify new therapeutic targets. In 2013, they created an international laboratory, 'NeuroMicrobiota Lab' (INSERM-UCLouvain), to identify links between the brain and intestinal bacteria.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have identified a single-measure biomarker in sperm mitochondrial DNA that may predict male reproductive health and pregnancy success.
The discovery applies not just to couples seeking care for infertility but also for the general population. This biomarker could become a more accurate predictor of male infertility than semen parameters, on which health care organizations and clinicians have long relied.
The transport of amino acids and other molecules across the cell's membrane plays a crucial role in the metabolism of cells and, therefore, in human health. Current research hints that cancer, cystic fibrosis, aminoacidurias and neurodegenerative diseases may stem from missing or defective amino acid transport at the cell membrane.
A new plant species named Cardamine insueta appeared in the region of Urnerboden in the Swiss alps, after the land has changed from forest to grassland over the last 150 years. The inheritance of two key traits from its parent plants enabled the newly emerged species to grow in a distinct environmental niche, as researches from the University of Zurich now show.
At a time when food production is one of the biggest climate culprits, it is essential that we seek out new food sources which can nourish us and, at the same time, not overburden the planet.
More and more people are opting to become vegetarians or, even more radically, vegans.
However, the large majority of people find it difficult to entirely shelve meat in the name of preventing climate change, according to Professor Ole G. Mouritsen of the University of Copenhagen's Department of Food Science.
An international group led by researchers from the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences have used a combination of genome-wide association analysis--or GWAS--and a trans-ancestry comparison of different GWAS studies, to come up with a more accurate predictor of coronary artery disease based on genetic factors.
The COVID-19 pandemic is taking a heavy mental health toll even on people who are not directly impacted by the disease, shows a new study in Frontiers in Psychiatry.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University team has developed a novel testing platform to evaluate how breast cancer cells respond to the recurrent stretching that occurs in the lungs during breathing. The technology is designed to better understand the effects that the local tissue has on metastatic breast cancer to study how metastases grow in a new tissue.
Invasive alien plant species can pose a serious threat to native biodiversity and to human well-being. Identifying the factors that contribute towards invasion success is therefore crucial. Previous studies on biological invasions have focused mainly on interactions between one alien and one native species, attributing invasion success to the superior competitive ability of the invading aliens. Very few experiments have examined them in multi-species plant communities.
Cyanobacteria, despite staining water green through their special pigments, are colloquially known as "blue-green algae", and convert light energy into chemical energy particularly effectively thanks to their highly active photosynthetic cells. This makes them attractive for biotechnological application, where they could be used as environmentally friendly and readily available biocatalysts for the production of new chemicals using specifically introduced enzymes.
Limited light availability