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Categories: Biology: Biochemistry, Chemistry: Biochemistry

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Researchers have engineered bacteria that can produce two chemical products at the same time from underutilized plant fiber. And unlike humans, these multitasking microbes can do both things equally well. The discovery could help make biofuels more sustainable and commercially viable.

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Scientists have discovered that flowering plants growing in farmland are increasingly doing without insect pollinators. As reproduction becomes more difficult for them in an environment depleted in pollinating insects, the plants are evolving towards self-fertilization.

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Aquaporin (Aqp) 10 water channels in humans allow the free passage of water, glycerol, urea, and boric acid across cells. However, Aqp10.2b in pufferfishes allows only the passage of water and glycerol and not urea and boric acid. Researchers sought to understand the evolutionary timeline that resulted in the variable substrate selection mechanisms among Aqp10s. Their results indicate that Aqp10.2 in ray-finned fishes may have reduced or lost urea and boric acid permeabilities through evolution.

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Nearly every organism on Earth follows a natural circadian rhythm that is coded by your cell's clock genes, which do exactly as you suspect from the name: regulate your body's rhythm on a 24-hour basis. Most cells in mammalian bodies have cilia of some sort, which are hair-like structures that perform a variety of functions such as movement for motile cilia and aiding in structure in function for non-motile, or primary, cilia. The primary cilia also act as a sensory organ for the cell, a function which has illuminated the primary cilia's potential role in the healing process and how bodies heal at a different rate according to our circadian rhythm. In this research, the role of the primary cilia, biological clock and wound healing is explored.

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A study appearing in Nature Communications based on field and greenhouse experiments at the University of Kansas shows how a boost in agricultural yield comes from planting diverse crops rather than just one plant species: Soil pathogens harmful to plants have a harder time thriving. While crop rotation and other farming and gardening practices long have reflected benefits of a mix of plants, the new research puts hard data to one important mechanism underpinning the observation: the numbers of microorganisms in the soil that eat plants.

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Scientists have developed a method to extract the spectral density for molecules in solvent using simple resonance Raman experiments -- a method that captures the full complexity of chemical environments.

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Fish from the same species can evolve their sense of smell and display individual foraging 'personalities' to successfully find food in different habitats.

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A newly identified protein helps poison dart frogs accumulate and store a potent toxin in their skin which they use for self-defence against predators.

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A research team has unveiled a remarkable breakthrough in the form of a two-dimensional (2D) Metal Organic Framework (MOF) that showcases unprecedented origami-like movement at the molecular level. This pioneering study represents a significant leap forward in the field of dynamic materials, while also hinting at futuristic applications in metamaterials and quantum computing.

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Almost all eukaryotic organisms, from plants and animals to fungi, can't survive without mitochondria -- the 'powerhouses of the cell,' which generate chemical energy using oxygen. However, a new study finds that multiple members of the oxymonads, a group of single-celled protists that live inside the guts of termites and other animals, have evolved to live quite happily without them.

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Are we able to differentiate between the vocal emissions of certain primates? A team asked volunteers to categorize the vocalizations of three species of great apes (Hominidae) and humans. During each exposure to these ''onomatopoeia'', brain activity was measured. Unlike previous studies, the scientists reveal that phylogenetic proximity -- or kinship -- is not the only factor influencing our ability to identify these sounds. Acoustic proximity -- the type of frequencies emitted -- is also a determining factor. These results show how the human brain has evolved to process the vocal emissions of some of our closest cousins more efficiently.

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Wild North American grapes are now less of a mystery after researchers decoded and catalogued the genetic diversity of nine species of this valuable wine crop.

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Researchers report that local rivers and streams were the source of the Salmonella enterica contamination along coastal North Carolina after Hurricane Florence in 2018 -- not the previously suspected high number of pig farms in the region.

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Plants often develop communities with microorganisms in their roots, which influences plant health and development. Although the recruitment of these microbes is dictated by several factors, it is unclear whether the genetic variation in the host plants plays a role.

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People living in different communities follow different social customs or norms. In some places, for instance, it might be standard practice to greet each person you see on the street, while in others that simply isn't done. In some cases, such differences may even vary from one neighborhood to the next. Now researchers have found similarly varied social traditions and styles among neighboring groups of vervet monkeys.

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Researchers all over Germany have developed a new system for X-ray imaging, which is suited for both living specimens and sensitive materials. The system records images of micrometer resolution at a minimum radiation dose. In a pilot study, the researchers tested their method on living parasitic wasps and observed them for more than 30 minutes.

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Apes recognize photos of groupmates they haven't seen for more than 25 years and respond even more enthusiastically to pictures of their friends, a new study finds. The work, which demonstrates the longest-lasting social memory ever documented outside of humans, and underscores how human culture evolved from the common ancestors we share with apes, our closest relatives.

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A tiny, hard-working bacterium -- which weighs one-trillionth of a gram -- may soon have a large influence on processing rare earth elements in an eco-friendly way.

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An interdisciplinary team consisting of researchers has revealed a striking similarity between the memory processing of artificial intelligence (AI) models and the hippocampus of the human brain. This new finding provides a novel perspective on memory consolidation, which is a process that transforms short-term memories into long-term ones, in AI systems.

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In a spectacular new study, researchers have used light and chlorine to eradicate low-concentration methane from air. The result gets us closer to being able to remove greenhouse gases from livestock housing, biogas production plants and wastewater treatment plants to benefit the climate.