News

Polar bears face deep freeze …on their feet

              When I was teaching American history, I used to describe the depression by spinning a yarn about a fictional farmer who’d already been through loads. Fluctuating prices meant never knowing what to plant. Although cars gave you enough mobility to have a social life, you were still limited to people you could reach. Then you get an eleven-year drought. Choking dust clouds kill your animals and the only two neighbors you liked. But you Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

When you can’t afford real proofreading

I just saw a posting for scientific editing that offered US$18/hour. It called for a PhD. It’s no longer accepting applications, and I dearly hope it’s because they’ve figured out what was wrong with their request. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen something like this. I once went through a whole interview process only to find out they thought they could hire me for minimum wage. You don’t get professional proofreading services for entry-level Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

Coffee may prevent some metabolic diseases (still rude to mainline it in public)

              Many of the small pleasures we cultivate as young people come back to bite us later. Fans of loud music end up with hearing loss of tinnitus. Drinking and smoking can damage the liver and lungs. But it seems one vice may offer more help than harm. In findings published in the  Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, scientists from Suzhou Medical College of Soochow University report that caffeine intake may have a preventative Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

Carbon mitigation may be about to get a killer app courtesy of nanoparticles

In findings published this July in Nature Communications, researchers from McGill University say they may have found a climate-economic win-win via a helpful photocatalyst. This technique could transform two greenhouse gasses, carbon dioxide and methane, into plastics and fuel suitable for vehicles. Lead author Professor Chao-Jun Li said, “By tapping into the abundant energy of the sun, we can essentially recycle two greenhouse gases into useful products. The process works at room temperature and doesn’t Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

LSD1 inhibitor ameliorates autism-associated traits in new mouse model. We need to talk.

In findings published March 26 in Molecular Psychiatry, a team of researchers from Tokyo University, Juntendo University, and RIKEN report that they have successfully created a new mouse model of autism spectrum disorder in what they have named Kmt2c+/fs mice. Then things get weird. They engineered the animals to have only one functioning copy of the lysine methyltransferase 2c (KMT2C) gene, which encodes one of the catalytic units of histone H3 lysine 4 (H3K4), instead Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

Scientists claim to have rediscovered live silphium in Turkey

The first human-induced extinction documented in the historical record wasn’t the passenger pigeon. It was a little plant with yellow flowers. However, this little herb may have pulled a coelacanth: scientists in Greece claim that it’s been still around after all, growing on a hillside in Turkey. Most people who recognize the name “silphium” know it was a popular contraceptive in Greek and Roman times (it had one name-check in an episode of Rome), which Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

Frazzled dads are not so bad: Antianxiety meds do not reduce the success of IVF, says study

A team of researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital reported this week that men who take antianxiety medication may not experience poorer IVF outcomes than those who tough it out. “Our findings indicate that despite past concerns over antidepressant medication’s impact on fertility, treatment should not be withheld from men experiencing anxiety or depression,” said study co-author, Dr. Zachary Walker. In vitro fertilization is a famously stressful experience. Frustrated dreams, family expectations, and no small Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

Basalt powder in cropland may be a financially viable answer to climate change

This Tuesday, scientists from the American Geophysical Union announced in that adding pulverized volcanic rock to farmed fields could increase carbon sequestration to within the IPCC’s recommended levels by 2080 while also improving soil quality. The process is called enhanced rock weathering. Precipitation absorbs carbon dioxide from the air, rendering the raindrops mildly acidic. The acidified interacts with the basalt in the soil to form carbonates, which eventually reach the ocean. Once there, the carbonates Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

Fighting bacteria favor speed over service

In findings published today in Current Biology, scientists from the University of California, Riverside report that plants’ relationships with their nitrogen-fixing rhizobacteria are far more complex than previously realized, or rather, the relationships among those bacteria complicate them. The research team infected initially bacteria-free Acmispon strigosus with eight different strains of nitrogen-fixing microbes from the genus Bradyrhizobium and then exposed them to other bacteria to determine which would establish themselves in the plant roots. All Read more…

By D Flynn, ago

Hornet genomes add two new pieces to invasive puzzle

An international team of scientists led by University College London announced Friday that they had successfully sequenced the genomes of two species of hornet, the European hornet (Vespa crabro) and yellow-legged or Asian hornet (Vespa velutina) as part of a larger project on invasive wasps and their ability to adapt to new habitats. They compared these genomes to that of the giant northern hornet (Vespa mandarinia), sequenced in 2020, and found that the hornet genes Read more…

By D Flynn, ago