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Category: Biology

The U.S. could soon face a threat ‘more powerful’ than nuclear weapons

The U.S. could soon face a threat ‘more powerful’ than nuclear weapons

Ashish K. Jha, Matt Pottinger and Matthew McKnight write: President Richard M. Nixon’s bold 1969 decision to renounce biological weapons and spearhead a treaty to ban them helped contain the threat of a man-made pandemic for half a century. But our inheritance from Nixon is now fading. And in this age of synthetic biology, unless we act quickly to deter our adversaries from making and using bioweapons, we could face disaster in the near future. The nightmare of a biological…

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A new field theory reveals the hidden forces that guide us

A new field theory reveals the hidden forces that guide us

Daniel W McShea and Gunnar O Babcock write: Why do rocks fall? Before Isaac Newton introduced his revolutionary law of gravity in 1687, many natural scientists and philosophers thought that rocks fell because falling was an essential part of their nature. For Aristotle, seeking the ground was an intrinsic property of rocks. The same principle, he argued, also explained why things like acorns grew into oak trees. According to this explanation, every physical object in the Universe, from rocks to…

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Propelled by tech money, the menace of race science is back – and it’s just as nonsensical as ever

Propelled by tech money, the menace of race science is back – and it’s just as nonsensical as ever

Adam Rutherford writes: “Civilisation is going to pieces … if we don’t look out the white race will be – will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.” Sentiments like this will be familiar to those who lurk in the less wholesome corners of the internet, where racism and other bigotries flourish. As a geneticist who specialises in racism and eugenics, I lurk so that you don’t have to. However, this particular phantom threat comes from Tom…

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In the authoritarians’ new war on ideas, biology might be next

In the authoritarians’ new war on ideas, biology might be next

By C. Brandon Ogbunu In 2021, U.S. Sen.Ted Cruz compared critical race theory — an academic subfield that examines the role of racism in American institutions, laws, and policies — to the Ku Klux Klan, the most notorious homegrown terrorist organization in U.S. history. In doing so, he opened a playbook that resembles one put into practice by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others: Attack ideas that are unfriendly to a narrow view of the world, and do so by…

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Mega El Niños kicked off the world’s worst mass extinction

Mega El Niños kicked off the world’s worst mass extinction

Science News reports: A barrage of intense, wild swings in climate conditions may have fueled the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history. A re-creation of how ancient sea surface temperatures, ocean and atmosphere circulation, and landmasses interacted revealed an Earth plagued by nearly decade-long stints of droughts, wildfires and flooding. Researchers knew that a spike in global temperatures — triggered by gas emissions from millions of years of enormous volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia — was the likely…

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Biobots arise from the cells of dead organisms − pushing the boundaries of life, death and medicine

Biobots arise from the cells of dead organisms − pushing the boundaries of life, death and medicine

Biobots could one day be engineered to deliver drugs and clear up arterial plaque. Kriegman et al. 2020/PNAS, CC BY-SA By Peter A Noble, University of Washington and Alex Pozhitkov, Irell & Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences at City of Hope Life and death are traditionally viewed as opposites. But the emergence of new multicellular life-forms from the cells of a dead organism introduces a “third state” that lies beyond the traditional boundaries of life and death. Usually, scientists…

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New study shows gut microbiome could play role in preventing cognitive decline

New study shows gut microbiome could play role in preventing cognitive decline

PsyPost reports: A new study published in Nature Communications suggests that a daily fiber supplement could improve brain function in older adults. Researchers found that in just 12 weeks, participants who took the supplement showed better performance in memory tests that are often used to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. This placebo-controlled, double-blind trial was conducted on twins over the age of 65, offering insight into how gut microbiome interventions could benefit cognitive health in older adults. As the…

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How colorful ribbon diagrams became the face of proteins

How colorful ribbon diagrams became the face of proteins

Yasemin Saplakoglu writes: Jane Richardson never considered herself an artist. Then, in the late 1970s, the structural biologist found herself in need of some colored pencils, pastels and sketching paper. Richardson, a professor of biochemistry at Duke University, studied proteins, the biomolecules that underpin all the workings of life. At the time, structural biologists were getting better at creating 3D models of proteins’ minuscule atomic structures; she and her husband Dave, with whom she shared a lab, had determined two…

