Fungal enzymes could hold secret to making renewable energy from wood
Reading Time: 2 minutesAN international team of researchers, including scientists from the University of York, has discovered a set of enzymes found in fungi that are capable of breaking down one of the main components of wood. The enzymes could now potentially be used to sustainably convert wood biomass into valuable chemical commodities such as biofuels. As an […]
170-MILLION-YEAR QUESTION…..
Reading Time: < 1 minuteDartmouth College Scientists have identified a fused gene in moss that provides insight into how cells build their external walls. The same discovery raises questions about the one-of-a-kind gene that features two distinct proteins that participate in two distinct functions. The research team identified the novel gene, known as For1F, while studying exocytosis. Exocytosis is […]
What is a Chinese lunar calendar?
Reading Time: 2 minutesIN 2018, Chinese New Year begins on February 16 and also marks the beginning of the Year of the Dog. Tied to the Chinese lunar calendar, the festival is traditionally a time to honor household and heavenly deities as well as ancestors. It is also a time to bring family members far and near together […]
Warm temperatures turning sea turtle population almost entirely female
Reading Time: 2 minutesAS temperatures continue to rise, sea turtle demographics are changing to the point where the long-term sustainability of the species may be in question. New data analysed by researchers in the United States and Australia suggests that warming temperatures are turning one of the world’s largest sea turtle colonies almost entirely female, putting the future […]
Asteroid ‘time capsules’ may help explain how life started on Earth
Reading Time: 2 minutesIN popular culture, asteroids play the role of apocalyptic threat, get blamed for wiping out the dinosaurs- and offer an extraterrestrial source for mineral mining. But for researcher Nicholas Hud, asteroids play an entirely different role: that of time capsules showing what molecules originally existed in our solar system. Having that information gives scientists the […]
Why do we get brain freeze?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteDO YOU ever get a headache after drinking really cold water or eating an ice cream? That headache is called a “brain freeze”. Brain freeze is really a type of headache that is rapid in onset, but rapidly resolved as well. Our mouths are highly vascularized, including the tongue, that’s why we take our temperature […]
Patenting biotech inventions
Reading Time: 4 minutesBY P. KANDIAH & SHARMILA PALANYANDY IN recent years, research and development in biotechnology field, especially in medicine and agricultural biotechnology is emerging rapidly. Researchers are encouraged to patent their inventions in order to commercialise their inventions and enjoy the benefits obtained thereafter. Mostly, biotechnology inventions are associated with materials present in nature which require […]
Researchers discover powerful antibiotic in soil
Reading Time: 2 minutesIT’S a new class of antibiotic that promises to live up to its rough Latin translation: killer of bad guys. In a report published this week in the journal Nature Microbiology, researchers describe a neverbefore- seen antibiotic agent that vanquished several strains of multidrug- resistant bacteria. In rats, the agent — which the researchers dubbed […]
What makes a person happy?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteEVEN though Valentine’s Day is over, but the feeling of love and happiness will linger on. People all around the world will be very excited and be as happy as a lark at on Valentine’s Day. But have you ever wondered, what actually makes a person happy? The feelings we experience are nothing more than […]
WEBBY COUSINS …
Reading Time: < 1 minuteTwo groups of highly venomous spiders might be seeing more of each other at family reunions. A new study led by San Diego State University biologist Marshal Hedin has found that two lineages of dangerous arachnids found in Australia–long classified as distantly related in the official taxonomy–are, in fact, relatively close evolutionary cousins. The findings […]