Earth
Marine cyanobacteria are single-cell organisms that settled in the oceans millions of years ago. They are organisms that, by means of photosynthesis, create organic material by using inorganic substances. Specifically, the cyanobacteria known as Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus are the most abundant photosynthetic organisms on Earth and they generate a large part of the oxygen necessary for life, hence the oceans are the Earth's real lungs.
UPTON, NY--If you heat a solid material enough, the thermal energy (latent heat) causes the material's molecules begin to break apart, forming a liquid. One of the most familiar examples of this phase transition from a well-ordered solid to less-ordered liquid state is ice turning into water.
Geologists from Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa, have come up with an original explanation of how nature may produce an intriguing class of magmatic rocks that are made up of only one type of mineral.
The magmatic minerals are stored at great depth in the Earth and are delivered from there into the shallow intrusions close to the planet's surface in the form of magmas - essentially hot liquids of molten minerals. On cooling, these magmas crystallise to form rocks that are commonly composed of several types of minerals.
Researchers from the group of Hans Clevers at the Hubrecht Institute have developed a new genetic tool to label specific genes in human organoids, or mini organs. They used this new method, called CRISPR-HOT, to investigate how hepatocytes divide and how abnormal cells with too much DNA appear.
Ex-Tropical Cyclone Esther just won't give up. The storm formed in the South Pacific Ocean, tracked across Australia's Northern Territory and reached the Kimberley coast of Western Australia, and has now turned around. NASA's Aqua satellite provided forecasters with a visible image of the storm turning back into Western Australia on March 2.
On March 2, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite provided a visible image of Esther's remnant clouds that showed the storm moved back inland and away from the coast.
WINSTON-SALEM, NC - March 2, 2020 - Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) have developed the world's most sophisticated laboratory model of the human body, creating a system of miniaturized organs that can be used to detect harmful and adverse effects of drugs before they are prescribed to patients. Using such a system in screening potential pharmaceuticals could have a significant impact on speeding new drugs to market, lowering the cost of clinical trials, and reducing or eliminating animal testing.
A group of scientists from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science in Japan have succeeded in taking repeated measurements of the spin of an electron in a silicon quantum dot (QD), without changing the spin in the process. This type of "non-demolition" measurement is important for creating quantum computers that are fault tolerant.
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Chronic pain affects a large proportion of older adults and most long-term care residents. Managing chronic pain effectively is essential but challenging, and it has been complicated by concerns about opioid abuse.
Pain management can be safely optimized with a plan that balances the risks and benefits of treatments, according to a commentary in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Treating chronic pain is best achieved when pharmacologic strategies and nondrug therapies are used at the same time.
Monday 02 March 2020 - Results from a study looking at an experimental drug to tackle the debilitating side effect of dyskinesia, have offered hope that it may have potential as a future treatment for people with Parkinson's.
Please Note: The 2020 American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting that was to be held in Denver, Colorado from March 2 through March 6 has been canceled. The decision was made late Saturday (February 29), out of an abundance of caution and based on the latest scientific data available regarding the transmission of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). See our official release on the cancelation for more details.
Biomedical researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have isolated immune cells from human tonsils obtained following routine surgery, and used them to analyze aspects of the immune response and test the effects of anti-inflammatory agents at the cellular level.
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous, crystalline materials that can trap compounds within their molecular cavities, giving them a wide range of applications in gas storage and separation, carbon capture, and in the catalysis of chemical reactions, to name a few. A new range of applications are now being investigated by converting crystalline MOFs into liquid and/or glassy states.
For the first time, scientists from the VIB Center for Inflammation Research, Ghent University, The Wellcome Sanger Institute (UK), and Newcastle University (UK) have composed a complete map of the cells in the developing human thymus. This novel approach with single cell resolution allowed them to identify more than 50 different cell states in the human thymus which dynamically change in abundance during life.
A collaboration to map the vital thymus
A 475-km-long dam between the north of Scotland and the west of Norway and another one of 160 km between the west point of France and the southwest of England could protect more than 25 million Europeans against the consequences of an expected sea level rise of several metres over the next few centuries. The costs, 250-500 billion euros, are "merely" 0.1% of the gross national product, annualy over 20 years, of all the countries that would be protected by such a dam.
A study that set out to measure how much wildlife domestic cats eat to supplement the food they are given by their owners was unsuccessful due to an unexpectedly high variability in cat food ingredients. This accidental discovery suggests that some cat food manufacturers regularly change ingredient composition, even within the same flavors of cat food.