A molecule in your jam plays a role in the twisting of flower petals. Yale Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Vivian Irish, studies how a genetic mutation causes epidermal cells and flower organs to twist.
Diverse fish from Antarctica now face rising temperatures and increased competition from invading species.
By studying rocks that are almost three million years old, a team of researchers led by Eva Stüeken found out that the diversification of environmental niches plays a role in the diversification of microbial populations.
Humans, and many other animals, reflexively increase the volume of their vocalizations in a noisy environment, a phenomenon called the Lombard effect. A new study on geckos, one of the first to examine vocal plasticity in a reptile, found that while geckos do not exhibit the Lombard effect, they do modify their calls in other ways so as to more easily be heard over noise.
Tracing a 65 million year history of the Earth is no easy task, but researchers at the University of Quebec have found a new method. By taking a tango through time, they created a new tool for modeling our past Earth, and have used it to discover a second hotspot origin for the Deccan traps.
Researchers studying hawk moths discover the solution to a long-standing paradox in our understanding of metabolism. An ancient biological remnant of a different time may be responsible for protecting us against the more dangerous side-effects of the oxygen we need to survive.
Coral reefs are an economically and ecologically important ecosystem, supporting a vast array of life and providing tourism opportunities. Reefs face numerous threats, including coral disease, but another ecosystem may already be alleviating that problem. Recent research shows that seagrass meadows reduce levels of pathogenic bacteria, improving the health of nearby coral reefs.
Scientists may finally be able to model magnetic fields more efficiently in the lab, thanks to the development of eGaIn, a magnetic liquid metal with unprecedentedly high magnetic and conductive properties.
Plant functional traits are viewed as key to predicting important ecosystem and community properties among biogeographic regions. However, a recent study led by Elisabeth Forrestel GRD ’15 challenges the trait-based approach to predicting ecosystem function by demonstrating that different combinations of functional traits can act to maximize net primary productivity, a community property, in a given environmental setting.
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science used an Epyptian-fruit-bat model to study the brain’s representation of navigation from Point A to Point B. Their work on how the bat brain handles goal-focused navigation could affect how we will one day treat Alzheimer’s.