The radioactive element astatine, the name of which is derived from the Greek word for 'instability,' is so rare on earth that it has not yet been investigated to any greater extent and, as a consequence, very little is known about it. Using artificially generated astatine, the Mainz-based physicist Sebastian Rothe has now managed for the first time to experimentally explore one of its fundamental parameters, the ionization potential, and thus determine one of the most important properties of the rare element. The ionization potential is the binding energy, i.e., the amount ...

High-resolution mapping of the epigenome has discovered unique patterns that emerge during the generation of brain circuitry in childhood. While the 'genome' can be thought of as the instruction manual that contains the blueprints (genes) for all of the components of our cells and our body, the 'epigenome' can be thought of as an additional layer of information on top of our genes that change the way they are used. "These new insights will provide the foundation for investigating the role the epigenome plays in learning, memory formation, brain structure and mental ...

Very little is known about the Sahamalaza sportive lemur (Lepilemur sahamalazensis), other than the fact it roosts during the day in rather open situations, such as tree holes, and therefore risks falling victim to predators from both the air and the ground. Sportive lemurs are not kept in any zoo. Prior to this research virtually nothing was known about this particular species despite the fact that it has been classified as Critically Endangered, the top threat category of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, at ...

BOWLING GREEN, O.—Lake Vostok, buried under a glacier in Antarctica, is so dark, deep and cold that scientists had considered it a possible model for other planets, a place where nothing could live. However, work by Dr. Scott Rogers, a Bowling Green State University professor of biological sciences, and his colleagues has revealed a surprising variety of life forms living and reproducing in this most extreme of environments. A paper published June 26 in PLOS ONE (Public Library of Science - http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0067221) details the thousands of species ...

TORONTO - A team of Toronto-based researchers may be one step closer to a 'recipe' for large-scale production of stem cells for use in research and therapy. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can be of great value for medical research because they can flexibly develop into many different types of cells. However, producing these cells is challenging because the proteins that control their generation are largely unknown. But researchers from the University of Toronto, the Hospital for Sick Children and Mount Sinai Hospital (with colleagues from the United States and ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – With fewer than a dozen flowering plants out of 300,000 species accounting for 80 percent of humanity's caloric intake, people need to tap unused plants to feed the world in the near future, claims Cornell University plant geneticist Susan McCouch in the Comment feature of the July 4 issue of Nature. To keep pace with population growth and rising incomes around the world, researchers estimate that food availability must double in the next 25 years. The biodiversity stored in plant gene banks coupled with advances in genetics and plant breeding may hold ...

The Great Barrier Reef humpbacked conch snail jumps when it senses the odour of its main predator, the marbled cone shell. Together with a team of researchers from the James Cook University, Dr Sjannie Lefevre and Prof Göran Nilsson at the University of Oslo in Norway looked for the first time at the effects of increased temperature on the ability of the snail to deliver oxygen to tissues during jumping provoked by the predator odour. The researchers analysed resting and active jumping oxygen consumption rates in snails exposed to seawater at the normal temperature of ...

The researchers removed starfish with and without eyes from their food rich habitat, the coral reef, and placed them on the sand bottom one metre away, where they would starve. They monitored the starfishes' behaviour from the surface and found that while starfish with intact eyes head towards the direction of the reef, starfish without eyes walk randomly. Dr Garm said: "The results show that the starfish nervous system must be able to process visual information, which points to a clear underestimation of the capacity found in the circular and somewhat dispersed central ...

The team of researchers headed Dr Steven Portugal (Royal Veterinary College, University of London) discovered the nano-scale cone-like structures. Dr Steven Portugal explained: "This work was started by accident. A water spillage over an egg collection revealed how differently water droplets acted on the guillemot eggshells in comparison to other species. The water droplets stayed as a sphere on the eggs, typically an indication of a hydrophobic surface." The researchers identified that these structures are unique to guillemot eggshells in a comparative study of over ...

A research team headed by Prof Jonathan Lynch at the Pennsylvania State University, United States, found that maize roots show natural variation in the number of cortical cells in their roots which can be selected preferentially for cultivation on land where deep roots are an advantage. A field study in collaboration with the Bunda College of Agriculture in Malawi shows that a lower number of cortical cells, reduces the energetic cost of soil exploration by the roots. Prof Jonathan Lynch said: "A lower number of cortical cells means that the plants spend less nutrients ...

Research by Michael Oellermann, Hans Pörtner and Felix Mark at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, looked at how octopods are able to supply oxygen to tissues in freezing temperatures. The researchers compared the properties of blood pigment haemocyanin, responsible for oxygen transport, of Antarctic, Temperate and Warm-Adapted octopods. The researchers found that the forms of haemocyanin of the Antarctic octopod Pareledone charcoti, are genetically and functionally different from the temperate and warmer climate octopods, facilitating ...

Research conducted by Dr Bill Dew at the University of Lethbridge in Canada looked for the first time at the effect of the metal contaminants nickel and copper on specific fish olfactory sensory neurons, and how these affect the fish's ability to detect and swim away from an odour released by other fish of the same species (conspecifics) when a predator attack takes place. Dr Bill Dew said: "Our research shows that copper affects the function of a specific type of olfactory neurons in fish, preventing them from detecting important olfactory signals used to detect fish ...

