As a fourth-generation cattle farmer, Jared Decker knows that cattle suffer from health and productivity issues when they are taken from one environment -- which the herd has spent generations adapting to -- to a place with a different climate, a different elevation or even different grass. But as a researcher at the University of Missouri, Decker also sees an opportunity to use science to solve this problem, both to improve the welfare of cattle and to plug a leak in a nearly $50 billion industry in the U.S. "When I joined MU in 2013, I moved cattle from a family farm in New Mexico to my farm here in Missouri," said Decker, an associate professor and Wurdack Chair in Animal Genetics at the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. "New Mexico is hot and dry, and Missouri is ...

A computational analysis of COVID-19 tests suggests that, in order to minimize the number of infections in a population, the amount of testing matters more than the sensitivity of the tests that are used. Philip Cherian and Gautam Menon of Ashoka University in Sonipat, India, and Sandeep Krishna of the National Centre for Biological Sciences TIFR, Bangalore, India, present their findings in the open-access journal PLOS Computational Biology. Different states in India use different mixes of two main tests for COVID-19: a very sensitive reverse-transcriptase polymerase-chain-reaction (RT-PCR) test and a less sensitive rapid antigen test. Traditional thinking holds that an all-RT-PCR approach ...

The neurotransmitters GABA and glutamate have complementary roles -- GABA inhibits neurons, while glutamate makes them more active. Published 22nd July in PLOS Biology, researchers led by Roi Cohen Kadosh and George Zacharopoulos from the University of Oxford show that levels of these two neurotransmitters in the intraparietal sulcus of the brain can predict mathematics ability. The study also found that the relationships between the two neurotransmitters and arithmetic fluency switched as children developed into adults. Levels of brain excitement/inhibition are thought to be related to learning, especially during critical periods. However, little is known about how they are related to complex learning that can take place over decades. To address this issue, the researchers ...

For the first time, a team of international scientists have proven that cockatoos, an iconic Australian bird species, learn from each other a unique skill - lifting garbage bin lids to gather food. The world-first research published today in Science, confirms that cockatoos spread this novel behavior through social learning. Led by Barbara Klump and Lucy Aplin (Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior), along with John Martin (Taronga Conservation Society) and Richard Major (Australian Museum), the team have shown that this behavior by cockatoos is actually ...

Based on a dozen earthquakes detected on Mars by the SEIS very broadband seismometer, developed in France, the international team of NASA's InSight mission reveals the internal structure of Mars. The three studies published July 23 in Science, involving many co-authors from French institutions and laboratories, including CNRS, the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université de Paris, and supported by CNES and ANR, reveal, for the first time and thanks to the analysis of seismic waves, reflected and modified by these internal interfaces, an estimate of the size of the core, the thickness of the crust and the mantle structure. This is the first ...

Osaka, Japan - Gross chromosomal rearrangements--where portions of the genome become moved, deleted, or inverted--can lead to cell death and diseases such as cancer in complex multicellular organisms. However, the details of how exactly these occur remain unknown. Now, studies in a single-celled organism called fission yeast have found evidence for the involvement of a protein called Rad8. When DNA replicates or repairs itself, three copies of a protein called PCNA bind together and form a ring-like structure surrounding the DNA strand. This ring structure acts like a clamp and slides along the DNA strand. The team showed that Rad8 attaches ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Infection with dengue virus makes mosquitoes more sensitive to warmer temperatures, according to new research led by Penn State researchers. The team also found that infection with the bacterium Wolbachia, which has recently been used to control viral infections in mosquitoes, also increases the thermal sensitivity of the insects. The findings suggest that global warming could limit the spread of dengue fever but could also limit the effectiveness of Wolbachia as a biological control agent. "Dengue fever, a potentially lethal disease for which no treatment exists, is caused by a virus, spread by the bite of the mosquito Aedes aegypti. This mosquito is also responsible ...

NOTICE: This summary has been updated to correct misspellings of the last names of both Perspective authors. The Perspective authors are Sanne Cottaar and Paula Koelemeijer. We apologize for our error. The first direct seismic observations from NASA's InSight lander, presented in three studies in this issue, provide clues to the composition of Mars. Researchers across these studies report preliminary findings from the Insight mission and begin to map - for the first time - the interior of a planet apart from Earth. "These three studies provide important constraints on the present-day structure of Mars and are also key for improving our understanding of how the planet formed billions of years ago and ...

