Earth
Biomedical data scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown that the number of genes a cell uses to make RNA is a reliable indicator of how developed the cell is, a finding that could make it easier to target cancer-causing genes.
Cells that initiate cancer are thought to be stem cells, which are hard-to-find cells that can reproduce themselves and develop, or differentiate, into more specialized tissue, such as skin or muscle -- or, when they go bad, into cancer.
The impact of the tobacco display ban on young people's attitudes to smoking has been analysed by University of Stirling experts.
The five-year public health study also looked at the effect of the ban on young people's exposure to point-of-sale tobacco promotions and the likelihood of them taking up smoking - as well as the potential for e-cigarettes to influence smoking initiation.
When a plant is lacking important nutrients, it cannot simply move to another location where it can get the nutrients it needs. Instead, it has to adapt to the situation by adjusting its metabolism. It does this by activating certain programmes incorporated in its genome.
Iron is one of those nutrients that is essential for plants' growth and survival. It plays a role in photosynthesis and water regulation. Plants absorb iron through their roots, but the iron must be present in sufficient quantities and in a form that can be processed by the plant.
Physicists at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich, together with colleagues at Saarland University, have successfully demonstrated the transport of an entangled state between an atom and a photon via an optic fiber over a distance of up to 20 km - thus setting a new record.
The three proteins Teneurin, Latrophilin and FLRT hold together and bring neighboring neurons into close contact, enabling the formation of synapses and the exchange of information between the cells. In the early phase of brain development, however, the interaction of the same proteins leads to the repulsion of migrating nerve cells, as researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology and the University of Oxford have now shown. The detailed insight into the molecular guidance mechanisms of brain cells was possible due to the structural analyses of the protein complex.
Brain region-specific organoids have allowed researchers to peer inside the complex programming of human forebrain development, a process once inaccessible to molecular study. The results bring new insight into the gene-regulatory dynamics of human forebrain development during previously inaccessible stages and reveal transcriptional signatures of neuropsychiatric disorders. The development of the human forebrain - the region of the brain that houses many of our most uniquely human traits and cognitive abilities - is a complex process.
'No-take' marine reserves - where fishing is banned - can reverse the decline in the world's coral reef shark populations caused by overfishing, according to an Australian study.
But University of Queensland, James Cook University (JCU) and University of Tasmania researchers found that existing marine reserves need to be much larger to be effective against overfishing.
UQ's Dr Ross Dwyer said the study estimated that no-take reserves that extend between 10 and 50 kilometres along coral reefs can achieve significant improvements in shark populations.
We've all felt the effects of an adrenaline rush. Faced with danger, real or perceived, the heart beats faster, breathing quickens and muscles tighten as the body prepares to fight a threat or flee from it.
The role of adrenaline in triggering the fight-or-flight response is one of the most well-studied phenomena in biology. However, the precise molecular mechanisms for how the hormone stimulates cardiac function have remained unclear.
Knowledge of multiple languages has long been shown to have lifelong benefits, from enhancing communication skills to boosting professional opportunities to staving off the cognitive effects of aging.
When researchers at the University of Washington found that even babies whose parents are monolingual could rapidly learn a second language in a small classroom environment, a new challenge was born:
How could they expand their program?
Tropical Cyclone 09S formed on Jan. 22 in the Southern Indian Ocean despite being affected by vertical wind shear and one day later, wind shear caused its demise. The end of 09S was caught by NASA's Aqua satellite.
Online discourse by users of social media can provide important clues about the political dispositions of communities. New research suggests it can even be used by governments as a source of military intelligence to estimate prospective casualties and costs incurred from occupying foreign territories.
The western United States has experienced such intense droughts over the past decade that technical descriptions are becoming inadequate. In many places, conditions are rocketing past "severe," through "extreme," all the way to "exceptional drought."
The 2018 Four Corners drought -- centered on the junction between Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico -- put the region deep in the red. An abnormally hot spring and summer indicated that climate change was clearly at work, but that was about as much as most people could say of the situation at the time.
Maunakea, Hawaii - An international team of astronomers from the University of California San Diego, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), and the University of Cambridge have detected large amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere of one of the oldest and most elementally depleted stars known - a "primitive star" scientists call J0815+4729.
TORONTO, ON - Anthropologists at the University of Toronto (U of T) have confirmed the existence more than 10,000 years ago of a hunting camp in what is now northeastern Lebanon - one that straddles the period marking the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural settlements at the onset of the last stone age.
The ancient Samaria ostraca -- eighth-century BCE ink-on-clay inscriptions unearthed at the beginning of the 20th century in Samaria, the capital of the biblical kingdom of Israel -- are among the earliest collections of ancient Hebrew writings ever discovered. But despite a century of research, major aspects of the ostraca remain in dispute, including their precise geographical origins -- either Samaria or its outlying villages -- and the number of scribes involved in their composition.