A rich assemblage of fossils and artifacts in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains in Iran has revealed that the early inhabitants of the region began cultivating cereal grains for agriculture between 12,000 and 9,800 years ago. The discovery implies that the transition from foraging to farming took place at roughly the same time across the entire Fertile Crescent, not in a single core area of the "cradle of civilization," as previously thought. Until recently, political pressures had limited excavations of archaeological sites in the eastern Fertile Crescent, or modern-day ...

The immune response to the bacterium that causes tuberculosis (TB) varies between patients of different ethnic origin, raising important implications for the development of tests to diagnose and monitor treatment for the disease, according to new research published today in the journal PLOS Pathogens. The study, led by researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, in collaboration with the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR),analysed the immune response of 128 newly-diagnosed TB patients in London who were divided by ethnicity into ...

The British landscape is not being used to its best advantage according to a new report from environmental economists from the University of East Anglia (UEA). Research published today in the journal Science shows that allowing land use to be determined purely by an agricultural market, which is distorted by multi-billion pound subsidies, will result in considerable financial and environmental costs to the public. It shows that a shake-up in the way EU subsidies are given out could greatly improve the way UK farm land is managed. While the research has looked specifically ...

Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience Large-scale network organisation in the avian forebrain Birds have been evolving separately from mammals for around 300 million years. So it's hardly surprising that under a microscope, the brain of a bird looks quite different to that of a mammal. Nevertheless, birds have been shown to be remarkably intelligent. They can use tools, make plans, and solve unfamiliar puzzles. How is it that both kinds of brain are capable of these things? A new study published in Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience presents the first large-scale ...

Astronomers have always suspected that galaxies grow by pulling in material from their surroundings, but this process has proved very difficult to observe directly. Now ESO's Very Large Telescope has been used to study a very rare alignment between a distant galaxy [1] and an even more distant quasar -- the extremely bright centre of a galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole. The light from the quasar passes through the material around the foreground galaxy before reaching Earth, making it possible to explore in detail the properties of the gas around the galaxy [2]. ...

Mysterious bursts of radio waves originating from billions of light years away have left the scientists who detected them speculating about their origins. The international research team, writing in the journal Science, rule out terrestrial sources for the four fast radio bursts and say their brightness and distance suggest they come from cosmological distances when the Universe was just half its current age. The burst energetics indicate that they originate from an extreme astrophysical event involving relativistic objects such as neutron stars or black holes. Study ...

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have developed the first method for directly measuring the extent to which drugs reach their targets in the cell. The method, which is described in the scientific journal Science, could make a significant contribution to the development of new, improved drug substances. Most drugs operate by binding to one or more proteins and affecting their function, which creates two common bottlenecks in the development of drugs; identifying the right target proteins and designing drug molecules able to efficiently seek out and bind to ...

First results from the analysis of eight 'hot Jupiter' exoplanets suggest that winds and clouds play an important role in the atmospheric make up of these exotic planets. Catherine Huitson of the University of Exeter will present the results at the National Astronomy Meeting in St Andrews on Friday 5 July. Hot Jupiters are giant exoplanets, similar in size to Jupiter, that orbit so close to their stars that their atmospheres can reach temperatures of 1000-3000 degrees Celsius. Astronomers can detect which gases are present in their atmospheres by analysing the spectrum ...

As the Ashes series gets underway next week, a pair of brothers from Australia have been exploring the physics behind the spin of a cricket ball. While physicists are much more accustomed to measuring the spin of electrons, protons and neutrons, Garry and Ian Robinson, Honorary Visiting Fellows at the University of New South Wales and the University of Melbourne respectively, have presented equations that govern the trajectory of a spinning ball as it moves through the air in the presence of a wind. Their paper has been published today, 5 July, in Physica Scripta -- ...

A new study published today in the journal Gondwana Research, has revealed the past position of the Australian, Antarctic and Indian tectonic plates, demonstrating how they formed the supercontinent Gondwana 165 million years ago. Researchers from Royal Holloway University, The Australian National University and Geoscience Australia, have helped clear up previous uncertainties on how the plates evolved and where they should be positioned when drawing up a picture of the past. Dr Lloyd White from the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway University said: "The ...

The increased risk of heart attack or stroke associated with many arthritis drugs may be avoidable, according to a new international study co-authored by researchers at Imperial College London. Drugs such as Vioxx, diclofenac, ibuprofen and Celebrex operate by blocking an enzyme known as COX-2, whose presence in blood vessels has up until now been held responsible for these side effects. New research carried out on mice has revealed that COX-2 is largely absent from the major blood vessels and instead found in the brain, gut, and kidney as well as the thymus gland in ...

Experience of parents with their children and teachers with their students demonstrate how kids change their behaviours and knowledge from infancy to adolescence. Until now, little was known of the causes that could lead to these changes. Today, an article published in Science in collaboration with the group of Manel Esteller, Director of Epigenetics and Cancer Biology Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), ICREA researcher and Professor of Genetics at the University of Barcelona, gives us an important clue to understanding this process. Researchers have discovered ...

LA JOLLA, CA – Changes in the epigenome, including chemical modifications of DNA, can act as an extra layer of information in the genome, and are thought to play a role in learning and memory, as well as in age-related cognitive decline. The results of a new study by scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies show that the landscape of DNA methylation, a particular type of epigenomic modification, is highly dynamic in brain cells during the transition from birth to adulthood, helping to understand how information in the genomes of cells in the brain is controlled ...