On Earth, people grip objects to ensure they don't fall. In space, this process changes: When astronauts hold an object without moving it and then let go, the object doesn't fall because there is no gravity. But when astronauts move the object any which way, inertia takes the object up, down, left, or right if the hand grip is not steady.
Scientists have uncovered a novel mechanism through which skin cells organize and control protein production during homeostasis and wound healing, according to a new study published in Developmental Cell. The findings offer new details on how skin tissues maintain their protective barriers and how they respond when those barriers are breached, said Rui Yi, Ph.D., the Paul E. Steiner Research Professor of Pathology and professor of Dermatology, who was a co-author of the study.
Every year, the countries competing in the International Mathematical Olympiad arrive with a booklet of their best, most original problems. Those booklets get shared among delegations, then quietly disappear. No one had ever collected them systematically, cleaned them, and made them available—not for AI researchers testing the limits of mathematical reasoning, and not for the students around the world training for these competitions largely on their own.
A humpback whale's likely final days in the Baltic Sea have been livestreamed across the globe as multiple rescue efforts failed to coax it back into deeper waters while the marine mammal gets sicker and weaker.
Among the various plastic recycling methods being explored, one promising approach is biological plastic recycling, also known as biorecycling, which utilizes enzymes or microorganisms to break down polymer molecules. One group of enzymes attracting attention is microbial cutinases. These enzymes are naturally produced by bacteria and fungi to degrade the waxy outer layer of plants, known as the cuticle. Because they can act on similar chemical bonds, they are considered promising for recycling poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), a plastic used in bottles and synthetic fibers.
Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), Chinese astronomers have inspected two nearby galactic globular clusters, namely NGC 6517 and NGC 7078. The study resulted in the discovery of six new millisecond pulsars in these clusters, which are isolated and faint. The finding was detailed in a paper published April 9 on the arXiv pre-print server.
By a dictionary definition, the word resilient means an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. The key words here? "Recover" and "change."
An invasive algae already well-established in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is raising concern among researchers as it threatens to spread into the main Hawaiian Islands. Scientists from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) have identified a potential ally in slowing its advance: sea turtles.
Madagascar is home to seven species of baobab trees, of which six are found nowhere else on the planet. Many of the trees have been alive for well over 1,000 years. The ancient trees have become symbols of Madagascar itself. They're also gifts to climate science.
Celebrated British zoologist Desmond Morris, who died Sunday aged 98, shook up the world in 1967 when his book "The Naked Ape" posited that humans are essentially primates still captive to evolutionary impulses.
