Similar phage communities in human and primate intestines
We live in a world dominated by microorganisms. They existed on earth long before the first multicellular organisms came into being. As part of a metaorganism, i.e. the community of a complex living being with colonizing microorganisms, they remain a.....»»
Malaysia plans to introduce "orangutan diplomacy": minister
Malaysia intends to gift orangutans to palm oil-purchasing countries as part of an initiative similar to China's panda diplomacy, the commodities minister said on Wednesday......»»
Finding Fun and Friendship: Building Connections in Online Gaming Communities
In the vast and ever-expanding landscape of the internet, online gaming communities stand out as vibrant hubs where individuals from all walks of life come together to share their passion for games. Beyond the pixels and polygons, these virtual realm.....»»
In South Africa, tiny primates could struggle to adapt to climate change
In the "sky islands" of the Soutpansberg Mountains of South Africa, two closely related species of primate jostle for space. One is the thick-tailed greater galago (Otolemur crassicaudatus), also known as a bushbaby, which is about the size of a larg.....»»
Engineers develop innovative microbiome analysis software tools
Since the first microbial genome was sequenced in 1995, scientists have reconstructed the genomic makeup of hundreds of thousands of microorganisms and have even devised methods to take a census of bacterial communities on the skin, in the gut, or in.....»»
Using algorithms to decode the complex phonetic alphabet of sperm whales
The allure of whales has stoked human consciousness for millennia, casting these ocean giants as enigmatic residents of the deep seas. From the biblical Leviathan to Herman Melville's formidable Moby Dick, whales have been central to mythologies and.....»»
What are nanoplastics? An engineer explains concerns about particles too small to see
It's become common to read that microplastics—little bits of plastic, smaller than a pencil eraser—are turning up everywhere and in everything, including the ocean, farmland, food and human bodies. Now a new term is gaining attention: nanoplastic.....»»
Laboratory and natural strains of intestinal bacterium turn out to have similar mutational profiles
Understanding mutational processes in a cell offers clues to the evolution of a genome. Most actively, mutation processes are studied in human cancer cells, while other genomes are often neglected......»»
Self-adaptive system for temperature control: A dynamically controllable strategy for healing wound tissue
Skin functions as a sophisticated sensorial system in the human body, capable not only of detecting environmental stimuli—such as temperature, pressure, strain, and vibration—but also of actively responding to these changes. Among these, the temp.....»»
License suspensions disproportionately hurt marginalized communities, finds study
Drivers in New York state were issued more than 1 million license suspensions in 2017, and about two-thirds of them were for "traffic debt"—failure to pay a traffic ticket or to appear in traffic court—while less than 10% were for driving infract.....»»
Debates on campus safety in response to Palestine solidarity activism show we need strategies to navigate discomfort
Canada's House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights will soon begin hearings on antisemitism and Islamophobia. The process comes partly in response to claims that university and college campuses are unsafe spaces......»»
How "apocalypse" became a secular as well as religious idea
The exponential growth of artificial intelligence over the past year has sparked discussions about whether the era of human domination of our planet is drawing to a close. The most dire predictions claim that the machines will take over within five t.....»»
Saturday Citations: Parrots on the internet; a map of human wakefulness; the most useless rare-earth element
We field a torrent of science news updates every week and on Saturday morning, we highlight three or four of them based on the observed preferences of a panel of dogs as shown by the Paired-Stimulus Preference Assessment, a standardized evaluation of.....»»
Boeing"s Starliner joins select club of crewed US spaceships
Throughout the annals of American space exploration, a select few spacecraft have had the distinction of carrying human beings beyond Earth......»»
Microsoft plans to lock down Windows DNS like never before. Here’s how.
ZTDNS brings the best of both worlds to DNS: encryption and fine-grained control. Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Translating human-readable domain names into numerical IP addresses has long been fraught with gaping secur.....»»
We still don’t understand how one human apparently got bird flu from a cow
A genetic analysis and case report reveal new insights and big gaps in our knowledge. Enlarge / Holstein dairy cows in a freestall barn. (credit: Getty | ) The US Department of Agriculture this week posted an unpublished.....»»
Aligned peptide "noodles" could enable lab-grown biological tissues
A team of chemists and bioengineers at Rice University and the University of Houston have achieved a significant milestone in their work to create a biomaterial that can be used to grow biological tissues outside the human body......»»
Call of the conch: Archaeologists suggest Indigenous Americans used sound to organize local communities
Archaeologists have modeled the auditory range of conch-shell trumpets in the 9th–11th century US Southwest, proposing that the sound was key in the structuring of pre-Columbian Pueblo communities......»»
NASA is helping protect tigers, jaguars, and elephants—here"s how
As human populations grow, habitat loss threatens many creatures. Mapping wildlife habitat using satellites is a rapidly expanding area of ecology, and NASA satellites play a crucial role in these efforts. Tigers, jaguars, and elephants are a few of.....»»
Sister cities can help communities better navigate the climate crisis, research suggests
Anthropologists at Rice University suggest in a new study that establishing networks of 'sister cities' dedicated to addressing the impact of natural disasters can mitigate the devastation wrought by climate change......»»
Hungry, hungry white dwarfs: Solving the puzzle of stellar metal pollution
Dead stars known as white dwarfs, have a mass like the sun while being similar in size to Earth. They are common in our galaxy, as 97% of stars are white dwarfs. As stars reach the end of their lives, their cores collapse into the dense ball of a whi.....»»