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The Lizard Poop Of Madagascar

Some 88 million years ago, Madagascar broke off from India.Isolated from all other landmasses,...

Chinese Researchers Are Rewiring Brains Using Interfaces

Human evolution and culture have been shaped by our increasing ability to communicate. A new review...

Soft Robot With Inflatable Actuators And Kirigami Skin Debuts

University of Southern Denmark recently demonstrated a soft robot capable of navigating complex...

Hurricanes: Water, Not Wind, Is Deadliest

When most people think of hurricanes, they imagine winds gusting over 100 miler per hour, but water...

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In British Iron Age Culture, Margaret Thatcher Was The Norm

In British Iron Age Culture, Margaret Thatcher Was The Norm

Jan 15 2025 | comment(s)

In British Iron Age society, land was inherited through the female line and husbands moved to live with the wife’s community. Strong women like Margaret Thatcher resulted.

That was inferred due to DNA sequenced from members of a single community, over 50 ancient genomes from a set of burial grounds in Dorset, that were in use before and after the Romans tried to do in AD 43 what they did to Israel a few decades later. They reconstructed a family tree with many different branches and found most members traced their maternal lineage back to a single woman from centuries before while relationships through the father’s line were almost absent.
Optimizing Nature: Biological Mechanism Could Lower Nitrogen Use

Optimizing Nature: Biological Mechanism Could Lower Nitrogen Use

Jan 15 2025 | comment(s)

Production of most major foods involve nitrate and phosphate fertilizers, but excessive fertilizer use is bad for the environment. 

That is why scientists came up with modern technologies that use less fertilizer and, on the other end, fewer pesticides. But some countries or processes like "organic" ban modern products, so their nitrogen runoff is excessive. Perhaps a new form of genetic engineering will be the first product to be allowed under their marketing guidelines since Mutagenesis.  
Climate Shifts May Bring New Apple Growing Areas

Climate Shifts May Bring New Apple Growing Areas

Jan 06 2025 | comment(s)

Climate has always shifted but concerns about faster changes brought on by the modern world have led the authors of a new paper to worry that current high-volume sources of apples could lose their apex status to other areas.

The paper in the pay-to-publish journal Environmental Research Letters analyzed over 40 years of climate conditions they correlate to the growth cycle, bud break to fruit, of apple trees. They sound the alarm that the largest apple-producing counties in the US (Yakima in Washington, Kent in Michigan and Wayne in New York) have already been impacted.
Knee Point Prediction And Battery Capacity Degradation

Knee Point Prediction And Battery Capacity Degradation

Dec 03 2024 | comment(s)

Electric cars and solar and wind energy alternative schemes have a few crippling limitations; low energy densities and unavailability when people need energy most. Batteries could help with that second one except current batteries are legacy technology that are held back by subsidies and mandates, not improved.
MicroRNA And The Microprocessor Inside You

MicroRNA And The Microprocessor Inside You

Dec 03 2024 | comment(s)

Since being discovered in 1993, microRNAs have gone on to win a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, thanks to private sector uptake with the COVID-19 vaccines that saved the world during the pandemic that emerged from Wuhan, China in early 2020. 

Errors in the manufacture of over 1,000 microRNAs can put us at risk for developmental disorders, cancer, or neurodegenerative disease and a new study looks at a molecular machine called Microprocessor (MP), which trims longer molecules called primary microRNAs (pri-miRNAs) - without cutting other kinds of RNA that resemble pri-miRNAs.
What Next For Messenger RNA (mRNA)? Maybe Inhalable Vaccines

What Next For Messenger RNA (mRNA)? Maybe Inhalable Vaccines

Nov 14 2024 | comment(s)

No one likes getting a needle but most want a vaccine. A new paper shows progress for messenger RNA (mRNA), that can be sprayed and inhaled thanks to improved lipid-polymer nanoparticle technology for holding mRNA that is stable when nebulized and successfully delivers aerosols, liquid droplets, in mouse lungs. 

A mouse study means this is only EXPLORATORY but the authors of the paper, including scientists from oRNA Therapeutics (RNA medicine) and Moderna (mRNA medicine), have filed for a patent while they get ready to see about human trials.