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Categories: Biology: Biochemistry, Energy: Batteries

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You can still be celebrated, even if you're buried in mud. A new study shows that innumerable other bacteria flock around cable bacteria in the oxygen-free seabed in something that looks like a dance. They apparently use the cable bacteria as an electrical lifeline for oxygen. Video recordings show that the dance stops abruptly if you cut the cable bacteria in half.

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Researchers have found that time-restricted fasting could cause fertility problems. Time-restricted fasting is an eating pattern where people limit their food consumption to certain hours of the day. It's a popular health and fitness trend and people are doing it to lose weight and improve their health. But the new study shows that time-restricted fasting affects reproduction differently in male and female zebrafish. Importantly, some of the negative effects on eggs and sperm quality can be seen after the fish returned to their normal levels of food consumption. The research team say that while the study was conducted in fish, their findings highlight the importance of considering not just the effect of fasting on weight and health, but also on fertility.

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The demand for battery-grade lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and platinum will climb steeply as vehicle electrification speeds up and nations work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through mid-century. This surge in demand will also create a variety of economic and supply-chain problems, according to new research.

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Researchers introduce a novel imaging method to detect gold nanoparticles in woodlice. Their method, known as four-wave mixing microscopy, flashes light that the gold nanoparticles absorb. The light flashes again and the subsequent scattering reveals the nanoparticles' locations. With information about the quantity, location, and impact of gold nanoparticles within the organism, scientists can better understand the potential harm other metals may have on nature.

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Researchers have found a creative way to make a vaccine for norovirus, the leading cause of foodborne infections, by piggybacking on rotavirus, an unrelated virus for which there are already several highly effective vaccines.

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The island of Dominica took a direct hit from Category 5 Hurricane Maria. Nine months afterward, researchers found that while 89% percent of trees located in nine previously documented forest stands were damaged, but only 10 percent had immediately died. The most common damage was stem snapping and major branch damage. The damage with the highest rates of mortality were uprooting and being crushed by a neighboring tree. Large individual trees and species with lower wood density were susceptible to snapping, uprooting and mortality. Those on steeper slopes were more prone to being crushed by neighboring trees.

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Scientists have discovered over 30,000 viruses by using the high-performance computer cluster 'Leo' and sophisticated detective work. The viruses hide in the DNA of unicellular organisms. In some cases, up to 10% of microbial DNA consists of built-in viruses.

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Researchers discovered that males of the yellow crazy ant have maternal and paternal genomes in different cells of their body and are thus chimeras.

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Babies tumble about with more than 200 previously unknown viral families within their intestines. This large number comes as a surprise to researchers, who closely studied the diapers of 647 Danish babies and made this mapping. These viruses most likely play an important role in protecting children from chronic diseases.

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A probiotic treatment reduced the negative effects of alcohol consumption in mice.

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Important species often get overlooked if they lack flashy colors or charismatic behavior. This is true of euptychiine butterflies, one of the most common insects in the Amazon Rainforest that have been largely ignored by scientists and naturalists throughout the 20th century. A new study pieces together the natural history of the group, in which males can look so unlike females, they've been repeatedly mistaken for separate species, diversity has been drastically underestimated, and more than 100 unnamed species are waiting on scientific description.

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Borrowing a page from what we know about animal behavior, archaeologists say that we should reassess our understanding of the process of plant domestication.

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An interdisciplinary team of researchers is advocating for convergent research that integrates the fields of biogeography and behavioral ecology to more rapidly respond to challenges associated with climate change and biodiversity loss.

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Elephants like to eat bananas, but they don't usually peel them first in the way humans do. A new report however, shows that one very special Asian elephant named Pang Pha picked up banana peeling all on her own while living at the Berlin Zoo. She reserves it for yellow-brown bananas, first breaking the banana before shaking out and collecting the pulp, leaving the thick peel behind.

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Nitrogen is such a crucial nutrient for plants that vast quantities of nitrogen-containing fertilizers are spread on farmlands worldwide. However, excess nitrogen in the soil and in drainage run-off into lakes and rivers causes serious ecological imbalances. A recent study has uncovered the regulatory mechanisms at work when plants utilize nitrogenous fertilizers in their roots, a positive step in the quest to generate crops that require less fertilizer while still producing the yields needed to feed the world.

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Scientists recently discovered that Luna moths use their long tails as decoys to throw bats off their trail. But their tails also make Luna moths might also make them stand out to potential mates and make them more conspicuous to lurking predators. A pair of complementary studies looked to see whether these colorful, bat-deflecting appendages might come with any additional costs or benefitt

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Most conservation efforts are reactive. Typically, a species must reach threatened status before action is taken to prevent extinction, such as establishing protected areas. A new study shows that we can use existing conservation data to predict which currently unthreatened species could become threatened and take proactive action to prevent their decline before it is too late.

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Tobacco plants have been engineered to manufacture an alluring perfume of insect sex pheromones, which could be used to confuse would-be pests looking for love and reduce the need for harmful pesticides.

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Researchers have spotted how specific proteins within the chromosomes of roundworms enable their offspring to produce specialized cells generations later, a startling finding that upends classical thinking that hereditary information for cell differentiation is mostly ingrained within DNA and other genetic factors.

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A new look at decades of data from museum collections and surveys of leaf-litter ants in Florida reveals a steady decline in native ants and simultaneous increase in nonnative ants -- even in protected natural areas of the state, researchers report.