The most pristine parts of the Amazon rainforest devoid of direct human contact are being impacted by human-induced climate change, according to new research by LSU scientists.
In an unprecedented atlas, researchers begin to map how genes are turned on or off in different cells, a step toward better understanding the connections between genetics and disease
A prevailing scientific scenario for the chemical origin of life focuses on RNA (ribonucleic acid) and proteins, biopolymers that without which there would be no life today. But a new study suggests that it's not plausible that these complex molecules could spontaneously appear prebiotically.
All human and animal life involves some level of risk assessment in daily life. Now a group of researchers, led by George Montanez, an assistant professor at Harvey Mudd College in California, has used computer simulations to quantify how the ability to calculate risk can affect survival.
How new species evolved from existing ones has been a leading question in biology for nearly two centuries. Now new research is pointing to the role of transposons, repetitive DNA sequences that move from one location to another within the genome, in creating fundamental changes in the genetic code.
In a recent study, a group of geology researchers at Lund University unveiled three newly discovered species of conodonts, a type of jawless ancient fish.
The Open Science Award of 2021 was granted to the Language Bank of Finland and research coordinator Kati Lassila-Perini
Psychology increasingly characterizes cognition as the process of an individual acting in the environment in which he or she develops, instead of a kind of computational processing of information in the brain.
How natural selection eliminates harmful mitochondrial DNA mutations in mammalian egg cells (oocytes) is a subject of current scientific debate and is under examination by a London university research team.
Plants know winter is coming. But exactly how they detect this seasonal change has never been clear.
Researchers have shed new light on evolutionary processes in the last 50,000 years that have allowed some disease-causing genes to persist in human populations.
A new study by researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the University of California Irvine shows that the conformation of proteins can be significantly distorted by the practice of freezing with liquid nitrogen preparatory to analysis by X-ray crystallography.
In their roughly 3.5 billion years on Earth, bacteria have fine-tuned the art of colonizing all kinds of habitats, from the inner lining of digestive tracts to the blistering hot waters of geysers.
The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded on Oct. 3 to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian "for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch."
Sophisticated physical measurements show how insects and other invertebrates make use of heavy metals to strengthen and sharpen their appendages in a way that is different from the biomineralization process used to form the teeth, bones, and other organs in a wide variety of animals.
An observational study by Finnish research groups at the SMEAR station confirms a theory that volatile organic compounds emitted by vegetation form atmospheric aerosols which make clouds more reflective. Brighter clouds reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface, thereby cooling the surface.
A team of paleontologists from the University of Washington and its Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture excavated four dinosaurs in northeastern Montana this summer. All fossils will be brought back to the Burke Museum where the public can watch paleontologists remove the surrounding rock in the fossil preparation laboratory.
MIT engineers, in collaboration with scientists at Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, have developed a new way to grow tiny replicas of the pancreas, using either healthy or cancerous pancreatic cells.
Fifty years ago, the strategy-based game Oregon Trail hit classrooms around the country. Anyone who has played the game knows that crossing a river in the wrong place at the wrong time or other poor decisions along the trail can end the game.
A multi-disciplinary team of scientists at Lehigh University and the University of Lausanne discover and characterize a new mechanism by which the fission yeast cell acquires its tubular shape.