If you’re a plant, and the animals or insects that pollinate you are disappearing or gone, your next best option might be wind pollination, and a new study sheds light on what adaptations are needed to make this transition. Researchers looked at flowers of English plantain, which like most wind-pollinated plants evolved from an animal-pollinated […]
Category: Paper of Interest
New rare genetic disorder traced to early Quebec settlers
A rare genetic disorder can be traced to early settlers in Quebec and their European ancestors according to a new study. Researchers have identified 16 people from Eastern Quebec of French descent who have Chronic Atrial and Intestinal Dysrhythmia. The disorder, also called CAID syndrome, is a combination of heart arrhythmia and intestinal obstruction. Researchers […]
Is ‘antimicrobial clothing’ for real?
Plenty of clothing products purport to kill bacteria that cause disease or damage fabric, but a new study suggests that what works in the lab doesn’t always work in practice. Researchers sealed fabric treated with one of three different antimicrobial agents against the skin of volunteers to see if they would reduce the amount of […]
Taking the pulse of stress
Researchers have discovered that, contrary to what you might think, a less variable heartbeat might be associated with a higher susceptibility to stress. The team recorded heart rate variability in 76 student participants while they were relaxing and while they were thinking about things they tend to worry about most. They also tracked participants’ moods […]
How railways helped AIDS spread in Africa
The HIV pandemic with us today may have begun its global spread from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) around 1920, according to a new study. A team of researchers have reconstructed the genetic history of the HIV virus by analyzing gene sequences found in a major HIV database. The authors […]
A litmus test for bacteria
Researchers have developed a way to use litmus paper – which changes colour to indicate high or low pH – to provide a simple and effective test for bacteria like E. coli. The team used tiny strands of DNA to create probes that are activated in the presence of bacteria. The activated probes then catalyse […]
“Sam McGee’s ashes” found from Europe to Alaska
A 1,200-year-old volcanic eruption in Alaska spread ash as far away as northern Europe, a much wider range than previously thought, according to a new study. The White River Ash originates from an ancient eruption of Mount Bona-Churchill and is found across Alaska and the Yukon. The White River Ash is sometimes called “Sam McGee’s ashes” in […]
How preschoolers choose who to trust
A new study indicates precisely when children begin to use logic instead of emotion to judge how trustworthy someone is. Children four years old and younger tend to believe information provided by a confident adults much more readily than adults who are hesitant. However, the study showed that beginning around age five, children increasingly trust […]
Oil industries and winter ozone pollution
A new study explains the mechanism by which ground-level ozone pollution peaks during winter in oil and gas producing regions. Winter ozone pollution is hard to explain because the summer sunlight is normally needed to spark the chemical reactions that create ground-level ozone. The authors analyzed the chemical reactions happening in the atmosphere during winter in […]
On the origins of the monarch butterfly
Monarch butterflies originated in North America 20,000 years ago at the end of the last glacial maximum before dispersing out to locations around the world, a new study shows. The authors sequenced the whole genome of 101 monarch butterflies from around the world to better understand the genetic basis of its migration patterns. The researchers […]
Roots of culture: How chimps learn from each other
It’s long been suspected that tool use in chimps is passed on socially, but a new study catches them in the act and puts a number on the impact. Researchers observing chimps in Uganda noticed that when one adult male discovered a new way of using leaves and moss to soak up water for drinking, […]
Gold nanoparticle ‘antennae’ could boost solar cell performance
Researchers have created tiny gold antennae that gather and concentrate light in order to increase the efficiency of solar cells by up to ten per cent. Solar cells often don’t absorb very well in the red or infrared part of the solar spectrum. Previous researchers have tried to use gold nanoparticles – which do capture and […]
DNA signature in ice storm babies
A new study has detected a distinctive ‘signature’ in the DNA of children born in the aftermath of the 1998 Quebec ice storm. Five months after the 1998 Quebec ice storm, researchers recruited women who had been pregnant during the disaster and assessed their degrees of distress in a study called Project Ice Storm. Fifteen […]
New “punk-rock” armoured dinosaur species described
Researchers have discovered a new species of ankylosaur in New Mexico that is related to others found in Alberta. The new species is called Ziapelta sanjuanensis and sports unusually tall spikes on the cervical half ring, a structure like a yoke of bone sitting over the neck, which looks a bit like a punk-rock collar. […]
The highs and lows of marijuana use
A new study helps explain why the same drug can have opposite effects at different doses. Using a drug that binds to cannabinoid receptors in the brain – the same ones that are activated by cannabis – researchers showed the precise pathway by which low doses stimulate the brain’s dopamine system, which can lead to […]
David vs. Goliath: How small birds compete
One might think that larger birds invariably win fights with smaller ones, but a new study explains why that is not always the case. Researchers studied vultures at carcasses, hummingbirds at nectar sources, as well as antbirds and woodcreepers at army ant swarms to discover that some small birds have evolved ways to beat their opponents. […]