Earth
CORVALLIS, Ore. - New digital tools developed by Oregon State University will enable land managers to better adapt to the new reality of large wildfires through analytics that guide planning and suppression across jurisdictional boundaries that fires typically don't adhere to.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Throughout most of 2016, a significant percentage of the American public believed that the winner of the November 2016 presidential election would be a woman -- Hillary Clinton.
Viruses cause some of the most important plant diseases worldwide with an estimated $60 billion in annual yield losses to agricultural crops. Since the first report of tobacco mosaic virus in the late 19th century, discovery of new plant viruses has increased rapidly, particularly since the advent of next-generation sequencing technology.
AMHERST, Mass. - In a new paper, a team of evolutionary biologists and geneticists led by senior author associate professor Ana Caicedo, with first author Hamid Razifard at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and others, report that they have identified missing links in the tomato's evolution from a wild blueberry-sized fruit in South America to the larger modern tomato of today.
A physically and mentally active lifestyle confers resilience to frontotemporal dementia (FTD), even in people whose genetic profile makes the eventual development of the disease virtually inevitable, according to new research by scientists at the UC San Francisco Memory and Aging Center.
Johns Hopkins researchers report that a type of biodegradable, lab-engineered nanoparticle they fashioned can successfully deliver a "suicide gene" to pediatric brain tumor cells implanted in the brains of mice. The poly(beta-amino ester) nanoparticles, known as PBAEs, were part of a treatment that also used a drug to kill the cells and prolong the test animals' survival.
Nanopipettes, in which a nanoscale channel is filled with a solution, are used in all kinds of nanotechnology applications, including scanning-probe microscopy. Bringing a solution into a nanopipette with a pore diameter below 10 nanometer is challenging, however, since capillary forces prevent the complete filling of a sub-10-nm nanopipette pore with a liquid. Now, Shinji Watanabe and colleagues from Kanazawa University have found a simple but efficient way for filling nanopipettes.
One day the advance could lead to a patient's own skin cells being used to produce new cells for cancer immunotherapy or to test autoimmune disease interventions.
The group, led by Professors Ed Stanley and Andrew Elefanty, from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, said the work has added definitive evidence about how the body's earliest immune cells are formed.
These lymphocytes are produced by cells which form the embryo's first organs rather than the blood-producing stem cells that sit inside the body's bone marrow.
Leipzig. Marine protected areas reduce fish mortality by limiting harvesting and reducing habitat destruction. They are often designed and implemented to promote biodiversity conservation and sustainable fisheries. New research shows these conservation efforts lead not only to an increase in the total number of fishes (individuals) in general. Protected areas in the northern Mediterranean Sea also harbour a higher number of common fish species, and significant positive network effects accumulate between individual reserves.
NASA's Terra satellite provided before and after imagery that showed the extent of the fires that have been ravaging Australia's Kangaroo Island. Kangaroo Island lies off the mainland of South Australia, southwest of Adelaide. About a third of the island is made up of protected nature reserves which are home to native wildlife which includes sea lions, koalas and diverse and endangered bird species, including glossy black-cockatoos which have been brought back from the brink of extinction over the last two decades.
TAMPA, Fla. (January 7, 2020)- Fatal misuse of specific drugs is a bigger problem than federal statistics make them appear, especially in Florida. According to data collected by a researcher at the University of South Florida (USF), between 2008 and 2017, roughly one-in-three overdose deaths in Florida caused by opioids were not reported by the federal government. Likewise, nearly 3,000 deaths in the state caused by cocaine were not included in the total reported federal data.
In the largest genetic study on anxiety to date, VA researchers found new evidence on the underlying biological causes of the disorder. The study used VA Million Veteran Program (MVP) data to identify regions on the human genome related to anxiety risk. The findings could lead to new understanding and treatment of the condition, which affects 1 in 10 Americans.
A massive genomewide analysis of approximately 200,000 military veterans has identified six genetic variants linked to anxiety, researchers from Yale and colleagues at other institutions report Jan. 7 in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Some of the variants associated with anxiety had previously been implicated as risk factors for bipolar disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and schizophrenia.
The new study further contributes the first convincing molecular explanation for why anxiety and depression often coexist.
Currently, the faint star V Sagittae, V Sge, in the constellation Sagitta, is barely visible, even in mid-sized telescopes. However, around the year 2083, this innocent star will explode, becoming as bright as Sirius, the brightest star visible in the night sky. During this time of eruption, V Sge will be the most luminous star in the Milky Way galaxy.
The prolonged periods of juvenility and nutritional dependence that are characteristic of human development are thought to facilitate brain and somatic growth in children, as well as provide opportunities to learn and accumulate skills required for a productive adult life. In chimpanzees, the benefits of continuing to associate with mothers after becoming nutritionally independent are less well understood.