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Quadrillions of ants have created a strange and turbulent global society that shadows our own

Quadrillions of ants have created a strange and turbulent global society that shadows our own

John Whitfield writes: It is a familiar story: a small group of animals living in a wooded grassland begin, against all odds, to populate Earth. At first, they occupy a specific ecological place in the landscape, kept in check by other species. Then something changes. The animals find a way to travel to new places. They learn to cope with unpredictability. They adapt to new kinds of food and shelter. They are clever. And they are aggressive. In the new…

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The phageome: A hidden kingdom within your gut

The phageome: A hidden kingdom within your gut

By Amber Dance, Knowable Magazine You’ve probably heard of the microbiome — the hordes of bacteria and other tiny life forms that live in our guts. Well, it turns out those bacteria have viruses that exist in and around them — with important consequences for both them and us. Meet the phageome. There are billions, perhaps even trillions of these viruses, known as bacteriophages (“bacteria eaters” in Greek) or just “phages” to their friends, inside the human digestive system. Phageome…

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Cells across the body talk to each other about aging

Cells across the body talk to each other about aging

Viviane Callier writes: Aging can seem like an unregulated process: As time marches along, our cells and bodies inevitably accumulate dings and dents that cause dysfunctions, failures and ultimately death. However, in 1993 a discovery upended that interpretation of events. Researchers found a mutation in a single gene that doubled a worm’s life span; subsequent work showed that related genes, all involved in the response to insulin, are key regulators of aging in a host of animals, from worms and…

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What ‘plant philosophy’ says about plant agency and intelligence

What ‘plant philosophy’ says about plant agency and intelligence

Stella Sandford writes: It was once common, in Western societies at least, to think of plants as the passive, inert background to animal life, or as mere animal fodder. Plants could be fascinating in their own right, of course, but they lacked much of what made animals and humans interesting, such as agency, intelligence, cognition, intention, consciousness, decision-making, self-identification, sociality and altruism. However, groundbreaking developments in the plant sciences since the end of the previous century have blown that view…

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Links between pathogens and Alzheimer’s spur new projects searching for causal evidence

Links between pathogens and Alzheimer’s spur new projects searching for causal evidence

Science reports: This week, thousands of researchers are flocking to downtown Philadelphia for what’s billed as the largest international conference dedicated to Alzheimer’s disease. But several kilometers away a much smaller group congregated for an alternative meetup: a daylong dive into whether and how pathogens might cause the fatal dementia. Saturday’s gathering of about 80 scientists on the city’s periphery is something of a metaphor for where the idea sits in the larger Alzheimer’s community, long dominated by the view…

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How fetuses learn to talk while they’re still in the womb

How fetuses learn to talk while they’re still in the womb

Darshana Narayanan writes: Loud, shrill and penetrating – a baby’s cry is its first act of communication. A simple adaptation that makes it less likely that the baby’s needs will be overlooked. And babies aren’t just crying for attention. While crying, they are practising the melodies of speech. In fact, newborns cry in the accent of their mother tongue. They make vowel-like sounds, growl and squeal – these are protophones, sounds that eventually turn into speech. Babies communicate as soon…

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The physics of cold water may have jump-started complex life

The physics of cold water may have jump-started complex life

Veronique Greenwood writes: Once upon a time, long ago, the world was encased in ice. That’s the tale told by sedimentary rock in the tropics, many geologists believe. Hundreds of millions of years ago, glaciers and sea ice covered the globe. The most extreme scenarios suggest a layer of ice several meters thick even at the equator. This event has been called “Snowball Earth,” and you’d think it would be a terrible time to be alive — and maybe, for…

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To save life on Earth, bring back taxonomy

To save life on Earth, bring back taxonomy

Robert Langellier writes: In 2009, the botanist Naomi Fraga was hunting a flower without a name near Carson City, Nev. Ms. Fraga saw that the plant was going extinct in real time as its desert valley habitat was bulldozed to make way for Walmarts and housing developments. But in order to seek legal protections for it, she had to give it a name. The diminutive yellow flower became the Carson Valley monkeyflower or, officially, Erythranthe carsonensis, allowing conservationists to petition…

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