We know we got here from somewhere, but who would have suspected it was by way of a fish that used electrical currents to hunt and communicate and locate itself?
Deep beneath the ocean floor off the Pacific Northwest coast, scientists have described the existence of a potentially vast realm of life, one almost completely disconnected from the world above. Persisting in microscopic cracks in the basalt rocks of Earth’s oceanic crust is a complex microbial ecosystem fueled entirely by chemical reactions with rocks and…
Scientists who reprogrammed skin cells into brain cells say their research could lay the groundwork for new ways to treat Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases. The team at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco transferred a gene called Sox2 into both mouse and human skin cells. Within days, the skin cells transformed into early-stage brain…
Climate change, population growth and competing demands for land and resources are putting great pressure on the world’s food systems. Smallholder farmers in the developing world, who produce much of the food for the poorest people, are threatened by devastating droughts and floods, food price spikes, and persistent poverty. Scientific advances have greatly alleviated hunger…
Major changes are needed in agriculture and food consumption around the world if future generations are to be adequately fed, a major report warns. Farming must intensify sustainably, cut waste and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farms, it says. The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change spent more than a year assessing evidence from…
Geologists have long known that Earth’s core, some 1,800 miles beneath our feet, is a dense, chemically doped ball of iron roughly the size of Mars and every bit as alien. It’s a place where pressures bear down with the weight of 3.5 million atmospheres, like 3.5 million skies falling at once on your head,…
For over a millennium the Chinese have used an herb known as Chang Shan to treat fevers associated with malaria. While its effectiveness in treating the disease has long been confirmed by modern medicine, its exact function has remained mystery. However, in a recent study, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) say they have…