Earth
One quarter of the world's tropical land could disappear by the end of the century unless meat and dairy consumption falls, researchers have warned.
If the global demand for animal products continues to grow, large swathes of natural land will vanish potentially leading to widespread loss of species and their habitats.
Some nine per cent of natural land - 95 per cent of which is in the tropics - could go within 80 years unless global dietary habits change, the scientists say.
Mosquitoes can harbor thousands of malaria-causing parasites in their bodies, yet while slurping blood from a victim, they transmit just a tiny fraction of them. In an effort to define precisely the location of the parasite bottleneck, Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists say they have discovered that the parasites are stopped by a roadblock along the escape route in the insect's spit glands, a barrier that could potentially serve as a novel target for preventing or reducing malarial infection.
Magdeburg, August 8th 2019 - Democracy, environmental protection, peace - the great issues of our time are collective goods that can only happen if many people make a voluntary contribution. However, the theory of collective action, which has been held for over 50 years, states that there is no incentive for individuals in large groups to participate in the provision of work for public benefit. Frankly speaking, individuals lack motivation because their contributions stand in no relation to the very small influence they can exert.
A team from the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) has made a scientific breakthrough regarding the virulence strategy employed by the Leishmania parasite to infect cells of the immune system. This microorganism is responsible for Leishmaniasis, a chronic parasitic disease that affects more than 12 million people worldwide.
Beta-amyloid plaques, the protein aggregates that form in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, disrupt many brain functions and can kill neurons. They can also damage the blood-brain barrier -- the normally tight border that prevents harmful molecules in the bloodstream from entering the brain.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A new study led by researchers at Indiana University has found that women and older adults who use multiple prescription drugs are significantly more likely to be prescribed pills whose combination produces dangerous side effects.
CLEMSON, South Carolina -- Lions, tigers and ... vampire elephants? Oh, my.
Human-wildlife conflict research has often focused on ways such apex predators as lions, tigers and wolves endanger humans, impact livelihoods and threaten livestock, but a pair of Clemson University researchers has expanded the discussion to include two non-traditional culprits: "vampire elephants" and "ecological zombies."
New Haven, Conn. -- A beautiful landscape painting, a beautiful piano sonata -- art and music are almost exclusively described in terms of aesthetics, but what about math? Beyond useful or brilliant, can an abstract idea be considered beautiful?
Yes, actually -- and not just by mathematicians, reports a new study in Cognition.
Artificial Intelligence engineers should enlist ideas and expertise from a broad range of social science disciplines, including those embracing qualitative methods, in order to reduce the potential harm of their creations and to better serve society as a whole, a pair of researchers has concluded in an analysis that appears in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence.
In the journal Science Immunology, researchers from DTU Health Technology and Jacobs University in Bremen have just published their cutting-edge research demonstrating advancement in detection of a certain type of immune cells, called T cells. Improved detection of T cells have several therapeutic implications. For example, in cancer immunotherapy (a therapeutic approach that engage patients own immune cells) characterization of T cells that recognize cancer cells is crucial for tailoring personalized treatment strategies.
What happens in the early days of organ development? How do a small group of cells organize to become a heart, a brain, or a kidney? This critical period of development has long remained the black box of developmental biology, in part because no sensor was small or flexible enough to observe this process without damaging the cells.
EVANSTON, Ill. -- Targeted drug-delivery systems hold significant promise for treating cancer effectively by sparing healthy surrounding tissues. But the promising approach can only work if the drug hits its target.
A Northwestern University research team has developed a new way to determine whether or not single drug-delivery nanoparticles will successfully hit their intended targets -- by simply analyzing each nanoparticle's distinct movements in real time.
Green turtles are more likely to swallow plastic that resembles their natural diet of sea grass, new research suggests.
The turtles strongly favour narrow lengths of plastic in natural colours like green and black, rather than debris of other shapes and colours, the study found.
Scientists from the University of Exeter and the Society for the Protection of Turtles (Cyprus) examined the guts of turtles found washed up on beaches in Cyprus.
Plastic was found in all turtles whose full gastrointestinal tract could be examined, with one found to contain 183 pieces.
Stem cells hold the key to wound healing, as they develop into specialised cell types throughout the body - including in teeth.
Now an international team of researchers has found a mechanism that could offer a potential novel solution to tooth repair.
Published today (Friday 9 August) in Nature Communications, the study showed that a gene called Dlk1 enhances stem cell activation and tissue regeneration in tooth healing.
MADISON, Wis. -- For nearly 100 years, scientists thought they understood everything there was to know about how metals bend.
They were wrong.
Materials science and engineering researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have demonstrated that the rules of metal-bending aren't so hard and fast after all. They described their findings Aug. 9 in the journal Nature Communications.
Their surprising discovery not only upends previous notions about how metals deform, but could help guide the creation of stronger, more durable materials.