Large differences in flower characteristics between wildflowers with different pollinators are achieved by a few key genetic differences, according to a study by Carolyn Wessinger at the University of South Carolina, US, and colleagues, publishing September 28th in the open access journal PLOS Biology. Plants that rely on animal pollinators, such as insects or birds, have evolved distinctive suites of flower characteristics — known as “pollination syndromes” — that are tailored to the pollinator. For example, most plants in the ...

To help resolve the scientific debate over whether it was a giant asteroid or volcanic eruptions that wiped out the dinosaurs and most other species 66 million years ago, Dartmouth researchers tried a new approach — they removed scientists from the debate and let the computers decide. The researchers report in the journal Science a new modeling method powered by interconnected processors that can work through reams of geological and climate data without human input. They tasked nearly 130 processors with analyzing the fossil record in reverse to pinpoint the events and conditions that led to the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event that ...

HOUSTON – (Sept. 28, 2023) – The commercial spaceflight industry is expanding opportunities for scientific research in space, but the industry needs clear ethical guidelines before human research is ready for liftoff. In a new policy paper published in Science, a global, multidisciplinary team of bioethicists, health policy experts, space health researchers, commercial spaceflight professionals and government regulators outlines potential ethical concerns facing the future of commercial space research and provides guiding principles ...

A genome-wide survey of highly endangered staghorn coral in the Caribbean has identified 10 genomic regions associated with resilience against white band disease – an emergent infectious disease responsible for killing up to 95% of Caribbean Acropora species, including staghorn corals (A. cervicornis). The findings could be used as a conservation tool to improve disease resistance in the wild and nursery stocks of staghorn corals used to repopulate damaged coral reefs throughout Caribbean waters. Over the last several decades, Earth’s reef corals have experienced unprecedented declines. Increased anthropogenic ...

A previously uncharacterized adhesin protein specific to a human fungal pathogen first discovered in 2009 plays a crucial role in the fungus’s ability to colonize a variety of living and non-living surfaces, and in its virulence, according to a new study. “These findings [about Candida auris] offer insight into the genetics and molecular mechanisms by which [this fungus] mediates surface association, a trait critical to the increasing disease burden of this emerging pathogen,” write the authors. Since its first discovery in 2009, C. auris has become increasingly responsible for life-threatening infections in health care facilities worldwide. Outbreaks of ...

From long-frozen and potentially dangerous pathogens awakening in Arctic permafrost to emerging heat-related hazards in human pregnancy, ongoing climate change presents new challenges for human health. In this Special Issue, Science’s News Department offers a collection of five news stories highlighting several facets of the complex intersection between heat, disease, and human health and the researchers seeking to understand related emerging threats. In one Feature, Science Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt discusses ...

A novel approach to a question that’s been widely investigated reveals more insights about the environmental forcings associated with the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, suggesting that volcanism and other biological changes imparted stress on the global carbon cycle across the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary. In addition to providing new insights into the factors that contributed to extinction, the approach could be useful in disentangling other complex perturbations in the Earth system and their associated climatic and biological impacts. The end-Cretaceous mass ...

A global, multidisciplinary team of bioethicists, health policy experts, commercial spaceflight professionals and space health researchers, including Rachael Seidler from the University of Florida, has developed guiding principles and best practices to help ensure human research conducted in space is safe and inclusive. The proposed ethical guidelines were released Friday in a policy paper published in Science and are the result of a workshop held at the Banbury Center of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory funded by the Translational ...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (September 28, 2023) — Van Andel Institute Chief Scientific Officer Peter A. Jones, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hon), has received a seven-year, nearly $7.9 million grant from the National Cancer Institute’s Outstanding Investigator Award program. The funding will fuel his research into the epigenetic errors that drive cancer development — and help him find ways to fix them.   The award is a renewal of an earlier seven-year, $7.8 million Outstanding Investigator Award granted to Jones in 2017. The National Cancer Institute, a part of the National Institutes of Health, launched the Outstanding Investigator Award program in 2014 to support “investigators with ...

Rockville, MD (September 28, 2023) – The American Society for Nutrition (ASN) announced today that its annual meeting, NUTRITION 2024, will take place in Chicago, Illinois, June 29 - July 2, 2024. NUTRITION 2024 is the premier meeting for the nutrition community, exploring developments in clinical and translational nutrition, food science and systems, diet and disease, basic science, global health, and more. Nutrition scientists are invited to share their research and join together with clinicians, policy experts, industry, and the media to network and learn for 3.5 exciting days in Chicago. "I look forward to being together with the best in our field. From groundbreaking ...

Terpenoids, the largest family of natural products, have gained significant attention for their diverse applications in industries such as pharmaceuticals, fragrances, and biofuels. However, the efficient synthesis of terpenoids using engineered cell factories has been hindered by the limited supply of isoprene pyrophosphate (IPP), the key building block for terpenoid production. Now, a research team led by Jian Chen at Jiangnan University in China has made a groundbreaking discovery that could revolutionize terpenoid bioproduction. In their research article published in the journal Engineering, Chen and his team unveil a novel approach to address the challenge of insufficient IPP ...

Scientists at The University of Manchester are set to receive a multi-million-pound grant to advance our understanding of interactions in microbiomes and how they might impact the world around us. The research, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s (BBSRC) strategic Longer and Larger (sLoLa) grants programme, takes the first major step towards understanding complex microbial communities and will support the move towards a more sustainable and Net Zero ...

