Earth
In August 2017, a marine accident occurred in the Pearl River Estuary where a cargo vessel accidentally released about 1,000 tonnes of palm stearin into the sea. Over 200 tonnes of palm stearin reached the southwest coasts of Hong Kong. The general public and green groups expressed concerns that such palm oil pollution could adversely affect the marine life and marine ecosystem, yet there was a lack of scientific information on the toxicity of the palm stearin toward marine organisms in the scientific literature, making it impossible to accurately evaluate its ecological risk.
People can hardly imagine a city without night-time street lighting. But how do nocturnal animals such as bats respond to the illuminated urban landscape? In a recent study, scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), together with German and international colleagues, equipped common noctule bats (Nyctalus noctula) with mini GPS transmitters and recorded their trajectories in the sky above Berlin. They show that common noctules avoid brightly lit, built-up areas.
For the first time, scientists have been able to observe people developing Type 2 diabetes - and confirmed that fat over-spills from the liver into the pancreas, triggering the chronic condition.
The research, led by Professor Roy Taylor at Newcastle University, UK, is published in the academic journal, Cell Metabolism.
A mother's obesity in pregnancy can affect her child's development years down the road, according to researchers who found impaired motor skills in preschoolers and lower IQ in middle childhood for boys whose mothers were severely overweight while expecting them. A team of nutrition and environmental health researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Columbia University found that the differences are comparable to the impact of lead exposure in early childhood.
ITHACA, N.Y. - Prior organic farming practices and plantings can have lasting outcomes for future soil health, weeds and crop yields, according to new Cornell University research.
The study recently published in the journal Agriculture Systems also breaks down how specific components of soil health - such as the abundance and activity of soil animals and soil stability - affect crop productivity.
A study out of the University of Florida offers a comparison between introduced species that attempt to outcompete native plants within an ecosystem and certain native plant species that mimic that behavior to create similar undesirable results. Lyn Gettys explored this phenomenon within aquatic ecosystems to reveal the consequences of excessive aquatic plant growth, regardless of the origin of the species.
Gettys' findings are described in the article "Breaking Bad: Native Aquatic Plants Gone Rogue and the Invasive Species That Inspire Them" published in HortTechnology.
For many lung cancer patients, the best treatment options involve checkpoint inhibitors. These drugs unleash a patient's immune system against their disease and can yield dramatic results, even in advanced cancers.
But checkpoint inhibitors come with a huge caveat: They only help a small subset of patients. Doctors struggle to predict who these patients are and -- just as important -- who they aren't.
WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- Coastal wetlands provide stunning views and are hosts to a vast biodiversity. But they provide another service to the warming Earth: they capture carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it in their sediment at high rates. In the United States alone, coastal wetlands can offset the yearly carbon dioxide emissions from 800,000 cars. But as sea level rises with climate change, will coastal wetlands be overwhelmed, or will they retain their power as carbon sinks?
From toucans to hummingbirds, the varying shapes and sizes of bird beaks show evolution in action.
Beaks are versatile, allowing birds to eat, regulate their temperature, and sing; these survival functions help determine beak length and size. Despite the complexity of beaks, most evolutionary studies have exclusively focused on a single function, like thermoregulation, rather than how a confluence of several functions impacts beak shape.
The proportion of high-strength painkiller poisonings among children which result in emergency hospital admissions has increased, according to research published in the peer-reviewed journal Clinical Toxicology.
(PHILADELPHIA) -- p53 is the most famous cancer gene, not least because it's involved in causing over 50% of all cancers. When a cell loses its p53 gene -- when the gene becomes mutated -- it unleashes many processes that lead to the uncontrolled cell growth and refusal to die, which are hallmarks of cancer growth. But there are some cancers, like kidney cancer, that that had few p53 mutations.
While sifting through fossil soils in the Catskill region near Cairo, New York, researchers uncovered the extensive root system of 386-million-year old primitive trees. The fossils, located about 25 miles from the site previously believed to have the world's oldest forests, is evidence that the transition toward forests as we know them today began earlier in the Devonian Period than typically believed.
T cells represent a key component of our immune system, and play a critical role in protecting us against harmful pathogens like viruses and bacteria, and cancers. The more we understand about how they recognise, interact with and even kill infected or cancer cells moves us closer to developing therapies and treatments for a range of conditions.
(Boston, MA) - Research from the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute finds that gastric bypass is associated with a higher risk of additional operations or other invasive procedures, compared to a gastric sleeve procedure. The study, "Risk of Operative and Nonoperative Interventions Up to 4 Years After Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass vs Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy in a National US Commercial Insurance Claims Database," appears online December 18 in JAMA Network Open.
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (December 19, 2019) - A new study by a team of Russian and American scientists revealed the first-ever detailed analysis of a tigress from the birth of her cubs through their first four months. What did they find? Tiger motherhood involves lots of frantic running around, big meals instead of small ones, and constantly checking on the little ones.