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New research from the University of Cincinnati is showing early indications that light could be used as a treatment for certain ailments, including cancer. Researchers from UC, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and University at Buffalo published the results of their study showing light-activated proteins can help normalize dysfunction in cells in the journal. Nature Communication July 25. Research findings Research centers on the function of mitochondria, the organelles in cells that act as the cell’s “power generator” and source of energy. Organelles are small specialized structures that perform various jobs in the cell. Jiajie Diao, PhD, one of the study’s authors, says hundreds of mitochondria are constantly coming together (a process called fusion) and dividing into smaller pieces (a process called fission) to keep them in balance in healthy cells. But when mitochondria don’t function properly, an imbalance of these fission and fusion processes occurs. This imbalance can

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Phytoplasmas are bacteria that can attack plant vascular tissues, causing various plant diseases. While most phytoplasma research begins by examining plants that show symptoms of disease, the new analysis focuses on tiny insects that carry infectious bacteria from plant to plant. By extracting and testing DNA from archives of planthopper specimens collected in natural areas, this study identified new phytoplasma strains and discovered new associations between planthoppers and phytoplasmas that are known to harm plants. Reported in the journal Biology, the study is the first to look for phytoplasma in insects from a natural area, said Illinois Natural History Survey postdoctoral researcher Valeria Trivellone, who led the study with INHS State Entomologist Christopher Dietrich. It is also the first to use multiple molecular approaches to detect and identify phytoplasma in planthoppers. The research team included Illinois Natural History postdoctoral researchers Yang

Pollination is a hallmark of flowering plants, with animal pollinators such as bees and birds sustaining the world’s food supply – not to mention our cravings for coffee, honey and macadamia nuts. But new research raises the possibility that animal-assisted pollination may have appeared in the ocean long before plants moved ashore. The study, carried out by a research group based in France and Chile, is the first to document a species of seaweed that relies on tiny marine crustaceans speckled in pollen-like spores to reproduce. Since red algae Gracilaria gracilis evolved long before land plants appeared, the researchers say their research suggests animal-assisted pollination could have occurred about 650 million years ago in the oceans once a suitable pollinator appeared. On land in flowering plants and gymnosperms that have seeds, the male reproductive cells, or gametes, fly in the form of pollen grains, which are carried by the wind, through the water, or by surprise insects, to hop

A team led by biologists at The University of Texas at Arlington has published a study that supports the theory that species that reproduce asexually have more harmful genetic mutations than those that use sexual reproduction. Jose Maldonado, a UTA doctoral student in biology, is the lead author of the new paper, entitled “Parthenogenesis doubles the level of amino acid substitution in whiptail mitochondria.” It was published in May in Evolution, the flagship journal of evolutionary biology. Co-authors include TJ Firneno, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Denver who received his Ph.D. from UTA in 2020; Alexander Hall, product application specialist at Thermo Fisher Scientific who received his Ph.D. from UTA in 2016; and Matt Fujita, UTA professor of biology, who is Maldonado’s faculty advisor and previously served in the same role for Firneno and Hall. Parthenogenesis is a natural form of asexual reproduction in which the growth and development of an embryo occur

Mammals can generate their own body heat and control their body temperature. This process is known as endothermic or warm-blooded. Scientists believe that may be the reason why mammals tend to dominate almost everything ecosystem . Warm-blooded mammals are more active than cold-blooded animals. They can live in different environments, from frozen poles to boiling deserts. And they breed faster. Soft tissue that will provide information about being warm or cold blooded is rare preserved in fossil . So paleontologists, or experts in the study of fossils, don’t know exactly when mammals evolved and turned into warm-blooded creatures. A group of scientists tried to answer that question in a study recently published in Natural . Ricardo Araújo is a paleontologist at the University of Lisbon. Araújo and a group of researchers proposed that the shape and size of inner ear structures called canals could be used to study body temperature. The movement of fluid through the ear canal helps

