Earth
The Belgian coastal dunes, a protected habitat of high conservation value, are getting severely impacted by one of its worst enemies amongst invasive species: the Oregon grape. To help mitigate the detrimental effect of this North American shrub invader, Belgian scientists carried out an experiment to assess the effectiveness of different management methods.
HANOVER, N.H. - December 11, 2019 - Tropical glaciers in Africa and South America began their retreat simultaneously at the end of the last ice age about 20,000 years ago, according to a Dartmouth study.
The finding of synchrony in ice retreat across the global tropics clarifies how the low latitudes transformed during one of Earth's most extreme climate change events and can help current-day predictions of our own climate future.
A research team has identified a new species of virus specific to insects that can be engineered to house genes from related viruses that cause diseases such as Zika and yellow fever. By serving as a platform for recombinant approaches, the new virus represents a flexible and non-infectious research tool for testing diagnostics and vaccines for various infectious diseases. Flaviviruses are a family of insect-transmitted viruses that can cause dangerous infections such as yellow fever, dengue and West Nile encephalitis.
Berkeley -- If you use a vacuum-insulated thermos to help keep your coffee hot, you may know it's a good insulator because heat energy has a hard time moving through empty space. Vibrations of atoms or molecules, which carry thermal energy, simply can't travel if there are no atoms or molecules around.
But a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, shows how the weirdness of quantum mechanics can turn even this basic tenet of classical physics on its head.
A new technology to produce safer 'hybrid' viruses at high volumes for use in vaccines and diagnostics for mosquito-borne diseases has been developed at The University of Queensland.
Researchers from UQ and QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute have exploited the benign characteristics of the Binjari virus - inert to humans - to produce 'dangerous looking' mosquito-borne viruses such as Zika and dengue, but which cannot grow in humans or animals.
QUT researchers have used a combination of virtual reality (VR), aerial thermal-imaging and ground surveys to build a better statistical model for predicting the location of koalas and, ultimately, protecting their habitat.
An international team of scientists led by the University of Bath have made drug-like molecules inspired by a chemical found in a tropical flower, that they hope could in the future help to treat deadly pancreatic cancer.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive and deadly cancers
Around 10,000 patients in the UK per year die from this type of cancer
Patients have an average survival of less than 6 months
Pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the EU, more than breast cancer
A new find from Patagonia sheds light on the evolution of large predatory dinosaurs. Features of the 8-m long specimen from the Middle Jurassic suggest that it records a phase of rapid diversification and evolutionary experimentation.
Nearly a year and a half into its mission, Parker Solar Probe has returned gigabytes of data on the Sun and its atmosphere. Following the release of the very first science from the mission, five researchers presented additional new findings from Parker Solar Probe at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union on Dec. 11, 2019.
Accurately reconstructing the relationships between different species requires analyzing the sequences of a judiciously selected, and preferably large, sample of different genes. Hybrid capture with high-throughput sequencing, or Hyb-Seq, is a powerful tool for obtaining those gene sequences, but must be calibrated for each group analyzed to ensure an informative sample of genes are sequenced. Researchers must take a variety of considerations into account when selecting which genes to sequence, and the choices made in gene sampling can affect the outcome of the analysis.
LAS VEGAS (December 11, 2019) -- Consumers seeking cheaper, faster access to antibiotics are apparently consuming antibiotics intended for treating fish rather than humans, according to research presented at the ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists) 54th Midyear Clinical Meeting and Exhibition.
The UK's first citizen science project focusing on solitary, ground-nesting bees has revealed that they nest in a far broader range of habitats than previously thought.
There are approximately 250 species of solitary bee in the UK, but far less is known about these important pollinators compared to honeybees or bumblebees.
If you want to know how climate change and hypoxia -- the related loss of oxygen in the world's oceans -- affect fish species such as the economically important Baltic cod, all you have to do is ask the fish.
Those cod, at least, will tell you that hypoxia is making them smaller, scrawnier and less valuable.
SAN FRANCISCO - Satellite data has given scientists clues about how, when and why Greenland's glaciers are shrinking - and shows a sharp increase in glacial retreat beginning about 2000, according to new research presented this week.
Emphasis on particular groups hinders efforts to address the problem of declining physical activity in children, according to a study led at the University of Strathclyde.
A review of more than 50 published studies, covering a total of 22,000 children, found that children of all ages around the world are at risk from a decline in physical activity. It fell steadily from the age of four or five, in both boys and girls and in every part of the world covered by the study.