Many of today’s medications belong to groups of relatively large molecules such as peptides. They are used to treat a wide range of diseases, including diabetes, obesity and prostate cancer. Unfortunately, taking these medications in tablet form is out of the question in most cases because they would break down in the digestive tract or remain too large to reach the bloodstream. Consequently, the patient’s only option is to receive their medication via injection. A group of researchers at ETH Zurich have developed ...

Scientists have demonstrated the existence of gravity between antimatter and Earth, reaffirming Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. It is thought that Isaac Newton's historic work on gravity was inspired by watching an apple fall to Earth from a tree. But for decades, scientists have wondered what would happen to an “anti-apple” made of antimatter - would it fall in the same way if it existed? Until now, the question has left scientists with an incomplete picture of the Universe's gravitating content. In a paper published today in Nature, the ALPHA collaboration at CERN’s Antimatter Factory, which ...

Augmented reality (AR) technology has long fascinated both the scientific community and the general public, remaining a staple of modern science fiction for decades. In the pursuit of advanced AR assistants – ones that can guide people through intricate surgeries or everyday food preparation, for example – a research team from NYU Tandon School of Engineering has introduced Augmented Reality Guidance and User-Modeling System, or ARGUS.  An interactive visual analytics tool, ARGUS is engineered to support the development of intelligent AR assistants that can run on devices like Microsoft ...

Normal aging is usually associated with a decline in memory, although it is unclear what factors play a role. In a new study, researchers studied specific interneurons, which serve as communication centers that connect other neurons, in the regions of the brain that are important for learning and memory. Increasing age places people at risk, whether it is because of a normal decrease in cognitive ability or due to postoperative cognitive disorders. In the latter, the deficits can persist for many months after surgery especially when the patients are older than 60. Unfortunately, the ...

A new study in JAMA Network Open may provide key answers to how to help people experiencing chronic back pain. The study, published today, examined the critical connection between the brain and pain for treating chronic pain. Specifically, they looked at the importance of pain attributions, which are people’s beliefs about the underlying causes of their pain, to reduce chronic back pain severity. “Millions of people are experiencing chronic pain and many haven’t found ways to help with the pain, making it clear that something is missing in the way we’re diagnosing and treating people,” said the ...

RICHLAND, Wash.—For decades, researchers have assumed that the inevitable filmy buildup on electrodes inside rechargeable batteries is the driver of performance loss. Now, we know that view is backward. The buildup of mossy or tree-like structured lithium metal deposits on battery electrodes is not the root cause of performance loss, but rather a side effect. The first direct measurement of the electrical properties at the boundary between the solid electrode and the liquid electrolyte inside a rechargeable battery is reported today in Nature Energy. The study, led by a research team at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, shows that the so-called ...

UCLA-led research suggests that diabetes control can significantly improve for Latinos when a pharmacist implements an intervention that addresses these patients’ barriers to medication adherence. In this pharmacist-led intervention, pharmacists reviewed the patients’ lab results, vital signs, and barriers to adherence. They then used this information to design a personally-tailored intervention to boost medication adherence and optimize the treatment regimen. The study is the first to evaluate a collaboration between pharmacist and physicians aimed at improving diabetes care in a large healthcare system among Latino patients, said study lead Dr. Kimberly Narain, ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 6 million people in the United States, and there are very few FDA-approved treatments that can slow the progression of the disease. In hopes of discovering new targets for potential Alzheimer’s treatments, MIT researchers have performed the broadest analysis yet of the genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic changes that occur in every cell type in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Using more than 2 million cells from more than 400 postmortem brain samples, the researchers analyzed how gene expression is disrupted as Alzheimer’s progresses. They also tracked changes in ...

Key takeaways: Scientists have developed “multielement ink” – the first “high-entropy” semiconductor that can be processed at low-temperature or room temperature. Multielement ink could enable cost-effective and energy-efficient semiconductor manufacturing. The new semiconducting material could accelerate the sustainable production of next-gen microelectronics, photovoltaics, solid state lighting, and display devices. Semiconductors are the heart of almost every ...

Neuroscientists at the Flatiron Institute in New York City and their colleagues have made a big breakthrough using one of the world’s smallest brains. Using an ion beam, an electron microscope and a lot of patience, the neuroscientists mapped out the entire early visual system — from the eyes that take in light to the neurons processing the information — for a parasitic wasp smaller than a grain of table salt. The feat marks the first time scientists have fully reconstructed such a system at the synaptic level from a single specimen of any animal species, the neuroscientists report ...

Key Takeaways In a survey-based study of US adults, those living in communities in which most people seldom left home at certain times during the COVID-19 pandemic were more likely to report symptoms of depression The link remained strong even after considering COVID-19 activity, weather, and county-level economics Accounting for state-level pandemic restrictions only modestly attenuated the association BOSTON – Higher levels of depressive symptoms have been reported during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with other times in history, and as much as three times higher than prior to the ...

An international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg and ETH Zurich has now demonstrated that it is possible to probe electron dynamics in liquids using intense laser fields and to retrieve the electron mean free path – the average distance an electron can travel before colliding with another particle. They found that the mechanism by which liquids emit a particular light spectrum known as the high-harmonic spectrum is markedly different from the one in other phases of matter like gases and solids. The team’s findings open the door to a deeper understanding of ultrafast dynamics in liquids. Using ...

In some patients, infection with the pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2 can trigger a dangerous immune response in hardened fatty deposits (plaques) lining the heart’s largest blood vessels, a new study shows. The findings are based on the body’s immune system, which evolved to destroy invading microbes but also drives disease when triggered in the wrong context. Doing so brings on a set of responses termed inflammation, including swelling, which results as immune cells and signaling proteins home in on infection sites. ...