What do building a pyramid, going to the moon, pedaling a two-person canoe, or dancing the waltz have in common? All of these actions are the result of a common goal between many partners and lead to a sense of shared obligation, known as “mutual commitment”. This ability to cooperate is universal in humans and certain animal species, such as the great apes. However, humans seem to have a unique predisposition and strong desire for social interaction that may be one component of the emergence of language, according to the study authors. How do our social interactions differ from other species? And why? To answer this question, an international team analyzed the interactions of 31 children between the ages of 2 and 4 in four preschools in the United States (10 hours per child). There are only a few quantitative analyzes of the spontaneous social interactions of children aged 2 and 4 years when interacting with peers, even though this age is a critical age for the development of chi

Credit: Curtin University A new study from Curtin University has found that water was transported much deeper in the early Earth than previously thought, explaining how the continents originally formed. Studies published in Earth and Planetary Science Letter answers a long-standing question about Earth’s early water cycle. Principal investigator Dr. Michael Hartnady, of the Curtin School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, says how water is stored and transported through the Earth’s crust affects everything from where volcanoes and mineral deposits form to where earthquakes occur. “Although we understand the modern deep water cycle, we know very little about how it worked when Earth was a very young planet,” said Dr. Hartnady. “Some geological evidence suggests that water was transported to great depths on Earth all the way back to 3.5 billion years ago, although it is not well understood how exactly it got there.” The researchers used ad

Planetary scientists from Rice University, NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the California Institute of Technology have answers to a mystery that has baffled the Mars research community since NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered a mineral called tridymite in Gale Crater in 2016. NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took this low-angle self-portrait at the location where it drilled rock on July 30, 2015, producing a powder (seen in the foreground) that was later confirmed to contain the rare mineral tridymite. (Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS) Tridymite is a very rare form of high-temperature, low-pressure quartz on Earth, and it’s not immediately clear how the concentrated chunks ended up in craters. Gale Crater was chosen as Curiosity’s landing site because of the possibility that it once harbored liquid water, and Curiosity found evidence confirming Gale Crater was a lake as recently as 1 billion years ago. “The discovery of tridymite in mudstone at Gale Crater is one of the most surpri

Have you heard of the LU Camelopardalis, QZ Serpentis, V1007 Herculis, and BK Lyncis? No, they weren’t in the boy band in ancient Rome. They are Cataclysmic Variables, binary stars so close together that one star takes matter from its sibling. This causes the pairs to vary greatly in brightness. Could a planet exist in this chaotic environment? Can we see them? A new study says yes to both. Cataclysmic Variables (CVs) experienced a large increase in brightness. All stars vary in brightness to some degree, even our own sun. But the CV increase in brightness is much more pronounced than in stars like our Sun, and it happens on an irregular basis There are different types of catastrophic variables: classic nova, dwarf nova, multiple supernova, and others. All types share the same basic mechanics. A pair of stars orbit each other closely, and one star is larger than the other. The more massive ones are called primary stars, and draw gas from lower-mass stars, which astronomers ca

Scientists have discovered a great paradox in nature – clean air drives global warming, while pollution keeps our planet cool. An international team of researchers determined that current pollution levels are 30 percent lower than in 2000, but global warming from carbon dioxide emissions has increased by up to 50 percent. Polluting particles, such as sulfates or nitrates, are known for their reflective properties and are commonly found in exhaust. The team, in a desperate move, proposes to use aerosols again, but uses a controversial type of geoengineering to do so. This method, called solar engineering, requires the release of sulfate particles into the stratosphere which in turn will cause reflective haze to appear around the world, reports Science.org. The study, led by the University of Leipzig, provides good news for human health – these particles are linked to millions of deaths each year – but is bleak for the future of humanity. Scroll down for the video While pollution has

