The about-face in US climate policy may amount to little more than a small step backward in fighting climate change, but it is a worrying attack on science itself. A report from the US. The Executive Order signed by US President Donald Trump last week that relaxed environmental regulations came as no surprise: Trump wants to roll back regulations for …
Alpine forests will be at great risk should weather phenomena such as droughts and torrential rain become more frequent. As a study by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) shows, the mountain forests of the Bavarian Alps have seen a significant reduction in topsoil organic matter over the past three decades. The study authors’ recommendation is therefore to preserve, or …
ETH chemists are developing a new coating method to protect seeds from being eaten by insects. In doing so, they have drawn inspiration from the humble peach and a few of its peers. Don’t eat the core, it’s poisonous: it’s something parents often say to their children before they eat their first peach. Peach pits, which are hidden inside the …
Sugars are usually known as energy storage units in plants and the insects that feed on them. But, sugars may also be part of a deadly game of tag between plant and insect according to scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. Grasses and crops such as maize attach sugars to chemical defences called benzoxazinoids to protect themselves …
The exchange of chemical signals between organisms is considered the oldest form of communication. Acting as messenger molecules, pheromones regulate social interactions between conspecifics, for example, the sexual attraction between males and females. Fish rely on pheromones to trigger social responses and to coordinate reproductive behavior in males and females. Scientists at the Marine Science Center at the University of …
Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1A is the most common inherited disease affecting the peripheral nervous system. Researchers from the Department of Neurogenetics at the Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine and University Medical Centre Göttingen have discovered that the maturity of Schwann cells is impaired in rats with the disease. These cells enwrap the nerve fibres with an insulating layer known …
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne and University College London have now unearthed the way in which a specific genetic mutation leads to neuronal damage in two serious afflictions. In rare cases, patients may even suffer from these two diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia, at the same time. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is …
Parkinson’s disease affects neurons in the Substantia nigra brain region – their mitochondrial activity ceases and the cells die. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics show that supplying D-lactate or glycolate, two products of the gene DJ-1, can stop and even counteract this process: Adding the substances to cultured HeLa cells and to cells …
Animals can use varying sensory modalities for orientation, some of which might be very different from ours. Some bird species for example take the polarization pattern produced by sunlight in the atmosphere to calibrate their orientation systems. Now researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany, and Queen’s University Belfast have discovered with colleagues from Israel that …
Solanum pennellii, a wild tomato species endemic to the Andean region in South America, is characterised by its ability to tolerate extreme stress, such as drought. Solanum pennellii has frequently been crossed to harness this characteristic for cultivated tomatoes. Up until now, scientists did not know which genes were responsible for the stress tolerance. An international team of scientists, headed …
Scientists map molecular olfactory signatures of foodstuffs. How are we able to recognize foodstuffs like strawberries, coffee, barbecued meat or freshly boiled potatoes by smell alone? Foodstuffs contain more than 10,000 different volatile substances. But only around 230 of these determine the odor of the food we eat. Narrowing it down further, between just 3 and 40 of these key …
Empty nets and few species – environmental hormones are believed responsible for the diminishing numbers of fish. How damaging are these substances really, though? Studies that depict a complete picture of the lives of fish provide clues.
High-fat diets and long daylight periods alter epigenetic markers in wild mice. Monozygotic twins look more similar when they are young than later in life. One of the reasons for this is epigenetic change in the form of chemical modifications of the DNA or its packaging proteins. Environmental factors can influence these modifications over a lifetime. Scientists at the Max …
Plants can transfer their entire genetic material to a partner in an asexual manner. Occasionally, two different plant species interbreed with each other in nature. This usually causes problems since the genetic information of both parents does not match. But sometimes nature uses a trick. Instead of passing on only half of each parent’s genetic material, both plants transmit the …