Earth
An internationally respected group of scientists have urgently called on world leaders to accelerate efforts to tackle climate change. Almost every aspect of the planet's environment and ecology is undergoing changes in response to climate change, some of which will be profound if not catastrophic in the future.
Quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity form the bedrock of the current understanding of physics - yet the two theories don't seem to work together. Physical phenomena rely on relationship of motion between the observed and the observer. Certain rules hold true across types of observed objects and those observing, but those rules tend to break down at the quantum level, where subatomic particles behave in strange ways.
The world is experiencing unprecedented economic growth in low- and middle-income countries. An increasing number of people in India, China, Latin America and Africa have become wealthier, and this is reflected in their consumption of meat and dairy products. In Africa, meat consumption has risen by more than half; in Asia and Latin America it is up by two-thirds.
An internationally respected group of scientists is calling on world leaders to urgently accelerate efforts to tackle climate change.
Almost every aspect of the environment and ecology is changing in response to global warming. Some of these changes will be profound, if not catastrophic, in the future.
Cells consist of a multitude of molecular structures, some of them exhibiting a staggering complexity. Ribosomes, the protein factories of the cell, belong to the biggest and most sophisticated complexes and are made up of RNA as well as a large number of proteins. They exist in every living being and are considered as one of the cellular machines that has changed the least through all stages of the evolution. But there are exceptions: In mitochondria, cellular organelles that serve as power plants, ribosomes look considerably different.
An extensive machinery
NASA has the unique capability of peering under the clouds in storms and measuring the rate in which rain is falling. Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite passed over Tropical Storm Jerry from its orbit in space and measured rainfall rates throughout the storm.
Researchers from North Carolina State University have shown that the E75 protein is a key regulator of some biological rhythms through interactions with nitric oxide. Suppression of E75 results in longer molt cycles and reduced numbers of offspring in the water flea, Daphnia magna. The work also raises questions about the ability of nitric oxide from environmental sources to disrupt biological rhythms that are critical to population sustainability.
In a crystal, atoms are highly ordered, occupying well-defined locations that form spatial patterns. Seven years ago, the 2004 Physics Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek pondered the possibility of a 'time analogue of crystalline spatial order' - systems that display sustained periodic temporal modulations in their lowest-energy state. The concept of such structures with an oscillating ground state is highly intriguing. Alas, not long after the idea has been published, it was proven that such time crystals are not possible without breaking fundamental laws of physics. Not all was lost, though.
Philadelphia, September 19, 2019 - About one in three diabetic patients develops diabetic retinopathy (DR), which can impair vision and lead to blindness. A new study in The American Journal of Pathology, published by Elsevier, provides clear evidence that high glucose increases the levels of enzymatic precursor--lysyl oxidase propeptide (LOX-PP)--that promotes cell death, which was verified in an animal model of diabetes.
Since they first arrived on land, plants have likely been using the same genetic tools to regulate whether they grow bigger or reproduce. The discovery was made using liverwort, one descendant of the first plants to move out of the ancient oceans and onto land.
Liverworts grow all over the world and resemble moss, spreading on moist soil under some shade. Male and female versions of liverwort are recognized by unique, umbrella-shaped structures that shoot up from the base of the plant.
For long-distance transportation within the cell, RNA molecules rely on hitchhiking.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- People who are accustomed to listening to Western music, which is based on a system of notes organized in octaves, can usually perceive the similarity between notes that are same but played in different registers -- say, high C and middle C. However, a longstanding question is whether this a universal phenomenon or one that has been ingrained by musical exposure.
In a new study, researchers at Uppsala University have identified a previously unknown mechanism that regulates release of insulin, a hormone that lowers blood glucose levels, from the β-cells (beta cells) of the pancreas. This mechanism is disrupted in type 2 diabetes. The scientists hope this finding will be used to develop new treatments against the disease.
Globally, more than 400 million people suffer from type 2 diabetes. One of the main problems is inadequate secretion, from the β-cells of the pancreas, of insulin hormone, which lowers blood sugar (blood glucose).
One of the ways NASA researches tropical cyclones is using infrared data that provides temperature information. The AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a look at those temperatures in Tropical Depression Imelda and gave insight into the storm's rainfall potential over eastern Texas.
ANN ARBOR--The rate at which the planet warms in response to the ongoing buildup of heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas could increase in the future, according to new simulations of a comparable warm period more than 50 million years ago.
Researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Arizona used a state-of-the-art climate model to successfully simulate--for the first time--the extreme warming of the Early Eocene Period, which is considered an analog for Earth's future climate.