Unsplash/Darren Halstead The research group is now collaborating with Toyota Motor Corp. to develop fuel cell catalysts with possible real-world applications. (Photo: Toyota’s hydrogen fuel cell concept vehicle, 2019.) Main takeaways: High cost of catalyst. Platinum is the best catalyst for hydrogen fuel cells, but its scarcity makes it expensive. Find alternatives. The new method quickly identifies which alloy — a less expensive combination of platinum and another metal — is likely to achieve the best results in fuel cells. Cut costs. High-performance alloy catalysts could eventually make hydrogen fuel cell vehicles more affordable. A study led by UCLA researchers could help accelerate the use of hydrogen as an environmentally friendly energy source in transportation and other applications. The team developed a method to predict the potency and stability of platinum alloys – two key indicators of how they will perform as catalysts in hydrogen fuel cells. Then, using that techniq

Credit: Public Domain CC0 Almost all marine life—fish, turtles, sharks, whales, and more—depends on marine food webs for survival. However, the foundation of this enormous flow of energy lies on the shoulders of the microscopic but mighty phytoplankton. Without essential nutrients such as phosphorus, the growth of these tiny floating marine plants is limited, and the effects of such restrictions flow through the ecosystem, impacting the abundance and diversity of marine creatures. A team of Florida State University and New Hampshire University researchers have published a new study looking at how one important source of the nutrient, dissolved organic phosphorus, is distributed across the global ocean surface where it is consumed by phytoplankton. The work was published today in Natural Geoscience . All living organisms, including phytoplankton, need phosphorus to synthesize DNA, RNA and other important organic compounds. In addition

From a young age, astrophysicist Robin Cook had a deep desire to understand the world around him. “It’s never nice enough to take things at face value … I’ve always wanted to understand how things work,” he said. It was this natural curiosity that led him to pursue a career researching space and the unknown. “It’s not too surprising that I naturally went into astronomy,” he said. “There are so many unanswered questions in astronomy, we actually have pretty limited knowledge of what’s really out there. “And for me, it’s very interesting.” Seeing the galaxy’s ‘beautiful spiral’ Dr Cook is a research associate at the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), which is run by Curtin University and the University of Western Australia. Founded in 2009, the research center conducts data-intensive astronomy, engineering and science. Dr Cook studies the structure of galaxies. ( Provided: Robin Cook ) Dr Cook’s area of ​​research at ICRAR is on the evolution of galaxies, more sp

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket rises from the Florida launch pad. (SpaceX via YouTube) An experiment on its way to the International Space Station focuses on a subject as mundane as soil, but could be key to growing crops in space. The NASA-funded experiment — known as Dynamics of Microbiomes in Space, or DynaMoS — is being conducted by researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. DynaMoS utilizes soil and bacteria collected at the Washington State University field site in Prosser, Wash. “Soil microbes are hidden players of life support systems on planet Earth,” PNNL chief scientist Janet Jansson, principal investigator for the DynaMoS experiment, explained during a pre-launch press conference. Bacteria work to break down organic matter and provide nutrients for growing plants. Space missions could expand the reach of microbes beyond our home planet. “Soil microbes can help make conditions on the lunar and Martian surfaces more favorable for plant growth,” Jansson said. “The

Scientists have debunked the popular theory of how a woodpecker can repeatedly beat its beak against a tree at high speed without damaging its own brain. The researchers analyzed high-speed video of three woodpecker species — the stacked woodpecker, the black woodpecker, and the great spotted woodpecker. They found their skulls did not act like shock-absorbing helmets as previously thought, but more like rigid metal hammers. In fact, their calculations showed that any shock absorbers would hinder the woodpecker’s pecking ability. Woodpeckers quickly drill into trees to extract insects deep in the wood with their long tongues. An international team of researchers has analyzed high-speed video of three woodpecker species. Here is a sequence of frames from a high-speed video of a woodpecker pecking (Dryocopus pileatus) Photo of a black woodpecker (Dryocopus martius) filmed in a study in Alpenzoo Innbruck, Austria HAMMER OR HELMET? Scientists have long wondered how woodpecker