264 articles from MONDAY 12.4.2021

Landsat Shows the Collapse of Northern California Kelp Forests

Landsat imagery shows that the area covered by kelp forests off the coast of Northern California has dropped by more than 95 percent, with just a few small, isolated patches of bull kelp remaining. Species-rich kelp forests have been replaced by “urchin barrens,” where purple sea urchins cover a seafloor devoid of kelp and other algae. News Article Type: Homepage...

For tomato genes, one plus one doesn't always make two

Millions of small genetic variations make it hard to predict how a particular targeted mutation will affect desirable crop traits. Scientists have now deciphered the relationships between dozens of mutations in tomatoes, a major advance towards more efficient genome-editing in crops.

Technique allows mapping of epigenetic information in single cells at scale

Histones are tiny proteins that bind to DNA and hold information that can help turn on or off individual genes. Researchers have developed a technique that makes it possible to examine how different versions of histones bind to the genome in tens of thousands of individual cells simultaneously. The technique was applied to the mouse brain and can be used to study epigenetics at a single-cell level...

Biologists investigate effects of bisphenols on nerve cells

Bisphenols contained in many everyday objects can impair important brain functions in humans, biologists warn. Their study shows that even small amounts of the plasticizers bisphenol A and bisphenol S disrupt the transmission of signals between nerve cells in the brains of fish. The researchers consider it very likely that similar interference can also occur in the brains of adult humans.

Lighting the way to folding next-level origami

Synthetic biologists along with structural biologists have explored ways to fold artificial proteins into diverse shapes like origamis. They constructed diamond-shaped protein cages, and managed to transform them to different shapes. Similar technology exists for DNA, but origami proteins could have more applications, e.g. in making new materials, delivering drugs and vaccines, and more.

The indestructible light beam

For any disordered medium (such as a sugar cube, for example), special light waves can be found which are practically not changed by the medium, only attenuated. These 'scattering invariant light modes' could play a major role in new imaging technologies.

Keeping livestock: Can we end the cage age?

Between 2018 and 2020, 1,4 million EU citizens signed the petition 'End the Cage Age', with the aim of ending cage housing for farm animals in Europe. In response to this citizens initiative, the European Parliament requested a study on the possibilities to end cage housing.

Why some of us are hungry all the time

New research shows that people who experience big dips in blood sugar levels, several hours after eating, end up feeling hungrier and consuming hundreds more calories during the day than others.

Greenhouse gas emissions from Chinese inland waters

As a primary greenhouse gas that drives global climate change, carbon dioxide emissions from inland waters play a key role in assessing the global carbon cycle. Researchers have now quantified CO2 emissions from streams, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs in China over the last three decades and compared two time periods: 1980s and 2010s, during which China experienced unprecedented environmental and...

Ignore the pessimism: Covid vaccines are quietly prevailing | Stephen Buranyi

Nightmare scenarios involving deadly new variants are making us all too gloomy – but there’s a scientific case for optimismIt can be quite easy, reading the press, to believe that the pandemic will never end. Even when good news about vaccines started to arrive in the autumn, this grim narrative managed to harden. In the past month, you could read “five reasons that herd immunity is probably...

Differences of cloud top height between satellites and ground-based radar revealed

Clouds play a key role in balancing incoming and outgoing solar and thermal radiation. This is a critical process in the earth-atmosphere system. Monitoring cloud height, particle size, particle concentration, etc. are integral to understanding climate dynamics and global climate change. These physical attributes determine the radiative forcing effect of a cloud, or how much incoming radiation...

Gene sequencing bacteria in natural environment sheds new light on antimicrobial resistance

A team of researchers from multiple institutions in the U.K. and the U.S. has learned more about the development of antimicrobial resistance by studying hundreds of samples of bacteria in their natural environments. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes how they conducted genome sequencing on hundreds of bacterial samples collected from a wide variety of...

Why We Should Be Spending More on Space Travel

Let’s stipulate one thing: there’s absolutely no reason for us to go to space. It does nothing to feed us, to clothe us, to protect us, to heal us. It’s dangerous and hideously expensive too, a budget-busting luxury that policy makers and administrators have spent decades trying to defend—always unsuccessfully because the fact is, there’s no practical defense for...

Study evaluates emissions from Chinese inland waters over the past 30 years

Inland waters are an important component of the global carbon cycle and function as active reactors, transporting and transforming large quantities of naturally- and anthropogenically-derived carbon. Previous studies suggest that inland waters are major sources for greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, yet these emissions are poorly constrained.