Genome of coronavirus sequenced by Pasteur Institute
Reading Time: 2 minutesON Jan 24, 2020, the French Ministry of Health confirmed the first three cases of patients affected by the Wuhan coronavirus. On January 29, 2020, the Institut Pasteur, which is responsible for monitoring respiratory viruses in France, sequenced the whole genome of the coronavirus known as “2019-nCoV,” becoming the first institution in Europe to sequence […]
Living robots built using frog cells
Reading Time: 4 minutesA TEAM of scientists has repurposed living cells scraped from frog embryos and assembled them into entirely new life-forms. These millimeter-wide “xenobots” can move toward a target, perhaps pick up a payload (like a medicine that needs to be carried to a specific place inside a patient) and heal themselves after being cut. “These are […]
The way you dance is unique, and computers can tell it’s you
Reading Time: 2 minutesA RECENT discovery shows that our dance style is almost always the same, regardless of the type of music, and a computer can identify the dancer with astounding accuracy. Studying how people move to music is a powerful tool for researchers looking to understand how and why music affects us the way it does. Over […]
Astronomers find wandering massive black holes in dwarf galaxies
Reading Time: 2 minutesASTRONOMERS seeking to learn about the mechanisms that formed massive black holes in the early history of the Universe have gained important new clues with the discovery of 13 such black holes in dwarf galaxies less than a billion light-years from Earth. These dwarf galaxies, more than 100 times less massive than our own Milky […]
The mysterious, legendary giant squid’s genome is revealed
Reading Time: 2 minutesHOW did the monstrous giant squid — reaching school-bus size, with eyes as big as dinner plates and tentacles that can snatch prey 10 yards away — get so scarily big? Today, important clues about the anatomy and evolution of the mysterious giant squid (Architeuthis dux) are revealed through publication of its full genome sequence […]
M’sian PhD students develop alternative plastic
Reading Time: 2 minutesA TEAM of Malaysian PhD students has won a global engineering challenge with a sustainable approach to packing dried food products. The engineers from the University of Southampton Malaysia, University of Malaya and Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) have developed a prototype for dissolvable food blocks that would significantly reduce the amount of single-use plastic supermarket […]
Using fungi to search for medical drugs
Reading Time: 2 minutesAN ENORMOUS library of products derived from more than ten thousand fungi could help us find new drugs. Researchers from the group of Jeroen den Hertog at the Hubrecht Institute, in collaboration with researchers from the Westerdijk Institute and Utrecht University, have set up this library and screened it for biologically active compounds. They tested […]
New ant species found
Reading Time: 2 minutesWHILE new ant species are usually discovered in surveys involving researchers searching through leaf litter, it turns out that sifting through the stomach contents of insect-eating frogs might prove no less effective, especially when it comes to rare species. Such is the case of a new species of rarely collected long-toothed ant, discovered in the […]
Researchers finds genes conferring resistance to multiple leaf rust in barley
Reading Time: < 1 minuteAN INTERNATIONAL team led by researchers at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) has identified genes that confer resistance to multiple leaf rust species in barley. Simon Krattinger from KAUST’s Center for Desert Agriculture refers to their findings as nonhost resistance, the resistance of an entire species against all strains of a […]
Researchers discover brain circuit linked to food impulsivity
Reading Time: < 1 minuteA TEAM of researchers that includes a faculty member at the University of Georgia has now identified a specific circuit in the brain that alters food impulsivity, creating the possibility scientists can someday develop therapeutics to address overeating. The team’s findings were published recently in the journal Nature Communications. Impulsivity, or responding without thinking about […]