In news that will surely fan the flames of the heated debate over genetically modified crops, scientists have found evidence that genes from GM plants can spread far and wide to native ones. According to a report published today in the journal Nature, wild corn from the remote mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico contains transgenic DNA. This, the researchers note, bolsters concerns that such unintentional contamination can threaten the genetic diversity of natural crops.
DNA analyses of the Oaxaca
It’s official: English football teams score fewer goals.
Soccer teams worldwide are scoring more goals than they ought to be, whereas English teams seem to follow statistical expectations. The news may delight fans outside England, but it is puzzling the physicists who have found that the chance of a high-scoring game is significantly greater than it may first appear 1 .
John Greenhough and colleagues at Warwick University in Coventry, England, analysed the s
Hubble spots atmosphere on planet 150 light years away.
Astronomers have glimpsed the atmosphere of a planet in a solar system other than our own for the first time. The feat is a first step towards detecting planets capable of supporting life elsewhere in the Universe.
David Charbonneau, of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and colleagues, pointed the Hubble space telescope at the planet, which lies 150 light years away in the constellation Pegasus. Of the 7
Rewiring the egg: mechanism remains murky.
From a scientific viewpoint, the cloning of human embryos may be more of a step than a leap, say sceptics. If the signals that turn adult cells into embryonic ones can be found, the creation of cloned embryos for tissue repair may become redundant.
Researchers at Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) in Worcester, Massachusetts, now report that they have created cloned human embryos. They aimed to make blastocysts, hollow balls of cells fr
The size and types of the largest local land animals vary greatly from place to place, prompting scientists to question what controls the success of animals of certain sizes over others. Now a report published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the size of a landmass limits the maximal body size of its top animal.
Gary Burness and Jared Diamond of the University of California School of Medicine, together with Timothy Flannery of the South
New research is helping to unravel the machinery that allows a mosquito to sniff out its human quarry, which could lead to more and better ways of foiling the disease-spreading insects. A report published today in the online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes four genes that appear to produce odor-sensing molecules in Africas Anopheles gambiae, a carrier of malaria, the number two killer in the developing world. Understanding how such genes operate could en
After an unexpected measurement by the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) experiment in 2022, physicists on the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment (CMS) at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) announced today a…
The spacecraft bus that will deliver NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to its orbit and enable it to function once there is now complete after years of construction, installation,…
Theorists turn to supercomputers to help build a 3D picture of the structures of protons and neutrons. Deep inside what we perceive as solid matter, the landscape is anything but…
Retrons raise the bar for gene research. Gladstone scientists undertake a major effort to examine the diversity of retrons, bacterial defense systems that can be leveraged for precise gene editing….
Plan will advance knowledge of virus biology to improve detection, treatment and prevention. As part of the U.S. government response to the current mpox outbreak, the National Institutes of Health’s…
New model of the skin microbiome allows laboratory testing in realistic conditions Impact of cosmetic ingredients on microbial communities is now measurable Scientifically substantiated efficacy claims are growth drivers for…
A new study led by researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities is providing new insights into how next-generation electronics, including memory components in computers, breakdown or degrade over…
How synthesis methods have a profound impact on disordered materials. A new study reveals how different synthesis methods can profoundly impact the structure and function of high entropy oxides, a…
…paves way for light, energy-efficient vehicles. When cars, planes, ships or computers are built from a material that functions as both a battery and a load-bearing structure, the weight and…
The AQT quantum computer, featuring 20 qubits based on trapped-ion technology, is now operational at LRZ’s Quantum Integration Centre (QIC), making it the first of its kind in a computing…
The CHAI joint project aims to optimize corrosion management in ports and waterways. The federal state of Schleswig-Holstein is funding the CHAI research project with a total of 900,000 euros….
A research team from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa has developed the prosthesis of the future, the first in the world with magnetic control. It is a completely new…