Journal Club

Highlighting recent, timely papers selected by Academy member labs

Category Archives: Journal Club

Heavy water tastes sweeter

Posted on April 16, 2021 by Carolyn Beans

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 →

Small, sharp blades mark the change from Middle to Later Stone Age in coastal Kenya

Posted on April 9, 2021 by Amy McDermott

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 | Leave a comment

Venus flytrap mechanism could shed light on how plants sense touch

Posted on April 3, 2021 by David Adam

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 | Leave a comment

Lab-cultured mouse embryos, grown for an extended period, offer a new window on fetal development

Posted on March 26, 2021 by Amy McDermott

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 | Leave a comment

Massive study suggests chimp populations mixed more recently than previously reported

Posted on March 19, 2021 by David Adam

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 →

Agricultural spray could quickly deliver advantageous genes to crops mid-growing season

Posted on March 12, 2021 by Carolyn Beans

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 →

Mutations in metabolic genes can cause antibiotic resistance

Posted on March 5, 2021 by Amy McDermott

A recent study in Science reveals a novel avenue by which genetic changes make bacteria resistant to drugs: mutations in genes involved in cellular metabolism, including some that convert food into energy. “The genes were known; their involvement in metabolism … Continue reading →

Categories: Journal Club | Medical Sciences | Microbiology | Tagged antibiotic resistance, antibiotics, E. coli, genes, metabolism, mutation, natural selection, sucA | 1 Comment

In Mesopotamia, early cities may have faltered before climate-driven collapse

Posted on February 26, 2021 by Amy McDermott

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 | Leave a comment

Noncoding DNA shown to underlie function, cause limb malformations

Posted on February 19, 2021 by David Adam

Genes that code for proteins make up only about 2% of the human genome. Many researchers once dismissed the other 98% of the genome as “junk DNA,” but geneticists now know these noncoding regions help to regulate the activity of … Continue reading →

Categories: Biochemistry | Genetics | Journal Club | Tagged CRISPR, EN1, gene, junk DNA, lncRNA | 2 Comments

Host defenses signal Salmonella to hijack immune cells, spur disease

Posted on February 12, 2021 by Amy McDermott

Immune cells attack dangerous bacteria by engulfing them and then releasing a cascade of defense molecules. But some bacteria, known as intracellular pathogens, have evolved to survive this onslaught and replicate inside immune cells. The result can be Salmonella poisoning … Continue reading →

Categories: Immunology | Journal Club | Microbiology | Tagged macrophage, metabolism, metabolite, salmonella, Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium, succinate | Leave a comment

How an animal’s teeth can reveal where it’s been

Posted on February 5, 2021 by Stephen Ornes

A careful measurement of isotope ratios in animals’ teeth could offer a new way to closely track their movements, according to a recent study that showed how the approach would work in Mongolian sheep and goat herds. Tooth enamel … Continue reading →