Month: July 2020

The CBETA accelerator at Cornell University, New York, is designed to recoup the energy it pours into making high-energy electron beams. Credit: Cornell University Particle physics 31 July 2020 Most linear accelerators are energy hogs, but a new model recovers waste energy that can be ploughed back into the system. Linear accelerators excel at speeding

Raísa Vieira (right) is concerned about diversity losses among early-career researchers in Brazil.Credit: Raísa Vieira Years of slow improvement in diversity and inclusion in science could come undone because of the COVID-19 crisis. In a June letter to Nature Ecology and Evolution1, 19 researchers from around the world warned that job losses during the pandemic

Deep-sea angler fish have a bizarre reproductive strategy, compared to other animals. This reproductive strategy costs them their acquired immune functions, yet they are thriving, giving new hope to human patients who have inborn or acquired immune disorders.  The males, guided by pheromone and lights from the female’s bioluminescent lure, find their mates. Once they have

A new porous material takes a leaf out of the book of Tillandsia plants (above), which pull water from the air rather than the soil. Credit: Scott Varley/MediaNews Group/Getty Materials science 30 July 2020 A curious gel can soak up water vapour from the air and swell to enormous size without bursting. Inspired by ‘air

If you’ve driven through an area where companies extract oil and gas from shale formations, you’ve probably seen flames dancing at the tops of vertical pipes. That’s flaring – the mostly uncontrolled practice of burning off a byproduct of oil and gas production. Over the past 10 years, the U.S. shale oil and gas boom

Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here NASA’s Perseverance rover takes off for Mars aboard an Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.Credit: Joel Kowsky/NASA The biggest, most complex rover ever sent to Mars is now on its

Particles of a coronavirus, seen under a transmission electron microscope.Credit: AMI Images/Science Photo Library Virologists are debating whether to establish a system for naming virus species later this year. Some researchers say that the current way viruses are named is disorganized and that there is an urgent need for a standardized system. But others say

The eel is very mysterious, and among its strange but fascinating attributes is how it engages in sex only during its last year of life, and only in a single place: the Sargasso Sea. For centuries, nobody could determine how they reproduced or where. No one knew if there were male and female sexes. Only

Generation of DNase I hypersensitivity maps DNase I assays were generally performed according to a protocol detailed previously42. This protocol involves treatment of intact nuclei with the small enzyme DNase I which is able to penetrate the nuclear pore and cleave exposed DNA. Small (<1 kb) fragments are isolated from lysed nuclei following DNase I

Zebrafish are one of the most well studied animals on the planet. But how they came by their beautiful black and gold stripes is more of a mystery. Our new research used mathematical modelling – and detailed observations of mutant zebrafish patterns – to get to the bottom of one of nature’s oldest secrets. Estimates suggest

Cell lines Cell lines were purchased from ATCC and were not formally authenticated, but confirmation of expected gene expression patterns were performed for RNA-seq and eCLIP experiments. Cell lines were routinely tested for mycoplasma contamination (MycoAlert, Lonza). RNA-binding protein annotations and domains RBPs were chosen from a previously described list of 1,072 known RBPs, proteins

Ella Balasa inhales a phage treatment at Winchester Chest Clinic in New Haven, Connecticut.Credit: Richard Drew/Associated Press/Shutterstock After more than a decade of drug-resistant infections, Ella Balasa’s options were running out. The bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa — common in people with cystic fibrosis — had taken up long-term residence in Balasa’s lungs, eating away at the

 Two recent studies looked into how the ovarian function in mice responded to various levels of glyphosate exposure. Glyphosate is a chemical commonly used to control weeds. Previous studies also indicate the effect of the chemical in mice and its presence on the food and environment. The study revealed that the mice exposed to high levels of

Researchers are questioning why Donald Trump chose to remove COVID-19 data management from the CDC and transfer it to the federal government.Credit: Tom Brenner/Reuters As deaths from COVID-19 approach 150,000 in the United States and cases continue to rise alarmingly in many regions of the country, there are strong signs that the government is suppressing

A group of experts ranging from biologists, medical scientists, environmental scientists, and conservationists offered several recommendations to avert another pandemic. Since many of these pandemics originate from wild animals such as bats, the team suggests that billions of dollars should be spent to focus on the reduction of deforestation, restricting wildlife trade, and supporting communities

Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here The system can recognize individual birds within wild populations of great tits.André Ferreira Researchers have trained an artificial-intelligence (AI) system to recognize individual small birds that appear identical. The tool could make ecological fieldwork easier, because