Earth
Is middle age really the "golden age" when people are the most optimistic in life? Researchers from Michigan State University led the largest study of its kind to determine how optimistic people are in life and when, as well as how major life events affect how optimistic they are about the future.
A loner and a hunter with highly developed territorial instincts, a cruel carnivore, a disobedient individual: the cat. These features make the species averse to domestication. Even so, we did it. Nowadays, about 500 million cats live in households all around the world; it is also difficult to estimate the amount of the homeless and the feral ones
DURHAM, N.C. -- Frogs and toads are green for a very good reason - it makes them harder to see in their leafy environments. Good camouflage allows them to eat and not be eaten. But not all frogs have arrived at this life-saving greenness in the same way.
Most of these animals rely on color-controlling structures in their skin called chromatophores that use crystals to bend light to specific colors and make them appear green. But there are hundreds of species of frogs and toads that have nearly translucent skin and very few chromatophores.
AMHERST, Mass. - A chemist and kinesiologist got on a bus, but this isn't the set-up to a joke. Instead, kinesiologist and lead author Ned Debold and chemist Dhandapani Venkataraman, "DV," began talking on their bus commute to the University of Massachusetts Amherst and discovered their mutual interest in how energy is converted from one form to another - for Debold, in muscle tissue and for DV, in solar cells.
A new UC Davis Eye Center study, conducted in collaboration with France's INSERM Stem Cell and Brain Research Institute, found that special patented glasses engineered with technically advanced spectral notch filters enhance color vision for those with the most common types of red-green color vision deficiency ("anomalous trichromacy"). Notably, the ability to identify and experience expanded color was also demonstrated when color blind test subjects were not wearing the glasses.
Targeted radionuclide therapy has been found to create a favorable tumor microenvironment in prostate cancer that improves the effectiveness of immunotherapies. The research, presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging's 2020 Annual Meeting, shows that immunomodulation can be achieved with relatively low radiation dose that does not affect the normal immune system.
The Triassic Period, about 252 to 201 million years ago, was a time of volatile change, particularly during an interval known as the Carnian (about 237 to 227 million years ago). Three dramatic events occurred on Earth: the first dinosaurs appeared, gigantic volcanic eruptions called the Wrangellia large igneous province spewed out greenhouse gasses and the climate suddenly shifted to warmer, more humid conditions that scientists call the Carnian Pluvial Episode (CPE).
PULLMAN, Wash. - The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has a likely connection to bats, and the next viral outbreak probably will too, unless scientists can quickly learn more about the thousands of viruses carried by one of the most diverse mammals on the planet.
Chameleons are famous for their color-changing abilities. Depending on their body temperature or mood, their nervous system directs skin tissue that contains nanocrystals to expand or contract, changing how the nanocrystals reflect light and turning the reptile's skin a rainbow of colors.
Inspired by this, scientists at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago have developed a way to stretch and strain liquid crystals to generate different colors.
BOSTON - The impact and prevalence of heart disease and other critical comorbidities on an aging global population with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have emerged from a suite of articles in The Journal of Infectious Diseases that contains the first swath of important data from the world's largest study of cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention in people with HIV.
Theft law needs reform so the crime is based on consent not dishonesty - reducing the risk of judgements which lack "common sense" - a new study warns.
At the moment technically "putting a can of beans into a shopping basket is acting like a thief", the study warns.
The current law, from 1968, has long-been criticised for being unsuitable because it requires proof property was taken dishonesty, and someone can be guilty of theft even if the victim has not lost their property.
New research explores how lower-latitude oceans drive complex changes in the Arctic Ocean, pushing the region into a new reality distinct from the 20th-century norm.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks and Finnish Meteorological Institute led the international effort, which included researchers from six countries. The first of several related papers was published this month in Frontiers in Marine Science.
New research reveals how winners & losers from climate change can be identified based on their ability to adapt to rising future temperatures.
In the first study of its kind published in PNAS, Flinders University evolutionary biologists have shown that resilience or vulnerability to future climates is influenced by the thermal conditions of the climatic regions where species evolved.
The study compared thermal tolerance and gene expression (which genes are activated within a cell) in subtropical, desert and temperate Australian rainbowfishes.
PULLMAN, Wash. - Researchers have demonstrated that a fatty acid called dihomogamma-linolenic acid, or DGLA, can kill human cancer cells.
The study, published in Developmental Cell on July 10, found that DGLA can induce ferroptosis in an animal model and in actual human cancer cells. Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent type of cell death that was discovered in recent years and has become a focal point for disease research as it is closely related to many disease processes.