In the 1980s, scientists captured the precise mechanics of a protein machine. It looked strange, to researchers its tall thin structure with stubby legs invoked the enchanted broomstick that stole the show in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment of Disney's 1940 Fantasia film.
All complex life, including plants, animals and fungi, consists if of eukaryotic cells, cells with a nucleus, transport mechanisms and often organelles like mitochondria that perform the functions an organism needs to stay alive and healthy. Humans have 220 different kinds of eukaryotic cells which control everything from thinking and locomotion to reproduction and immune defense.
Because of that commonality, the evolution of the eukaryotic cell is considered one of the most critical events in the history of life on Earth. Without it, earth populated entirely by prokaryotes, single-celled organisms such as bacteria and archaea, with no chance at all of filming "Guardians of the Galaxy" or celebrating Christmas.
A new analysis to be presented next week at the American Geophysical Union's Fall Meeting in San Francisco says that extreme climate and weather events such as record high temperatures, intense downpours and severe storm surges are more common in many parts of the world.
It's hard to be sure. High quality weather records only go back about 30 years and even suspect quality records only go back 100, so there is inference between modern record-keeping and the data trapped in tree rings and ice cores from ancient times.
A study of 1,500 Americans found that media reports about behavioral genetics create unfounded beliefs about what genes can and cannot do, which defeats the purpose of scientific reporting, according to a new analysis. American adults lead the world in science literacy so results may be even more profound in other countries, where political interests control more of scientific policy.
Diseases of dysfunctional mitochondria, also known as mitochondrial diseases, have a prevalence of up to 1 in 2,000 people and predominantly affect children, though adult-onset disorders are also recognized. An international collaboration has discovered that mutations in the GTPBP3 gene cause defects in protein synthesis in mitochondria and are associated with a devastating disease. Mitochondria are compartments present in every cell of the body except red blood cells and are responsible for generating almost all of the energy needed by the body to sustain life and to grow. In mitochondria, energy is produced by a large number of proteins, which are manufactured according to a blueprint, the cell’s DNA.
In all of the money and outreach trying to convince more Americans to become scientists, what is most often left out is we train lots of scientists that we then force to return home, where they become competitors to America.
The origin of the student visa versus work visa problem we now face was a cultural mythology that was created, stating that companies would somehow pay foreign STEM graduates less, in defiance of state laws, federal laws, and ethics, unless they were forced to hire U.S. citizens. Because of that, union lobbyists got the American work visa process tightened up, in the belief that it would force American companies to hire people born in the US. Instead, businesses followed the work force back to Asia.
Researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Barcelona have used data from astronomical surveys to measure a standard distance that is central to our understanding of the expansion of the universe, a much more accurate method than calculations related to general relativity.
The new study is the first to measure it using observed data. A standard ruler is an object which consistently has the same physical size so that a comparison of its actual size to its size in the sky will provide a measurement of its distance to earth. Previously the size of this standard ruler has only been predicted from hypothetical models that rely on general relativity to explain gravity at large scales.
A new study by political science scholars has found one reason why women are less likely to run for political office - they will volunteer to lead but don't like competing to do so.
Prior claims have been that more women lack the confidence to seek and hold office so University of Pittsburgh associate Professors of Political Science Kristin Kanthak and Jonathan Woon enlisted 350 undergraduate college students to participate in laboratory experiments which Kanthak said appeared to show women are more "election averse" than men.
Why did the earliest farmers in the Fertile Crescent, an arc of land in western Asia from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf, domesticate some cereal crops 10,000 years ago and not others?
A longitudinal study has found that while higher income children eat worse at school, low-income kids eat healthier than at home. While the political controversy rages over federal efforts to manage local school lunch programs, more data on who has actually been helped by the program over time is needed.
The results in Preventive Medicine showed that fruit and vegetable intake was higher among low income adolescents on days when they consumed meals at school. The opposite was true for high income adolescents who consumed fewer fruits and vegetables when school was in session, compared to summer months. While in school, all students consumed fruits and vegetables with similar frequency regardless of income level.
Some people just age better than others and it is isn't due to lifestyle. Most centenarians smoked cigarettes at one point, many were obese and almost all eat red meat.
Perhaps birds can tell us what really matters.
For mammals, the outer ears of mammals play an important function in helping identify sounds coming from different elevations.
Since birds have no external ears, how do they accomplish the same thing? They utilize their entire head, according to a new paper in PLOS ONE
"Because birds have no external ears, it has long been believed that they are unable to differentiate between sounds coming from different elevations," explains Hans A. Schnyder, Technische Universitaet Muenchen
Chair of Zoology. "But a female blackbird should be able to locate her chosen mate even if the source of the serenade is above her."
A species of small fish uses a homemade coral-scented cologne to hide from predators - the first evidence of chemical camouflage from diet in fish.
Filefish evade predators by feeding on their home corals and then emitting a similar odor that makes them invisible to the noses of predators. Chemical camouflage from diet has been previously shown in insects, such as caterpillars, which mask themselves by building their exoskeletons with chemicals from their food.
If animals don't need an exoskeleton to use chemical camouflage, more animals than previously thought could be using this survival tactic.
