Bhupendra Singh ChundawatSalk Institute and Purdue University scientists have discovered the switch in plants that turns off production of terpenoids — carbon-rich compounds that play roles in plant physiology and are used by humans in everything from fragrances and flavorings to biofuels and pharmaceuticals. Plant terpenoids are found in nutritional supplements, natural insecticides, and drugs used to … Read more
Young female orphan elephants have a tougher social life than non-orphans, a new study suggests, adding to a growing body of evidence of how the impacts of poaching cascade through elephant societies. The research, part of a wider study by Save The Elephants and Colorado State University into the social impact of adult mortality on … Read more
MIT researchers have taken a step toward solving a longstanding challenge with wireless communication: direct data transmission between underwater and airborne devices. Today, underwater sensors cannot share data with those on land, as both use different wireless signals that only work in their respective mediums. Radio signals that travel through air die very rapidly in … Read more
Discovered more than half a century ago in Kenya and sitting in museum storage ever since, the roughly 20-million-year-old fossil Propotto leakeyi was long classified as a fruit bat. Now, it’s helping researchers rethink the early evolution of lemurs, distant primate cousins of humans that today are only found on the island of Madagascar, some … Read more
The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has released new recommendations on screening for cervical cancer. These latest recommendations continue the trend of decreasing participant burden by lengthening screening intervals, making the “annual Pap” a historical artifact. Since its introduction 75 years ago, exfoliative cytology commonly known as the Pap test has been the … Read more
More than an eon ago, the sun shone dimmer than it does today, but the Earth stayed warm due to a strong greenhouse gas effect, geoscience theory holds. Astronomer Carl Sagan coined this “the Faint Young Sun Paradox,” and for decades, researchers have searched for the right balance of atmospheric gases that could have kept … Read more
Researchers have found that seawater can replace freshwater to produce the sustainable fuel Bioethanol, reducing the need to drain precious resources. The study — ‘The establishment of a marine focused biorefinery for bioethanol production using seawater and a novel marine yeast strain’ — has been published in Scientific Reports and was carried out by researchers … Read more