In the suburbs of Sydney, Australia, sulphur-crested cockatoos routinely loot lidded household waste bins to scavenge for food. In a new study, researchers document the emergence and geographic spread of innovative bin-opening behaviors in urban parrot populations, revealing the presence of a complex social learning culture in these birds. What's more, this behavior appears to have emerged as a direct response to land-use change and urbanization, demonstrating how animal cultures could allow for local adaptation of urban animal populations in the Anthropocene. In animals, ecological novelty, including novelties unique ...

Of the nearly 100 SARS-CoV-2 vaccines currently undergoing clinical trials, only seven are delivered intranasally - despite this vaccine type's long success in providing protection from influenza. In a Perspective, Frances Lund and Troy Randall argue that intranasal vaccines could be beneficial in the continued fight against COVID-19, especially considering respiratory viruses like SARS-CoV-2 predominantly enter the nasal passage first. Currently authorized COVID-19 vaccines are delivered via intramuscular injection, where they elicit systemic immune responses and central immune memory. While several ...

Like dreaming of walking through a world they've not yet experienced, the retinas of neonatal mice practice for what mature eyes must later process by generating spontaneous patterns of activity that mimic the perception of directional movement through space, according to a new study. Essential functions in the mammalian visual system, including the ability to locate objects and detect motion, are present even at the first onset of vision. Optic flow, the perceived relative motion of objects and surfaces that seemingly stream by a field of vision during movement, is one of these functions. However, how the visual system organizes its functional characteristics before visual sensory experience is even possible remains unclear. ...

Based on the analysis of marsquakes recorded by NASA's InSight mission, the structure of Mars's crust has now been determined in absolute numbers for the first time. Beneath the InSight landing site, the crust is either approximately 20 or 39 kilometres thick. That is the result of an international research team led by geophysicist Dr Brigitte Knapmeyer-Endrun at the University of Cologne's Institute of Geology and Mineralogy and Dr Mark Panning at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology (Caltech). InSight stands for 'Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport'. NASA's lander, which ...

New European Union regulations on batteries could offer a huge boost to the global decarbonisation mission - but only if it leverages its political and economic weight to ensure a fairer global marketplace. According to a team of scientists and researchers writing in Science, the new regulations, due to come into force from January 2022, have the potential to unify policy on approaches such as recycling, use of recycled raw materials, and creating a circular economy. Contributing to the study were experts at Newcastle University, the University of Birmingham, Circular Energy Storage Research and Consulting, ...

As a newborn mammal opens its eyes for the first time, it can already make visual sense of the world around it. But how does this happen before they have experienced sight? A new Yale study suggests that, in a sense, mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are even born. Writing in the July 23 issue of Science, a team led by Michael Crair, the William Ziegler III Professor of Neuroscience and professor of ophthalmology and visual science, describes waves of activity that emanate from the neonatal retina in mice before their eyes ever open. This activity disappears soon after birth and is replaced by a more mature network of neural transmissions ...

Using information obtained from around a dozen earthquakes detected on Mars by the Very Broad Band SEIS seismometer, developed in France, the international team of NASA's InSight mission has unveiled the internal structure of Mars. The three papers published on July 23, 2021 in the journal Science, involving numerous co-authors from French institutions and laboratories, including the CNRS, the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, and Université de Paris, and supported in particular by the French space agency CNES and the French National Research Agency ANR, provide, for the first time, an estimate of the size of the planet's core, the thickness of its crust and the structure of its mantle, based on the analysis of seismic waves reflected ...

For much of human history, animals and plants were perceived to follow a different set of rules than the rest of the universe. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this culminated in a belief that living organisms were infused by a non-physical energy or "life force" that allowed them to perform remarkable transformations that couldn't be explained by conventional chemistry or physics alone. Scientists now understand that these transformations are powered by enzymes - protein molecules comprised of chains of amino acids that act to speed up, or catalyze, ...

The rapid spread of the Alpha variant of COVID-19 resulted from biological changes in the virus and was enhanced by large numbers of infected people 'exporting' the variant to multiple parts of the UK, in what the researchers call a 'super-seeding' event. Results of the largest phylogeographic analysis ever conducted, published today in the journal Science, maps the spread of the variant (also known as lineage B.1.1.7) from its origins in Kent and Greater London in November 2020 to all but five counties in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England by 19 January. Dr ...

