Earth
LA JOLLA--(February 12, 2019) What makes us human, and where does this mysterious property of "humanness" come from? Humans are genetically similar to chimpanzees and bonobos, yet there exist obvious behavioral and cognitive differences. Now, researchers from the Salk Institute, in collaboration with researchers from the anthropology department at UC San Diego, have developed a strategy to more easily study the early development of human neurons compared with the neurons of nonhuman primates.
PUNTARENAS, COSTA RICA - A three week expedition off the coast of Costa Rica has just expanded our knowledge of deep sea ecosystems in the region. Led by Dr. Erik Cordes, Temple University, the scientists aboard research vessel Falkor surveyed the continental margin for seamounts and natural gas seeps, where specialized biological communities are found. The seamounts extending from the mainland to the Cocos Islands National Park provide an important corridor for the animals occupying the area.
New research conducted at OHSU in Portland, Oregon, identifies a gene that could provide a new target for developing medication to prevent and treat alcoholism.
Scientists at the Oregon National Primate Research Center at OHSU discovered a gene that had lower expression in the brains of nonhuman primates that voluntarily consumed heavy amounts of alcohol compared with those that drank less.
The pipeline of research supporting care as we age is about to look a bit more like the country it serves--and for good reason. Beginning this year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), America's premier institution for medical research, will for the first time in its history require NIH-funded scholars to eliminate arbitrary age limits in their work, age limits that previously allowed for excluding groups like older people without just cause.
BALTIMORE, MD., Feb. 8 - Scientists at the Institute of Genome Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) have developed a novel way with genome sequences to study and better understand transmission, treat and ultimately eradicate Plasmodium vivax, the most widespread form of malaria.
A new method developed by Northwestern Engineering's Manijeh Razeghi has greatly reduced a type of image distortion caused by the presence of spectral cross-talk between dual-band long-wavelength photodetectors.
The work opens the door for a new generation of high spectral-contrast infrared imaging devices with applications in medicine, defense and security, planetary sciences, and art preservation.
A massive release of passive-surveillance satellite data of nighttime lights could help researchers in fields ranging from agriculture to epidemiology. Researchers at Penn State and the University of Southampton in the UK have provided open access to detailed satellite data on brightness for five cities in Niger and Nigeria from 2000 to 2005, as well as detailed methods for analyzing the data to track seasonal population movements.
She weighs less than one ten-thousandth of an ounce and her top speed is less than two miles per hour. Nonetheless, the female mosquito is one of the most dangerous animals on the planet. For as she flies from person to person, biting us to draw the blood she needs to lay her eggs, this tiny creature transmits microbes that sicken and kill millions of people every year.
A new Personal Relationships study documents how the quality of a person's romantic relationship and the life stress he or she experiences at two key points in early adulthood (at age 23 and 32) are related to sleep quality and quantity in middle adulthood (at age 37).
Warren Dick has worked with gypsum for more than two decades. You'd think he'd be an expert on drywall and plastering because both are made from gypsum. But the use of gypsum that Dick studies might be unfamiliar to you: on farmland.
MYC, a gene with high cancer-initiating potential, is overexpressed in over 40% of breast cancers. While MYC programs breast cancer cells to build more macromolecules (anabolic metabolism) it also creates a metabolic vulnerability by making them more sensitive to a type of cell death known as apoptosis. Research Director Juha Klefstrom, PhD, University of Helsinki, Finland, has worked for a long time to exploit this apoptosis-sensitizing effect of MYC in the battle against the cancer.
Children who have more conflict in relationships with their mothers during early years of elementary school may find it more difficult to find a sense of purpose in life as they reach adulthood, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
"One of the biggest takeaway messages from these findings is that the path to a purposeful life starts very early, well before we start to consider different goals for life," said Patrick Hill, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences and co-author of the study.
Rockville, Md. (February 5, 2019)--Research in mice suggests that fermentation of flaxseed fibers in the gut changes the microbiota to improve metabolic health and protect against diet-induced obesity. The study, published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology--Endocrinology and Metabolism, was chosen as an APSselect article for February.
Although it has been ranked as the cutest creature in US National Parks, the American pika is tough, at home in loose alpine rocks in windswept mountain regions. Related to rabbits and hares, pikas live in cold, wet climates and high terrain, spending winters in snowy homes living off of stored grasses and other forage they have gathered, only venturing out for more when weather permits.
Today, thousands of databases with biological data are publicly available. They include data on gene and protein sequences and detailed measurements of different cellular parameters, such as the exact quantities of all proteins produced and degraded by a given cell in various experimental conditions. Brazilian researchers explored mRNA and protein public databases and found out how gene sequence choice can predict different aspects of protein synthesis, such as protein production efficiency.