The 'mismatch hypothesis' argues that our bodies evolved to digest the foods that our ancestors ate, and that human bodies will struggle and largely fail to metabolize a radically new set of foods. This intuitive idea is hard to test directly, but the Turkana, a pastoralist population in remote Kenya, present a natural experiment: genetically homogenous populations whose diets stretch across a...

New radio images from ALMA show for the first time the direct effect of volcanic activity on the atmosphere of Jupiter's moon Io.

Since the 1950s, 'Africanized' honeybees have spread north and south across the Americas until apparently coming to a halt in California and northern Argentina. Now genome sequencing of hundreds of bees from the northern and southern limits shows a gradual decline in African ancestry across hundreds of miles, rather than an abrupt shift.

A team of scientists have developed a way to more accurately both detect and monitor a common type of pediatric brain cancer, setting the stage for giving clinicians a real-time view into how the cancer responds to treatment.

Three decades after astronomer Carl Sagan suggested that Voyager 1 snap Earth's picture from billions of miles away - resulting in the iconic Pale Blue Dot photograph - two astronomers now offer another unique cosmic perspective: Some exoplanets - planets from beyond our own solar system - have a direct line of sight to observe Earth's biological qualities from far, far away.

The first analysis of a sedimentary drill core representing 1 million years of environmental history in the East African Rift Valley shows that at the same time early humans were abandoning old tools in favor of more sophisticated technology and broadening their trade, their landscape was experiencing frequent fluctuations in vegetation and water supply that made resources less reliably available....

People have different susceptibilities to SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic, and develop varying degrees of fever, fatigue, and breathing problems -- common symptoms of the illness. What might explain this variation? Scientists may have an answer to this mystery.

Scientists detail the structure of dumbbell-like sequences in DNA during interphase that suggest several unseen aspects of chromosome configuration and function.

Ancient embedded elements in our DNA from generations past can activate a powerful immune response to kill cancer cells like an infection.

Researcher makes 'little data' act big through, the application of mathematical techniques normally used for time-series, to spatial processes.

Researchers have demonstrated that a new liquid biopsy approach overcomes traditional barriers to quickly and efficiently diagnose and monitor high-grade pediatric gliomas.

According to the Mayo Clinic, about 15% of couples are infertile, and male infertility plays a role in over one-third of these cases. Often, problems with sperm development are to blame. Now, researchers have found a way to deliver a protein important for sperm cell production directly to mouse testicles, where it restored normal sperm development and allowed previously infertile mice to father...

Chameleons can famously change their colors to camouflage themselves, communicate and regulate their temperature. Scientists have tried to replicate these color-changing properties for stealth technologies, anti-counterfeiting measures and electronic displays, but the materials have limitations. Now, researchers have developed a flexible film that changes color in response to stretching, pressure...

Some people love spicy food -- the hotter, the better. Others go out of their way to avoid the palate-singeing burn of capsaicin, the compound that gives chili peppers their kick. Now, researchers have developed a portable device (whimsically shaped like a chili pepper) that can reveal how much capsaicin a pepper contains, before biting into it.

Americans strongly reduced their visits to grocery stores, pharmacies, and transit stations following stay-at-home orders from mayors and governors earlier this year, but did not reduce their visits to parks and beaches.

Climate change pushes species distribution areas northward. However, the expansion of species ranges is not self-evident due to e.g. habitat degradation and unsustainable harvesting caused by human activities. A new study suggests that protected areas can facilitate wintering waterbird adaptation to climate warming by advancing their range shifts towards north.

Certain species of snake -- think pit vipers, boa constrictors and pythons, among others -- are able to find and capture prey with uncanny accuracy, even in total darkness. Now scientists have discovered how these creatures are able to convert the heat from organisms that are warmer than their ambient surroundings into electrical signals, allowing them to 'see' in the dark.

Researchers have developed a new human motion capture system that consists of a single ultra-wide fisheye camera mounted on the user's chest. The simplicity of their system could be conducive to a wide range of applications in the sports, medical and entertainment fields.

Current understanding is that the chemical composition of the Earth's mantle is relatively homogeneous. But experiments now show that this view is too simplistic. Their results solve a key problem facing the geosciences - and raise some new questions.

A 'stack' of 2D materials could allow for supercurrents at ground-breakingly warm temperatures, easily achievable in the household kitchen. An international study opens a new route to high-temperature supercurrents -- at temperatures, as 'warm' as inside your kitchen fridge. (Previously, superconductivity has been difficult even at temperatures as low as -170°C, making superconductivity...

Researchers identified a novel mechanism by which mating affects the behavior of germline stem cells (GSCs). By studying Drosophila melanogaster, the researchers showed that the neurons that are activated during mating result in increased intracellular calcium signaling in cells adjacent to GSCs, which in turn resulted in the activation of the protein matrix metalloproteinase to increase GSCs....

Wood is considered an attractive construction material for both aesthetic and environmental purposes. Construction of useful wood objects requires complicated structures and ways to connect components together. Researchers created a novel 3D design application to hugely simplify the design process and also provide milling machine instructions to efficiently produce the designed components. The...

Scientists have developed a white paint that cools below the temperature of its ambient surroundings even under direct sunlight. Their research demonstrates a radiative cooling technology that could be used in commercial paints, that could be less expensive to manufacture, and that passively reflects 95.5% of sunlight that reaches its surface back into outer space.

A team of researchers has found that transcription factors have a tendency to bind strongly to 'mismatched' sections of DNA, i.e. sections of the genome that were not copied correctly. The strong binding of transcription factors to these mismatched sections of regulatory DNA might be a way in which random mutations become a problem that leads to disease, including cancer.