MD
20 news posts
Space sciences and astronomy
12 Jul 2024
Real-life ‘stillsuit’: Dune-inspired upgrade for spacesuits allow astronauts to recycle urine into water
Existing waste management systems for spacesuits are uncomfortable, unhygienic, and don’t recycle valuable water in urine. Now, researchers from Cornell University have designed a prototype for an integrated urine collection and recycling system, which can be carried on the back of next-generation spacesuits. The system is now ready for testing.
Featured news
05 Jul 2024
Desert-loving fungi and lichens pose deadly threat to 5,000-year-old rock art
Researchers sampled microflora from the rocks bearing unique, millennia-old petroglyphs in the Negev desert. The diversity and abundance of species found on these rocks was low, suggesting that few can survive the harsh conditions. Most identified species from the petroglyphs were specialized microcolonial fungi and lichens, known to damage rock art through mechanical and chemical means. The authors cautioned that these natural deterioration processes can’t be stopped, making it necessary to monitor and document this important cultural heritage.
Featured news
02 Jul 2024
Study shows hairy skin does not become less sensitive with age
Our sense of touch is generally thought to decline with age, just like the other senses. However, a study has now shown for the first time that age-related decline in sensitivity only happens in hairless skin like the tip of the index finger, but not in the hairy cheeks and forearms. The authors speculate that the exceptional sensitivity of the cheeks throughout life is due to our evolutionary history as social primates, for whom touch is an important method of communication.
Health
19 Jun 2024
Ultrasound beam triggers ‘nanodroplets' to deliver drugs at exactly the right spot
Conventional drug delivery is inefficient and imprecise. Through a series of preclinical experiments, researchers from the University of Utah have optimized a novel, targeted method of delivery through nanodroplet carriers, which are triggered to release their drug at exactly the desired spot by a focused beam of ultrasound. Their results showed that nanodroplets with a core of perfluorooctylbromide are stable, efficient in delivery, and well tolerated. Clinical experiments are likely to follow.
Featured news
14 Jun 2024
Meet a scientist who's helping to create a 'shared vision' for future rewilding
As part of our Frontier Scientist series, we spoke to Dr Sally Hawkins, a specialist in wildlife restoration, about her career and research.
Featured news
11 Jun 2024
How older people explore new spaces could suggest cognitive decline and dementia
Aging people commonly show a decline in navigation ability, and this has generally been attributed to worsening spatial memory. But now, researchers from the US have shown for the first time that this decline is partly driven by changes in typical exploration behavior by middle age. In a maze learning task, middle-aged people were less efficient explorers than young people. This discovery could have applications in the clinical diagnosis and therapy of cognitive decline and dementia.
Featured news
22 May 2024
Babies in the womb exposed to two languages hear speech differently when born
Researchers have shown for the first time that newborns of monolingual mothers respond differently to playback of a carefully selected sound stimulus than newborns of bilingual mothers. The findings suggest that bilingual newborns are sensitive to a wider range of acoustic variation of speech, at the cost of being less selectively tuned in to any single language. These results underscore the importance of prenatal exposure for learning about speech.
Featured news
02 May 2024
Why do male chicks play more than females? Study finds answers in distant ancestor
Researchers observed the frequency of play by aged chicks between six and 53 days old. Males engaged more frequently in social and object play than females, but there was no difference in the frequency of locomotor play. The researchers concluded that these patterns can be explained by the strong sexual dimorphism of adult junglefowl, the ancestors of domestic chickens. This means that male chicks benefit more from practicing skills related to physical ability and social tactics.
Featured news
25 Apr 2024
Puzzling link between depression and cardiovascular disease explained at last: they partly develop from the same gene module
It’s long been known that depression and cardiovascular disease are somehow related, though exactly how remained a puzzle. Now, researchers have identified a ‘gene module’ consisting of 256 functionally related, co-expressed genes, which is part of the developmental program of both diseases. These genes can now be used as biomarkers for both depression and cardiovascular disease, and could ultimately help to find new drugs to target both.
Featured news
19 Apr 2024
Baby sharks prefer being closer to shore, show scientists
Scientists have shown for the first time that juvenile great white sharks gather in waters up to 10 meters deep with a temperature between 6 and 22 °C – a very different habitat from that of adults. These preferences may optimize their growth and minimize the risk of predation. These results can inform conservation efforts and help to avoid negative shark encounters.
Featured news
08 Apr 2024
Pig hearts kept alive outside the body for more than 24 hours offers hope for many humans needing a transplant
A major bottleneck on human heart transplantation are limits to storage of the donor heart outside the body, which is currently only routinely possible for six hours. Scientists have now tested new preservation methods, to keep pig hearts routinely alive outside the body for at least 24 hours. If successfully extended to humans, this would constitute a significant improvement to clinical practice.
Featured news
27 Mar 2024
Scientists discover how caterpillars can stop their bleeding in seconds
Materials scientists have now shown how the blood-like hemolymph of tobacco hornworm caterpillars forms clots to stop bleeding. They show that outside the body, hemolymph can instantaneously change from water-like behavior to become ‘viscoelastic’ like saliva, that is, combining viscosity with elasticity. This discovery could have medical applications, if drugs can be designed that induce a similar change in human blood, to make it clot faster.
Health
19 Mar 2024
Is your partner’s disturbed sleep keeping you up at night? Letting go of unattainable dreams may keep you both happy in bed
Research has now shown that the habit of letting go of unattainable goals helps people to stay satisfied with their romantic relationship if their partner experiences sleep problems. Such ‘letting go’ could also be learned, for example through training by clinical psychologists. But the results also showed that being too ready to replace unattainable goals with alternatives can worsen mutual satisfaction with a relationship, perhaps because this prevents spouses from putting more time and effort into it.
Featured news
26 Feb 2024
How did a tiny bee get to French Polynesia? Eight new species help solve a scientific mystery
Scientists discovered eight new species of masked bee in Fiji, Micronesia, and Polynesia: relatives of Tuamotu’s masked bee from Tuamotu. For 59 years, this bee had been considered by experts to be a mysterious anomaly since its closest relatives, as far as was known at the time, lived 3,000 km further west. With the new species, discovered by sampling from the tree canopy, the mystery is solved: ancestors of Tuamotu’s masked bee reached Polynesia by island-hopping across Fiji and the southwestern Pacific. Many more new species are expected to be discovered in the canopy of islands along this route soon.
Featured news
14 Feb 2024
Tiny crustaceans discovered preying on live jellyfish during harsh Arctic night
Scientists used DNA metabarcoding to show for the first time that jellyfish are an important food for amphipods during the Arctic polar night in waters off Svalbard, at a time of year when other food resources are scarce. Amphipods were not only observed to feast on ‘jelly-falls’ of dead jellyfish, but also to prey on live jellyfish. These results corroborate an ongoing ‘paradigm shift’ which recognizes that jellyfish aren’t a trophic dead-end but an important food for many marine organisms.