Новости за 27.05.2022

A gene that has been associated with severe learning disabilities in humans has been found to also play a vital role in cells' response to environmental stress, according to a Duke University study appearing May 24 in the journal Cell Reports.

Everyone knows that while disinformation is a problem, social media is a powerful tool for communicating fast in an emergency.

Researcher Laura Rossi and her group at TU Delft have found a new way to build synthetic materials out of tiny glass particles—so-called colloids. Together with their colleagues from Queen's University and the University of Amsterdam, they showed that they can simply use the shape of these colloids to make interesting building blocks for new materials, regardless of other properties of the colloidal particles. "This is striking, because it opens up a completely new way to think about materials design," Rossi says. Читать дальше...

After sustaining seemingly catastrophic hurricane damage, a primordial groundcover vital to sustaining a multitude of coastal lifeforms bounced back to life in a matter of months.

Imagery has come down from Mars capturing a recent flight in which the rotorcraft flew farther and faster than ever before.

One of the most tedious, daunting tasks for undergraduate assistants in university research labs involves looking hours on end through a microscope at samples of material, trying to find monolayers.

With the carnage in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York in May 2022, calls have begun again for Congress to enact gun control. Since the 2012 massacre of 20 children and four staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, legislation introduced in response to mass killings has consistently failed to pass the Senate. We asked political scientists Monika McDermott and David Jones to help readers understand why further restrictions never pass, despite a majority of Americans supporting tighter gun control laws.

Any animal ascending a mountain experiences a double whammy of impediments: The air gets thinner as it also becomes colder, which is particularly problematic for creatures struggling to keep warm when less oxygen is available. For tiny animals with the highest-octane lifestyles, such as hovering hummingbirds, the challenges of relocating to higher levels to evade climate change may be too much, but no one knew whether these extraordinary aviators may have more gas in the tank to keep them aloft at higher altitudes.

Americans have blamed many culprits, from mental illness to inadequate security, for the tragic mass shootings that are occurring with increasing frequency in schools, offices and theaters across the U.S.

Using a next generation sequencing analysis to examine human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) integration sites, researchers from Kumamoto University, the National Institute of Genetics (Japan), and the University of Michigan (U.S.) have discovered that these ancient retroviruses can undergo retrotransposition (DNA sequence insertion with RNA mediation) into iPS cells. The team believes that their discovery places a spotlight on a possible risk that HERVs pose when using iPS cells in regenerative medicine.

Throughout history, mass gatherings such as collective rituals, ceremonies, and pilgrimages have created intense social bonds and feelings of unity in human societies. But Yale psychologists wondered if modern day secular gatherings that emphasize creativity and community serve an even broader purpose.

It is projected that by the year 2050, the global food supply will need to increase by 50-80% to keep up with the growing population. Researchers all over the world have been working to find ways to sustainably grow food crops to meet this need, and improving photosynthesis in plants holds great possibilities to solving these issues.

Chromosomes undergo precise structural changes at a molecular level during the different phases of cell division. These changes occur at a high level of accuracy to prevent genome instability. Genome instability resulting from broken, missing, or rearranged chromosomes has been found to be the root cause of cell death, carcinogenesis, and congenital disorders. Studying genomic instability helps researchers identify the causes of cancer and may lead to new advancements in their diagnosis and treatment.

Due to global warming, temperatures in the Arctic are climbing rapidly. As a result, the treeline for Siberian larch forests is steadily advancing to the north, gradually supplanting the broad expanses of tundra which are home to a unique mix of flora and fauna. Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute have now prepared a computer simulation of how these woods could spread in the future, at the tundra's expense. Their conclusion: only consistent climate protection measures will allow roughly 30... Читать дальше...

A quantum system consisting of a large number of microscopic particles obeys statistical laws at the macroscopic level. In nature, there are two kinds of microscopic quantum particles. One is the boson satisfying the Bose-Einstein statistics, and the other is the fermion satisfying the Fermi-Dirac statistics.

Women feel more frustrated than men by the gendered expectations placed on them at work, even when those expectations appear to signal women's virtues and are seen as important for workplace advancement, according to new Cornell research.

Climate change debates on Reddit don't happen in polarized "echo chambers", new research suggests.

Terrorist attacks are highly responsive to local funding availability, and financial counter-terrorism can, thus, be effective in reducing terrorism casualties, according to new research by Nicola Limodio (Department of Finance, Bocconi University) forthcoming in Econometrica.

Jairo Kenupp Bastos first heard about the insect while visiting Canavieiras on the south coast of Bahia, a state in the Northeast of Brazil. "Local beekeepers told me about a tiny beetle that made holes in a plant called Dalbergia ecastaphyllum [Coinvine], a member of the pea family, and that the holes leaked a resin used by bees to make red propolis," said Bastos, a professor of pharmacognosy (the study of drugs isolated from natural sources, such as plants, animals and minerals) at the University... Читать дальше...

To keep order in the tight quarters of the cell nucleus, our DNA is neatly clamped in place around a central disk by H1 linker histone, which helps shepherd DNA into the tidy chromatin fibers that comprise chromosomes. Linker histone, however, is far more than a mere protein clip. Without sufficient H1, the process of gene transcription falters and the intricate dance of DNA repair screeches to a halt. Perched unassumingly atop our nucleosomes, the humble linker histone appears to somehow conduct... Читать дальше...

Fin whales are the second largest creatures on our planet, surpassed only by blue whales. They can reach a length of around 20 meters—and require up to two metric tons of food per day. Accordingly, they release enormous amounts of nutrients—with significant effects on the ecosystems of the oceans. However, industrial whaling has significantly reduced their numbers. It was geared towards the oil of whales as raw material and was particularly intensive between 1880 and an international agreement in 1986.

Like in many aspects of life, there remains an undercurrent of sex bias against women in the STEM fields. And this bias has a negative impact on not only women, but men too—and those who don't fit within a binary category.

The fact that nature is an excellent chemist is demonstrated by the abundance of molecules, so-called natural products, which it produces biosynthetically. These natural products are also of central importance to us humans. They are used in many ways in our everyday lives, especially as active agents in medicine and agriculture. Prominent examples are antibiotics such as penicilins isolated from molds, the anti-cancer drug Taxol from the Pacific yew tree, and pyrethrins found in chrysanthemums, which are used to combat pest infestations.

No object in the solar system experiences the sun's solar wind more powerfully than Mercury. The planet's magnetic field deflects the sun's stream of electrically charged particles at a distance of only 1,000 kilometers from Mercury's surface, a point called the magnetopause.

How fast is evolution? In adaptive evolution, natural selection causes genetic changes in traits that favor the survival and reproduction of individual organisms.