Engineers at the University of California San Diego developed a soft and stretchy ultrasound patch that can be worn on the skin to monitor blood flow through major arteries and veins deep inside a person's body. Knowing how fast and how much blood flows through a patient's blood vessels is important because it can help clinicians diagnose various cardiovascular conditions, including blood clots; heart valve problems; poor circulation in the limbs; or blockages in the arteries that could lead to strokes or heart attacks. The new ultrasound patch developed at UC San Diego can continuously monitor ...

Irvine, Calif., July 22, 2021 - To meet an ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by 2045, California's policymakers are relying in part on forests and shrublands to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but researchers at the University of California, Irvine warn that future climate change may limit the ecosystem's ability to perform this service. In a paper published today in the American Geophysical Union journal AGU Advances, the UCI Earth system scientists stressed that rising temperatures and uncertain precipitation will cause a decrease in California's natural carbon storage capacity of as much as 16 percent under an extreme climate projection and of nearly 9 percent under a more moderate scenario. "This work highlights the conundrum ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - A new method that analyzes how individual immune cells react to the bacteria that cause tuberculosis could pave the way for new vaccine strategies against this deadly disease, and provide insights into fighting other infectious diseases around the world. The cutting-edge technologies were developed in the lab of Dr. David Russell, the William Kaplan Professor of Infection Biology in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the College of Veterinary Medicine, and detailed in new research published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine on July 22. For years, Russell's lab has sought to unravel how Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, infect and persist in their host cells, which are typically ...

A new study, led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities engineering researchers, shows that the stiffness of protein fibers in tissues, like collagen, are a key component in controlling the movement of cells. The groundbreaking discovery provides the first proof of a theory from the early 1980s and could have a major impact on fields that study cell movement from regenerative medicine to cancer research. The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary, high-impact scientific journal. Directed cell movement, or what scientists call "cell contact guidance," refers to a phenomenon when the orientation of cells ...

Researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil investigated the effects of regular exercise on the physical and mental health of 344 volunteers during the pandemic. The study compared the effectiveness of three techniques: sessions led in person by a fitness instructor, sessions featuring an online instructor but no supervision, and sessions supervised remotely by an instructor via video call. The two kinds of session with professional supervision had the strongest effects on physical and mental health. According to the researchers, this was due to the possibility of increasing ...

New Brunswick, NJ--Even at term, gestational age may have an impact on children's academic performance, findings of a new study suggest. The research showed an association between gestational age at term and above-average rankings in a number of academic subjects. The study, published in Pediatrics, compared teacher-reported outcomes for 1,405 9-year-old children in the United States, analyzing performance in mathematics, science and social studies, and language and literacy, for those born at 37 through 41 weeks gestation. It found that longer gestational age was significantly associated with average or above-average rankings in all areas. It also suggested a general pattern of worse outcomes for children born at early term (37-38 weeks) and better outcomes for those born at late ...

Plastics offer many benefits to society and are widely used in our daily life: they are lightweight, cheap and adaptable. However, the production, processing and disposal of plastics are simply not sustainable, and pose a major global threat to the environment and human health. Eco-friendly processing of reusable and recyclable plastics derived from plant-based raw materials would be an ideal solution. So far, the technological challenges have proved too great. However, researchers at the University of Göttingen have now found a sustainable method - "hydrosetting", which uses water at normal conditions - to process and reshape a new type of hydroplastic polymer called cellulose cinnamate (CCi). The research was published ...

HOUSTON -- (July 22, 2021) -- Researchers who want bacteria to feel right at home in the laboratory have put out a new welcome mat. Rice University bioengineers and Baylor College of Medicine scientists looking for a better way to mimic intestinal infections that cause diarrhea and other diseases have built and tested a set of hydrogel-based platforms to see if they could make both transplanted cells and bacteria comfy. As a mechanical model of intestinal environments, the lab's soft, medium and hard polyethylene glycol (PEG) hydrogels were far more welcoming to the cells that normally line the gut than the glass and plastic usually used by laboratories. These cells can then host bacteria like Escherichia coli that are sometimes pathogenic. The ability to study their ...