At military sites in the United States and across the globe, routine live-fire trainings produce a downpour of an explosive known as RDX (hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine). A synthetic chemical, RDX can threaten human health, damaging the nervous system if inhaled or ingested. … Continue reading
Journal Club
Highlighting recent, timely papers selected by Academy member labs
Transgenic switchgrass cleans up contamination from military explosives
Categories: Chemistry | Genetics | Journal Club | Plant Biology
Tagged Arabidopsis, GMO, phytoremediation, RDX, switchgrass
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Gossip drives social bonding and helps people learn
Oscar Wilde said the only thing worse than being talked about was not being talked about. Nevertheless, chit-chat about others has a dubious reputation. That’s unfair, say psychologists and social scientists, who argue that gossip is a useful communication tool, … Continue reading
Several brain regions help us anticipate what’s going to happen next
If you watch a movie clip on repeat, many areas of your brain begin to anticipate upcoming events onscreen, according to a recent study published in eLife. The first time you see the clip, your brain forms a distinctive neural … Continue reading
Categories: Journal Club | Neuroscience | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged anticipation, brain, cognitive neuroscience, cortex, expectation, fMRI, hierarchy, memory, prediction, psychology
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Heavy water tastes sweeter
In the 1930s, scientists discovered a heavier form of water. So-called “heavy water” (D2O) weighs more because the nucleus of each of its two hydrogen atoms contains not just a proton but a neutron as well. Known as deuterium, heavy … Continue reading
Categories: Chemistry | Journal Club | Physiology
Tagged deuterium, heavy water, taste receptors
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Small, sharp blades mark the change from Middle to Later Stone Age in coastal Kenya
The transition between the Middle and Later Stone Age is a controversial topic among archeologists. Recent findings offer a possible answer, suggesting that the shift occurred between 67,000 and 71,000 years ago, and has as its hallmark a sudden abundance … Continue reading
Categories: Anthropology | Journal Club
Tagged archaeology, human evolution, Levallois cores, paleolithic, Panga ya Saidi, Prismatic blade, stone age, stone tools
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Venus flytrap mechanism could shed light on how plants sense touch
Labelled by Charles Darwin as a “most wonderful” plant, the Venus flytrap is more than a carnivorous curiosity. The rapid closing of its leaves when brushed by prey offers researchers a way to investigate how plants sense their environment through … Continue reading
Categories: Cell Biology | Journal Club | Plant Biology
Tagged calcium channel, FLYCATCHER1, ion channel, protein, sense of touch, venus flytrap
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Lab-cultured mouse embryos, grown for an extended period, offer a new window on fetal development
In a potential methods breakthrough, stem cell biologists grew mouse embryos for five-and-a-half days in vitro, longer than ever before. Appearing recently in Nature, the study unveils new protocols and equipment, including a temperature-and-pressure-controlled incubator that enabled the coauthors to … Continue reading
Categories: Developmental Biology | Journal Club
Tagged blastoid, embryos, fetal development, in vitro, mouse embryo, pre-implantation embryo, stem cell, Zika
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Massive study suggests chimp populations mixed more recently than previously reported
A recent study in Communications Biology reports results from the largest such survey of chimpanzee genetics so far. It suggests that animals from the different groups have mixed more recently than many researchers in the field previously believed. The findings … Continue reading
Categories: Evolution | Genetics | Journal Club | Population Biology
Tagged chimpanzee, gene flow, genome, microsatellite, SNP, subspecies
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Agricultural spray could quickly deliver advantageous genes to crops mid-growing season
Plant breeders are masters of genome tuning, spending years developing crops with the genes to resist disease, drought, and pests. Now, a team of industry and academic researchers in Germany and the United Kingdom has developed a viral vector technology … Continue reading
Categories: Agriculture | Genetics | Journal Club | Sustainability Science
Tagged agriculture, agrobacteria, crops, drought, GMO, pesticides, RNA plant virus, tobacco, tomato
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In Mesopotamia, early cities may have faltered before climate-driven collapse
Some of the earliest cities, now buried in the soil of Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Lebanon, are thought to have collapsed because of rapid climatic change. Drought along with lower temperatures descended on these settlements some 4,200 years ago, forcing … Continue reading
Categories: Anthropology | Climate science | Journal Club
Tagged archaeology, climate change, climate science, collapse, Fertile Crescent, Mesopotamia, urbanization
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