Culture
Flowering plants (angiosperms) dominate most terrestrial ecosystems, providing the bulk of human food. However, their origin has been a mystery since the earliest days of evolutionary thought.
Angiosperm flowers are hugely diverse. The key to clarifying the origin of flowers and how angiosperms might be related to other kinds of plants is understanding the evolution of the parts of the flower, especially angiosperm seeds and the fruits in which the seeds develop.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 26, 2021) - Using novel imaging methods for studying brain metabolism, University of Kentucky researchers have identified the reservoir for a necessary sugar in the brain. Glycogen serves as a storage depot for the sugar glucose.
Berkeley -- The lifestyle of the horned passalus beetle, commonly known as the bessbug or betsy beetle, might seem downright disgusting to the average human: Not only does this shiny black beetle eat its own poop, known as frass, but it uses its feces to line the walls of its living space and to help build protective chambers around its developing young.
Gross as it may seem, a new study suggests that this beetle's frass habits are actually part of a clever strategy for protecting the insect's health -- and could help inform human medicine, too.
In a new study, scientists at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have revealed that most T cell epitopes known to be targeted upon natural infection are seemingly unaffected by current SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Rough night of sleep? Relying on caffeine to get you through the day isn't always the answer, says a new study from Michigan State University.
Researchers from MSU's Sleep and Learning Lab, led by psychology associate professor Kimberly Fenn, assessed how effective caffeine was in counteracting the negative effects of sleep deprivation on cognition. As it turns out, caffeine can only get you so far.
Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) has been the gold standard for diagnosis during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the PCR portion of the test requires bulky, expensive machines and takes about an hour to complete, making it difficult to quickly diagnose someone at a testing site. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Nano have developed a plasmofluidic chip that can perform PCR in only about 8 minutes, which could speed diagnosis during current and future pandemics.
Adults with schizophrenia have an elevated risk of dying from suicide. Yet there's only limited understanding of when and why people with schizophrenia die of suicide --in part because research studies have looked at relatively small groups of patients.
Now a new study from Columbia that looked at a large population of adults diagnosed with schizophrenia has found the youngest group (18-34) had the highest suicide risk and those aged 65 and older had the lowest. By comparison, in the general U.S. population, younger adults have less risk and older age groups have greater risk.
When enjoying a chocolate bar, most people don't think about how the molecules within it are organized. But different arrangements of the fats in chocolate can influence its taste and texture. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Crystal Growth & Design have found that the side of a chocolate bar facing the mold has a more orderly crystalline structure than the side facing air, knowledge that might help chocolatiers produce tastier confections, the researchers say.
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The immune system's attempt to eliminate Salmonella bacteria from the gastrointestinal (GI) tract instead facilitates colonization of the intestinal tract and fecal shedding, according to National Institutes of Health scientists. The study, published in Cell Host & Microbe, was conducted by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) scientists at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana.
MOSCOW, Idaho -- May 26, 2021 -- University of Idaho researchers partnered with other scientists from the United States and Australia to study the evolution of Tasmanian devils in response to a unique transmissible cancer.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA--May 26, 2021--In January 2021, reports of a new coronavirus variant that had emerged in California raised many concerns. Preliminary data suggested that it is more transmissible than the unmutated strains of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) from which it evolved.
Now, a multifaceted collaboration between researchers at UC San Francisco, Gladstone Institutes, and other organizations across California provides a comprehensive portrait of the variant--including its interaction with the immune system and its potential to spread.
A new study by Cardiff University in collaboration with the University of Hertfordshire has revealed the huge "secondary burden" placed on those closest to people living with Long Covid.
The researchers surveyed more than 700 Covid-19 survivors along with their partners and close relatives to understand for the first time the impact of the disease on families as a whole.
The findings, published today in BMJ Open, suggest family quality of life is being "severely affected" and a major system of support is needed for both survivors - and those closest to them.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- When the worsening COVID-19 pandemic prompted colleges to shutter their campuses and shift to remote learning in spring 2020, concerns arose that many underrepresented students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines would be demotivated and drop out in even greater numbers.
LA JOLLA--In a new paper, scientists from La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) bring together research findings from COVID-19 researchers around the world. The results are striking: human T cells can target more than 1,400 sites on the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
"Our lab and many others have shown this very broad and diverse T cell response," says LJI Research Assistant Professor Daniela Weiskopf, Ph.D., co-author of the Cell Host & Microbe review.
An in vitro study conducted by a group of researchers at São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Araraquara, Brazil, shows how fungi and bacteria can activate genes associated with head and neck tumors, as the metabolism of biofilms (communities in which these microorganisms self-organize in a structured and coordinated manner) stimulate tumor cells by favoring the cell signaling pathways required for tumor development and resistance to treatment. The findings include entirely novel information on the links between microbial biofilms and cell behavior in head and neck cancer.