Latest science news in Biology & Nature
62-year-old python lays eggs 15 years after last encounter with a male
Officials at the St. Louis Zoo are attempting to solve a motherhood mystery after a 62-year-old ball python laid eggs despite not having contact with a male python for over...
Trout don't follow the weather forecast
An endangered fish in California might use its internal clock to decide when to migrate, according to a study by the University of Cincinnati.
Physical deformities linked to inbreeding discovered among cougars in the Santa Monica Mountains
The discovery was heartbreaking for biologists, who consider the mountain lions of Southern California to be among the most threatened mammals in North America: a young male with the distortions...
Are male genes from Mars, female genes from Venus? Review highlights sex differences in health and disease
Males and females share the vast majority of their genomes. Only a sprinkling of genes, located on the so-called X and Y sex chromosomes, differ between the sexes. Nevertheless, the...
Computational modelling explains why blues and greens are brightest colous in nature
Researchers have shown why intense, pure red colors in nature are mainly produced by pigments, instead of the structural color that produces bright blue and green hues.
How plants ensure regular seed spacing
An international team of researchers led by biologists from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has examined how seed formation is coordinated with fruit growth. In the latest edition of the...
Massive-scale genomic study reveals wheat diversity for crop improvement
Researchers working on the Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) initiative, which aims to facilitate the effective use of genetic diversity of maize and wheat, have genetically characterized 79,191 samples of wheat...
Galapagos guides to 'barcode' wildlife
Galapagos tourist guides are being retrained to catalog the islands' famous biodiversity.
Ammonium triggers formation of lateral roots
Despite the importance of changes in root architecture to exploit local nutrient patches, mechanisms integrating external nutrient signals into the root developmental program remain poorly understood. "Here, we show for...
Taste buds may play role in fostering obesity in offspring
Food scientists show in animal studies that a mother's high-fat diet may lead to more sweet-taste receptors and a greater attraction to unhealthy food in their offspring - resulting in...
Zazie Beetz, Regina King, LaKeith Stanfield join Netflix's 'The Harder They Fall'
Zazie Beetz, Regina King and LaKeith Stanfield will star with Jonathan Majors and Idris Elba in the new Western film "The Harder They Fall."
More than 90% of the world's protected areas are disconnected
According to a new study, more than 90% of Earth's protected areas are disconnected -- surrounded by human pressures.
Tigers, Cardinals split doubleheader in St. Louis
The St. Louis Cardinals routed the Detroit Tigers 12-2 in the first game of a doubleheader, but the Tigers got revenge behind pitcher Jordan Zimmermann with a 6-3 win in...
Primates are facing an impending extinction crisis—but we know very little about what will actually protect them
From lemurs to orangutans, tarsiers to gorillas, primates are captivating and sometimes unnervingly similar to us. So it's not surprising that this group of more than 500 species receives a...
Scientists identify an enzyme that facilitates grafting between plants of different families
Scientists have found that the tobacco plant Nicotiana can maintain grafts between a broad range of species. Using Nicotiana as an intermediary, they succeeded in indirectly grafting a tomato scion...
Study finds how body cells move within a tissue
A new mathematical model may explain how body cells get their shapes and what makes them move within a tissue. The model provides fundamental knowledge for applications in tissue engineering,...
First assessment of naturalized, invasive and potentially invasive plan
CABI scientists have led the first assessment of naturalized, invasive and potentially invasive plant species present in Laikipia County, Kenya, which hosts the highest populations of endangered large mammals in...
How cGAS enzyme is kept bottled up
In higher organisms, detection of DNA in the cytoplasm triggers an immune reaction. The enzyme that senses "misplaced" DNA is also found in the nucleus, but nuclear DNA has no...
Artificial reefs take on a towering presence as havens for marine predators
Acting like high-rise timeshares in the sea, shipwrecks and other artificial reefs can support dense populations of sharks, mackerels, barracudas, jacks and other large migratory marine predators essential to ocean...
She's trying to fill the void in Salvadoran cookbooks. Will book publishers listen?
On a mission to document Salvadoran recipes, Karla Vasquez of SalviSoul has run into a major stumbling block: the U.S. cookbook publishing industry.
China, India agree to defuse tensions, more dialogue over Himalayan border
Leaders in China and India have reached a five-point agreement in the ongoing Himalayan border dispute that calls for troops to disengage in the contested area.
Climate change recasts the insect communities of the Arctic
Through a unique collaboration, researchers at the University of Helsinki have exposed major changes taking place in the insect communities of the Arctic. Their study reveals how climate change is...
Scientists study color change from green to red in the fluorescent protein
Scientists from the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech), the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry (IBCh RAS) and Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU) undertook a detailed study on green-to-red photoconversion...
Conservation officers safely capture fruit-loving grizzly in Squamish, B.C., neighbourhood
A grizzly bear that was hanging out in a Squamish neighbourhood this week has been captured and will be released away from human homes.
New genetic analysis method could advance personal genomics
Geneticists could identify the causes of disorders that currently go undiagnosed if standard practices for collecting individual genetic information were expanded to capture more variants that researchers can now decipher,...
GTEx Consortium releases fresh insights into how DNA differences govern gene expression
Scientists have completed a wide-ranging set of studies documenting how small changes in DNA sequence can impact gene expression across more than four dozen tissues in the human body. These...
California death toll tops 14,000, but new coronavirus cases continue to decline
COVID-19 deaths in California now top 14,000, but the state continues to see a decline in new cases
Safeguarding of key DNA sensor in innate immune system
New research reveals in detail how the nucleosomes inside our cells block cGAS from unintentionally triggering the body's innate immune response to our own DNA.