feed info

48 articles from ScienceDaily

Molecules boosting plant immunity identified

Researchers have discovered natural cellular molecules that drive critical plant immune responses. These compounds have all the hallmarks of being small messengers tailored by plants to turn on key defense-control hubs. Harnessing these insights may allow scientists and plant breeders to design molecules that make plants, including many important crop species, more resistant to disease.

Citizen scientist leads discovery of 34 ultracool dwarf binaries

How often do stars live alone? For brown dwarfs -- objects that straddle the boundary between the most massive planets and the smallest stars -- astronomers need to uncover more examples of their companions to find out. Ace citizen scientists have done just that by using the Astro Data Lab science platform at NSF's NOIRLab to discover 34 new ultracool dwarf binary systems in the Sun's...

New insights about surface, structure of asteroid Bennu

When NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected samples from asteroid Bennu's surface in 2020, forces measured during the interaction provided scientists with a direct test of the poorly understood near-subsurface physical properties of rubble-pile asteroids. Now, a new study has characterized the layer just below the asteroid's surface as composed of weakly bound rock fragments containing twice the...

Gestures can improve understanding in language disorders

When words fail, gestures can help to get the message across -- especially for people who have a language disorder. An international research team has now shown that listeners attend the gestures of people with aphasia more often and for much longer than previously thought. This has implications for the use of gestures in speech therapy.

Parkinson's disease: Copper leads to protein aggregation, study finds

Copper exposure in the environment and the protein alpha-synuclein in the human brain could play an important role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease. Researchers were able to show how the protein takes on an unusual shape when exposed to large amounts of copper ions. The findings could help develop new strategies for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

Electric vehicle buyers want rebates, not tax credits

Financial incentives play an important role in the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. New research, however, finds that not all financial incentives are created equal in the eyes of prospective car buyers, and the current federal incentive -- a tax credit -- is, in fact, valued the least by car buyers.

Scientists use mini-kidney models to identify potential drugs for polycystic kidney disease

Scientists hsve generated simple kidney-like structures called organoids and used them to identify potential drugs to treat adult-onset polycystic kidney disease. To accelerate the quest for new treatments for ADPKD, researchers used pluripotent stem cells to grow organoids consisting of one or two structures resembling the kidney's filtering units, known as nephrons. To make the organoids useful...

150 southern fin whales observed feeding together

After blue whales, fin whales are the largest whales in the world -- and human beings have hunted both species to near-extinction. After the ban on commercial whaling in 1976, the stocks of these long-lived, but slow-growing creatures are rebounding: researchers have witnessed large groups of up to 150 southern fin whales in their historical feeding areas -- more than has ever been documented...

The beginning of life: The early embryo is in the driver's seat

One often thinks that the early embryo is fragile and needs support. However, at the earliest stages of development, it has the power to feed the future placenta and instructs the uterus so that it can nest. Using 'blastoids', in vitro embryo models formed with stem cells, scientists have shown that the earliest molecular signals that induce placental development and prepare the uterus come from...