SPOTlight supercharges cell studies — ScienceDaily
Researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine have developed a new method to isolate specific cells, and in the process found a more robust fluorescent protein. Both the platform and the protein could be highly useful to synthetic biologists and biomedical researchers. They often need to single out cells with specific visual phenotypes […]
Look inside the hidden world of Earth’s most beautiful caves
Formed by millennia of rain trickling through bedrock and ice, these recesses act as time capsules for anthropologists, biologists, and climatologists, who search them for precious remnants of life predating even the dinosaurs. Today, caving also attracts nyctophiles seeking calm darkness and self-trained cartographers looking to draw a more complete picture of the planet’s past […]
Examining association of stay-at-home orders, state-level African American population with COVID-19 case rates
What The Study Did: Researchers investigated whether state-imposed stay-at-home orders and the proportion of African American population in a state were associated with the state-level COVID-19 cases from March to May 2020. Authors: Bisakha Sen, Ph.D., of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For […]
Exploring the source of stars and planets in a laboratory
Physicist Himawan Winarto with figures from paper behind him. Credit: Elle Starkman/PPPL Office of Communications. A new method for verifying a widely held but unproven theoretical explanation of the formation of stars and planets has been proposed by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). The method grows from […]
FDA approves first COVID-19 drug. But it’s ‘not a blockbuster.’
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has fully approved remdesivir as a treatment for COVID-19. The drug is now approved for use in hospitalized COVID-19 patients 12 years old and up, and weighing at least 88 pounds (40 kilograms), according to a statement from the FDA. Previously, the agency allowed doctors to give remdesivir […]
Seabird response to abrupt climate change 5,000 years ago transformed Falklands ecosystems — ScienceDaily
The Falkland Islands are a South Atlantic refuge for some of the world’s most important seabird species, including five species of penguins, Great Shearwaters, and White-chinned Petrels. In recent years, their breeding grounds in the coastal tussac (Poa flabellata) grasslands have come under increasing pressure from sheep grazing and erosion. And unlike other regions of […]
Rising Seas and Agriculture Created Wetlands Along the U.S. East Coast
Most of the tidal marshes along the eastern coast of the United States formed within the past 6,000 years, according to new research published in Geophysical Research Letters. Braswell et al. used new and existing data to assess the age of coastal wetland areas. The new study found evidence for two bouts of […]
Dinosaurs may have evolved into birds, but early flights didn’t go so well
A reconstruction of Ambopteryx in a glide. (Gabriel Ugueto /) About 160 million years ago, two tiny dinosaurs known as Yi qi and Ambopteryx longibrachium glided through the trees in present-day China. Unfortunately for Yi and Ambopteryx, these aerial abilities were pretty underwhelming, scientists reported on October 22 in the journal iScience. The researchers examined […]
New test method to standardize immunological evaluation of nucleic acid nanoparticles
IMAGE: Schematic summary of the experimental flow. view more Credit: Melina Richardson (Afonin Lab, UNC Charlotte) Therapeutic nucleic acids – lab-created segments of DNA or RNA, designed be used to block or modify genes, control gene expression or regulate other cellular processes – are a promising but still emerging area of biomedical treatment, with several drugs […]
Discovery of pH-dependent ‘switch’ in interaction between pair of protein molecules
Upper panel: the different interaction sites observed by NMR under different pH conditions. Lower panel: the crystal structures of the complex under two pH conditions have different binding-sites Credit: FENG Yingang All biological processes are in some way pH-dependent. Human bodies and those of other organisms need to maintain specific and constant pH regulation in […]
