While some of our body's cells divide in a matter of hours, the process of making sperm, meiosis, alone takes about 14 days from start to finish. And fully six of those days are spent in the stage known as the pachytene, when pairs of chromosomes from an individual's mother and father align and connect.

Beads that contain bacteria and a slow-release food supply to sustain them can clean up contaminated groundwater for months on end, maintenance free, research by Oregon State University shows.

More than 2000 renewable energy facilities are built in areas of environmental significance and threaten the natural habitats of plant and animal species across the globe.

Students who used immersive virtual reality (VR) did not learn significantly better than those who used two more traditional forms of learning, but they vastly preferred the VR to computer-simulated and hands-on methods, a new Cornell study has found.

"We are living through an explosion in the availability of microbiome data," according to JP Dundore-Arias, assistant professor of plant pathology at California State University, Monterey Bay. "In agricultural systems, the proliferation of research on plant and soil microbiomes has been coupled with excitement for the potential that microbiome data may have for the development of novel,...

Authorities called Wednesday for worried Peruvians to stop killing bats after rescuing 200 that were going to be burnt by peasants believing them to be spreading the coronavirus.

A 3-D camera should be as easy to use as one found on a smartphone.

Smaug, the deadly dragon in J.R.R Tolkien's "The Hobbit," has a few living relatives. With dense, alligator-like armor, these small, real-life dragon lizards are rock-crevice recluses mostly confined to mountaintops in southern Africa.

Researchers have developed the first computational model of a human cell and simulated its behavior for 15 minutes—the longest time achieved for a biological system of this complexity. In a new study, simulations reveal the effects of spatial organization within cells on some of the genetic processes that control the regulation and development of human traits and some human diseases.

From 1946 to 2016, testimony from economists accounted for more than two thirds of all instances of U.S. congressional testimony delivered by social scientists. Thomas Maher of Purdue University, Indiana, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on March 25, 2020.

An international team of scientists has for the first time identified the conditions deep below the Earth's surface that lead to the triggering of so-called 'slow motion' earthquakes.

Usain Bolt's 200m record has not been beaten for ten years and Florence Griffith Joyner's for more than thirty years. And what if the secret behind beating records was to use mathematics? Thanks to a mathematical model, Amandine Aftalion, CNRS researcher at the Centre d'analyse et de mathématique sociales (CNRS/EHESS), and Emmanuel Trélat, a Sorbonne Université researcher at the Laboratoire...

In the treatment of tumors, microenvironment plays an important role. It often contains immune cells that are so changed that they promote tumor growth. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, scientists have introduced a method by which cell samples from tumors and their surroundings can rapidly (under 1 hour) be cycled through staining, destaining, and then restaining with fluorescent...

Experts are investigating a better way of measuring the number of people exposed to the health risks of poorly-managed sanitation systems—and it will help reveal whether the world is on track to deliver UN Sustainable Goal 6 (SDG6).

Photonic cavities are an essential part of many modern optical devices, from laser pointers to microwave ovens. Just as we can store water in a tank and create standing waves on the surface of the water, we can confine light in a photonic resonator whose walls are strongly reflective. Just as water surface waves depend on the geometry of the tank (shape, depth), specific optical modes can be...

Chemicals that deplete Earth's protective ozone layer have also been triggering changes in Southern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation. Now, new research in Nature finds that those changes have paused and might even be reversing because of the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty that successfully phased out use of ozone-depleting chemicals.

Researchers from the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have discovered a strange new feature of a protein that's thought to be important in the development of tuberculosis: The protein contains a "huge" interior pocket, the likes of which has never before been seen, that appears capable of passing a wide range of other molecules into the bacterial cell.

Terahertz (THz) waves fall between microwave and infrared radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum, oscillating at frequencies of between 100 billion and 30 trillion cycles per second. These waves are prized for their distinctive properties: they can penetrate paper, clothing, wood and walls, as well as detect air pollution. THz sources could revolutionize security and medical imaging systems....

In this post-industrialization age, electricity has become the backbone of our society. However, using fossil fuels to generate it is not the best option because of their limited availability and harmful nature. In the last two decades, significant efforts have been made to develop techniques to foster sustainable energy. Against this backdrop, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have risen as a clean...

Strong painkillers are very important in the management of patients with cancer and heart attack or requiring surgery. They extert their effect by binding to so-called opioid receptors in the body.

It is estimated that every year, over 100,000 human deaths can be attributed to snakebite from the world's 700 venomous snake species—all inflicted in self-defense when the snakes feel threatened by encroaching humans. However, a new piece of research concludes that snake venom did not evolve as a defense mechanism.

A combined team of researchers from the University of Ottawa and National Research Council Canada has developed a new way to generate rapid strong magnetic fields using laser pulses. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the researchers describe their new technique and the ways it might be used.

Kindergarten teacher Jill Hammel is keeping up with her class: Emily has a loose tooth that could fall out any day; Angelo's little brother took his first steps; Sammy has a new betta fish; and Piet made chocolate chip cookies.

A worldwide study of 327,403 metro and bus passengers shows that women are ten percent more likely to feel unsafe than men on urban public transport.