For The Better

Motor neurons play a vital role in movement, linking the central nervous system with different muscles in the body. A new study has uncovered details about the process through which motor neurons develop into subtypes that connect the spinal cord with …

Researchers have engineered strains of the ubiquitous, nitrogen-fixing soil bacterium Azotobacter vinelandii to produce ammonia and excrete it at high concentrations, transferring it into crop plants in lieu of conventional chemical fertilizers.

A laboratory has developed a new, significantly simpler way of cultivating a 3D model of the intestine that leads to increased complexity and organization.

A drop in the total number of rainy days each year is contributing to an earlier arrival of spring for plants in northern climates, a new study finds.

The United States is expected to experience as much sea level rise by the year 2050 as it witnessed in the previous hundred years. That’s according to a NOAA-led report updating sea level rise decision-support information for the U.S. released in partn…

New research discovered a unique class of medications that act as blood thinners by inhibiting an enzyme in the genes of tick saliva. The research focused on novel direct thrombin inhibitors from tick salivary transcriptomes, or messenger RNA molecules…

Fat tissue plays an important role in human health. However, our fat tissue loses function as we age, which can lead to type 2 diabetes, obesity, cancer and other ailments. High levels of lifelong exercise seem to counteract this deterioration.

Scientists have developed CROPSR, the first open-source software tool for genome-wide design and evaluation of guide RNA (gRNA) sequences for CRISPR/Cas9 experiments. This tool significantly shortens the time required to design a CRISPR experiment and …

Scientists have revealed the three-dimensional structure of Flycatcher1, an aptly named protein channel that may enable Venus fly trap plants to snap shut in response to prey. The structure of Flycatcher1 helps shed light on longstanding questions abou…

Researchers address criticisms to previous work by providing additional evidence to suggest the cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus has Mirror Self-Recognition.

New research finds that, while the Knights of the Round Table have won global fame, most medieval heroic or chivalric stories in English have been lost. Meanwhile, more than three quarters of medieval stories in Icelandic and Irish survive to the prese…

A first-of-its-kind, eight-year study has found widespread and frequent lead poisoning in North American bald and golden eagles impacting both species’ populations. Researchers evaluated lead exposure in bald and golden eagles from 2010 to 2018.

Rapid hydroelectric dam expansion in the Amazon poses a serious threat to Earth’s largest and most biodiverse river basin. There are 158 dams in the Amazon River basin, with another 351 proposed; these projects are typically assessed individually, with…

A new imaging technology uses polarized ‘optical vortices’ to provide a detailed, dynamic view of molecules in motion.

By linking human population studies with experiments in cell and animal models, researchers have provided evidence that complex mixtures of endocrine disrupting chemicals impact children’s brain development and language acquisition. With their novel ap…

Geologists know well how rock towers and arches shimmy, twist and sway in response to far-off earthquakes, wind and even ocean waves. Their latest research compiles a first-of-its-kind dataset to show that the dynamic properties, i.e. the frequencies a…

Researchers found a way to inhibit the mitochondrial fission in nerve cell axons, which can promote normal growth and potentially stop further damage in neurodegenerative disorders like hereditary spastic paraplegia and Parkinson’s disease.