Three rescued loggerhead turtles were released into the Mediterranean off Tunisia on Sunday, one with a tracking beacon glued to its shell to help researchers better protect the threatened species.
A partial skull that was discovered last summer by two kayakers in Minnesota will be returned to Native American officials after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years old.
Gun-toting youths watch over a street in a Rio de Janeiro slum hit hard by drug trafficking, but walk a bit further and this rough area also boasts the largest urban vegetable garden in Latin America.
Researchers from the B.S.R.C. "Alexander Fleming" in Greece have optimized a method to characterize DNA traces in honey, revealing the species that honeybees interact with. This collaborative work led by researcher Dr. Solenn Patalano allowed the monitoring of the variability of bee diets across the year, revealing bee microbiota in a non-invasive way, as well as identifying pathogenic species they are confronted by. The research study is published in the journal Molecular Ecology Resources and, while at an early exploratory stage, it may revolutionize the way we understand honeybee ecological niches
Soil fauna, especially termites, are essential for sustainable forest ecosystems and significantly influence soil quality. The community composition and activity density of termites can influence nutrient cycling and other ecological functions.
In a stopgap measure to help struggling spring- and winter-run Chinook salmon spawn in the face of rising water temperatures and lower water levels due to climate change, state and federal wildlife officials in Northern California have begun trucking adult fish to cooler waters.
Hundreds of sick and dying California brown pelicans have recently been found across the Southern California region and are now being treated at various rescue centers along the coast, officials said.
Wildlife trade is a multimillion dollar industry. While some animals are traded legally, in compliance with legislation that aims to protect populations, wildlife trafficking continues to thrive in many places, threatening precious species with extinction.
Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital are studying voltage-gated ion channels (VGICs). Their work revealed a previously unknown mechanism of inactivation for one such channel that plays an important role in how neurons and muscles respond to electric signals sent by the nervous system. A paper on the work appeared today in Molecular Cell.
Despite effective vaccines, the rabies virus kills around 59,000 people a year. We asked medical anthropologist Deborah Nadal why the disease is still a threat.
A small team of researchers with members from Thailand, Finland and China, has found that there is a very large and active trade in arachnids across the internet. In their paper published in the journal Communications Biology, the group describes their study of arachnid trade via the internet and possible repercussions of so many of the creatures being traded across the world.
Diversifying the species in forest plantations has a positive impact on the quality of woodlands, according to an international study involving a CNRS researchers published on May 20, 2022, in the journal Science.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research (MPIPZ) and the University of Cologne, Germany, have discovered a novel biochemical mechanism explaining how immune proteins defend plants against invading microorganisms. Their findings are published in the journal Cell.
Olive oil is one of the most prestigious agri-foods in Spain and it is the base of the Mediterranean diet. Adulteration and commercial fraud cases occur when it comes to the origin and varieties of a product with such an economic and business interest. Now, a team from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences, Torribera Food and Nutrition Campus and the Institute for Nutrition and Food Safety Research (INSA) of the University of Barcelona presents a new authentication tool to check the geographical origin of virgin olive oil as a control on the quality, tradition and product linked to the territory.
One of the most exciting moments of the new Jurassic Park sequel, "Jurassic World Dominion," is when the Quetzalcoatlus swoops down from the sky and attacks the heroes' aircraft. With its gigantic wings reaching 10 meters in length end to end, the Quetzalcoatlus was the largest pterosaur that ever existed. However, an aerodynamic analysis led by researchers from Nagoya University suggests that "Jurassic World Dominion" gets it wrong. In fact, these giant creatures would have been unable to fly for anything more than a short distance.
Moths struggling to move north to adapt to climate change in the U.K. could be assisted by pinpointing areas where habitat restoration can give them a smoother journey.
Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have developed several new varieties of wheat that tolerate soils with higher salt concentrations. After having mutated a wheat variety from Bangladesh, they now have a wheat with seeds that weigh three times more and that germinate almost twice as often as the original variety.
Giraffes have the highest blood pressure of all mammals—up to 300/200, more than double that of a typical human. But pregnant giraffes don't suffer from pre-eclampsia, a dangerous disorder caused by hypertension.
Containing specimens from different locations, sometimes spanning across centuries, museum collections can teach us a lot about how some animals are built and how we can protect them. Properly labeled, preserved specimens can show us how the environment and species distribution has changed over extended time periods. Because in many cases these collections remain largely unexplored, a revision can reveal "treasures" that were hidden in plain sight for decades.
Researchers from the Microbeam Technology and Applications Group at the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have discovered the high turnover and rescue effect of an important scaffold protein in response to heavy charged particle radiation. The results were published in the Biophysical Journal.
Microfluidic devices use tiny spaces to manipulate very small quantities of liquids and gases by taking advantage of the properties they exhibit at the microscale. They have demonstrated usefulness in applications from inkjet printing to chemical analysis and have great potential in personal medicine, where they can miniaturize many tests that now require a full lab, lending them the name lab-on-a-chip.
In a quieter era when a ship's progress at sea arrived only through the courtesy of the wind, sailors told stories of intriguing sounds coming from humpback whales. If conditions were curiously calm and a vessel through coincidence or pursuit found itself in the close company of humpbacks, crews could hear a mysteriously beautiful call coming from the ocean that seemed to softly shimmer through their ship's hull, like the faint and fading tone from a struck tuning fork.
Sitting atop each kidney and measuring only around two centimeters long, the adrenal glands are tiny but mighty. These glands produce steroid hormones, including those involved in stress response, blood pressure maintenance, and fertility. When their development goes awry, it can cause a life-threatening condition called primary adrenal insufficiency, also known as Addison's disease. Many of the genetics involved in this and other adrenal gland disorders remain unknown.
The entire genomic material of a cell must be packed into a tiny cell nucleus in such a way, that on the one hand, it can be stored in an organized manner and, on the other hand, it can be transcribed, duplicated or repaired as needed. Different proteins are responsible for space-saving packaging, which can roll up or loop the DNA. Scientists Kikue Tachibana and Karl Duderstadt from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried are investigating the exact task and function of these molecular machines. They discovered that the MCM complex plays an important role in restricting DNA loop formation and thus in the three-dimensional structure of the genome and in gene regulation.
In most mammals, females have two X chromosomes and males have one X and one Y chromosome in each of their cells. To avoid a double dose of X-linked genes in females, one of the Xs is silenced early in the developmental process. This silencing is critical, yet how it happens has been relatively mysterious. Two new U-M studies reveal more about this silencing process and insights that could improve stem cell research.
How does cancer arise? How does cellular composition influence tumor malignancy? These questions are profound and challenging to answer, but are crucial to understand the disease and find the right cure. Now, a German-Danish team led by Professor Matthias Mann has developed a ground-breaking technology called deep visual proteomics. This method provides researchers and clinicians with a protein read-out to understand cancer at single cell-type resolution. The technology was published in the journal Nature Biotechnology and demonstrates its potential in a first application to cancer cells.
Two bear cubs are starting a new life in a sanctuary in Vietnam after being rescued from the illegal wildlife trade, an animal welfare group said Friday.
The number of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay is estimated to be at the lowest level observed since an annual survey tracking the population began in 1990, officials announced Thursday.
