The genetic map of western and central Eurasia changed significantly after the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago. Geneticists, together with anthropologists and archaeologists, studied the complete human genome of 356 individuals who lived 50,000–5,000 BCE. The study, published in Nature, also examined remains from the well-known triple burial at the Dolni Vestonice site, which were analysed by experts from the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Brno.
According to the theory of anti-tumor immune surveillance, the immune system can neutralise most tumor cells before the disease ever develops. Despite this, nearly 90,000 cancer patients are diagnosed in the Czech Republic every year. The research of the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology at the Institute of Microbiology of the CAS is contributing to the search for new treatment options making use of the immune system itself. We covered the topic in the CAS magazine A / Věda a výzkum. This story is being featured on the occasion of World Cancer Day, which falls on Saturday, 4 February this year.
Trilobite larvae played a vital role as a source of food for certain marine animals. Researchers discovered that the larvae served as an intermediary in the food chain for larger sea organisms that were unable to feed on plankton due to its size. The lead author of the study, published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, is paleontologist Lukáš Laibl from the Institute of Geology of the CAS. Farid Saleh and Francesc Pérez-Peris from the University of Lausanne also collaborated on the research.
It’s called Blastocrithidia nonstop and it’s a parasite – unknown until now to the scientific community and very unique at the same time. Why is its discovery so extraordinary? Experts have discovered that this newly described protozoan exhibits a completely unpredictable and distinct deviation from the genetic code that is otherwise identical in the vast majority of organisms, including humans. The genetic mystery was cracked by Czech molecular biologists, primarily from the Institute of Microbiology of the CAS and the Institute of Parasitology of the Biology Centre of the CAS. The project was supported by the Czech Science Foundation and the study was published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature.
While the modernisation of the countryside has given us clean farm buildings equipped with the latest technology that increases the competitiveness of livestock production, it also has its negative aspects. It has resulted in there being dramatically less space for nesting birds such as the swallow, the martin, and the little owl. Researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the CAS have issued a warning and are proposing measures to help the birds. The results of their study were published in the Journal of Applied Ecology in 2022.
The empirical data of a team of Czech researchers shows that a large part of the public has misconceptions about doctors' views on COVID-19 vaccination. Although the vast majority of physicians trust and support the vaccines, there is a common belief among the public that doctors' opinions are split roughly 50–50. Informing the public of the broad consensus of the doctors' opinions has persistently increased vaccination rates and has played an important role in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The research findings were published by one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals, Nature.
The positive effects of breastfeeding and breast milk on the right growth, health, and development of babies are indisputable. What factors can affect the quality of this wholesome substance? And what is the optimal length of time to breastfeed? The answers are suggested by two new studies by Czech researchers from the Institute of Experimental Medicine of the CAS and the Institute of Physiology of the CAS, published in the journals Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research and Food Chemistry.
Taking care of a family is hard work. Not only are cuckoos well aware of this, but some species of fish are as well – for instance, catfish found in Lake Tanganyika in Africa. They prefer to leave the care of their offspring to others, perfecting their strategy for tricking the hosts over the course of their lives. The learning process of the cuckoo catfish has been described by researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the CAS. Their findings were published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Communications.
The subject of thrift at a time of war in Ukraine, rising commodity prices, and climate uncertainty resonates in the public sphere. But behind this seemingly simple and universally valid idea lies a world of paradoxes. In the new publication Thrift & Its Paradoxes: From Domestic to Political Economy, an international team of experts presents the diversity of perceptions and practices of thrift in various parts of the world.
Perovskite solar cells comprise a promising technology for the energy of the future. They could potentially replace traditional silicon-based solar cells and make photovoltaics cheaper, more high-performance, more flexible, and more environmentally friendly. An international team of researchers from Linköping University in Sweden and the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry of the CAS has succeeded in increasing the lifespan and efficiency of perovskite-based photovoltaic cells. The results of the new study have been published in the prestigious scientific journal Science.
A recent study led by researchers from the University of Antwerp, the Institute of Vertebrate Biology (IVB) of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro screened 1225 rodents and shrews in Tanzania for mammarenavirus RNA, revealing mammarenaviruses might be even more specific than usually thought. The researchers associate taxa below the species level rather than rodent species with certain mammarenaviruses. Host genetic structure may thus be crucial to understand in which rodent reservoirs in which geographic regions we can expect to find them.
Research in languages other than English is critically important for biodiversity conservation and is shockingly under-utilised internationally, according to an international research team.
An international team of scientists led by Tomáš Pluskal from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague) has introduced a new generation of software enabling scientists to analyse large volumes of data from mass spectrometry, a technique that separates chemicals by their weights. The open-source project MZmine provides a new window into the chemical space that surrounds us and lives within. The latest advances in MZmine 3 are now published in a Nature Biotechnology paper.
An international team of parasitologists and medicinal chemists from the BIOCEV Centre has developed and successfully tested a substance against a deadly parasite. Naegleria fowleri attacks the human brain and despite all modern treatments, 97% of cases end fatally. The new substance has been shown to cure the infection in mice. Along with it, scientists have discovered other anti-parasitic agents that could be used against malaria or sleeping sickness in the future.
Cuckoos are brood parasites, which means they lay their own eggs in the nests of other bird species. In the Czech Republic, most commonly in great reed warblers´ nests. Almost every third parasitized nest happens to have multiple cuckoo eggs.
In mammals in general, large ones live longer and become the parents of several large, slowly developing young, such as elephants. In contrast, small short-lived mammals, typically mice, tend to have large litters of small young that grow and mature quickly. Bats are an exception: although small, they live long lives - even several decades - and reproduce in a similar way to large mammals.
Discoveries at a major new fossil site in Morocco suggest giant arthropods – relatives of modern-day creatures including shrimps, insects, and spiders – dominated oceans 470 million years ago. Early evidence from the site at Taichoute, once undersea but now a desert, records numerous large “free-swimming” arthropods. More research is needed to analyse these fragments, but based on previously described specimens, the giant arthropods could be up to two metres long.
A female scientist from the Astronomical Institute of the CAS was part of the team that for the first time achieved a long-term observation of an extremely rare event: a stellar tidal rip. Astronomer Christina Thönea was involved through her observing programmes on telescopes located at the Calar Alto Observatory and in the Canary Islands. The Nature journal has now published a paper on the research, called “A very luminous jet from disruption of a star by a massive black hole”.