Sleep is essential for much of the animal kingdom. During the night, neuron and tissue repair mechanisms are activated to aid recovery from daily activity. This is risky: organisms that sleep are more vulnerable to predators. However, the…
Category: 5. Biology
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Corals sleep like us, but their symbionts never rest
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Pesticides significantly affect soil life and biodiversity, study finds
Seventy percent of soils in Europe are contaminated with pesticides. A Europe-wide study co-led by researchers of the University of Zurich now shows that their effects on soil life are substantial, as pesticides suppress various beneficial soil…
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Small-scale farmers produce more of the rich world's food than previously thought
Who grows our food? This seemingly simple question is getting harder to answer in a world where our food crosses borders to get to our plate.
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A lost world: Ancient cave reveals million-year-old wildlife
Australian and New Zealand scientists have unearthed the remains of ancient wildlife in a cave near Waitomo on Aotearoa’s North Island, the first time a large number of million-year-old fossils have been found—including an ancestor of the large…
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A protein thought to play a supporting role in DNA replication actually facilitates the whole process
Every time a cell divides, it must copy its entire genome so that each daughter cell inherits a complete set of DNA. During that process, enzymes known as polymerases race along the DNA to copy its code and build new strands. To prevent these…
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Unprecedented 3D views of sensory cells accelerate hearing research
The cochlea is the spiral-shaped structure within the inner ear responsible for our sense of hearing. To fully understand hearing functions and open the door to new hearing loss treatments, scientists require intricately detailed views of hair…
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Hearing angry or happy human voices is linked to changes in dogs' balance
In a small study, dogs experienced both stabilization and destabilization of their balance upon hearing angry or happy human voices, but angry voices were linked to the biggest destabilizing effects. Nadja Affenzeller and colleagues at the…
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Scientists Find Microplastics in Fish From Pristine Pacific Waters
Even the most remote Pacific reefs aren’t safe—microplastics are turning everyday fish into silent carriers of global pollution. An extensive new analysis reports that roughly one out of every three fish living in remote Pacific Island…
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Google unveils AI tool probing mysteries of human genome
Google unveiled an artificial intelligence tool Wednesday that its scientists said would help unravel the mysteries of the human genome—and could one day lead to new treatments for diseases.
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Rare fossils reveal 91 new species that survived ancient mass extinction
Almost a hundred new animal species that survived a mass extinction event half a billion years ago have been discovered in a small quarry in China, scientists revealed Wednesday.
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