source: Phys.org Researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) have at last uncovered how an enzyme called O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT) keeps cells healthy. Their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, reveal a key aspect of cellular biology and may lead to important medical advances. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org In the continuing effort to improve upon opioid pain relievers, American and Chinese scientists used cryoEM technology to solve the detailed structures of the entire family of opioid receptors bound to their naturally occurring peptides. Subsequent structure-guided biochemical studies were then performed to better understand the mechanisms of peptide-receptor selectivity and signaling drugs. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org In human society, reward and punishment are introduced as an incentive to induce cooperation. However, some people still try to cheat to win. So, is there a system with clear rewards and punishments in the world of other organisms? The answer is “yes.” Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org A new theory for how rocky planets form could explain the origin of so-called “super-Earths”—a class of exoplanets a few times more massive than Earth that are the most abundant type of planet in the galaxy. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Many important decisions boil down to a choice between the supposed safety of sticking with what we know and the risk of going out on a limb for a chance at getting something even better. Though risk-taking preferences vary between individuals, research with humans points toward several key findings: Young people like to take more risks, males tend toward more risky behaviors than females, and we’re all generally less willing to take risks in situations with more ambiguous outcomes.

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source: Phys.org Why are Black people three to four times more likely than white people to be arrested in Portland and South Portland, Maine? Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org It can pogo-stick along at 50-plus miles per hour, leaping 30-odd feet in a single bound. But that platinum-medal athleticism falls by the wayside at a sub-Saharan riverside, the source of life and death for the skittish impala stilling itself for a drink in 100-degree heat. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org The rise of the far right in Western democracies in recent years has revived interest in how these movements and parties engage in politics. Given the generalizations that indicate that these ideologies are only constructed based on hate speech, two researchers at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) argue that this political tendency in Spain also uses love and other positive feelings to a great extent, although it does so from its own perspective, which is based around the family, the nation and equality.

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source: Phys.org Hummingbirds, native to North and South America, are among the smallest and most agile birds in the world. Often barely larger than a thumb, they are the only bird species that can fly not only forwards, but also backwards or sideways. Their characteristic hovering flight makes that possible. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Proteins can make any inventor green with envy. It is proteins that make the body work. But when these same super-substances make mistakes, we may get sick with things like cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. The job of researchers is to sort out the proteins when they malfunction. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org When a spacecraft enters a thick atmosphere at a high velocity, it rapidly compresses the gas in front of it. This creates temperatures high enough to ionize the gas molecules into a hot, dense plasma. To protect against damage, spacecraft are typically covered by a heat shield material that burns in a controlled manner. This process is called ablation. Though current materials are effective for present-day missions, future missions require better heat shields.

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source: Phys.org A chemical used in the production of toilet paper and ‘forever chemicals’ have been found in the bodies of orcas in B.C. , including the endangered southern resident killer whales. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Investigators at University Medical Center Utrecht (the Netherlands) and Yale University (USA) have isolated and characterized two new bacterial species from patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The previously unknown bacterial species, which were named Allobaculum mucilyticum and Allobaculum fili, were isolated from the intestinal microbiota from two different patients and are the first members of the Allobaculum genus found in humans. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org The US government is examining 510 UFO reports, over triple the number in its 2021 file, and while many were caused by drones or balloons, hundreds remain unexplained, according to a report released Thursday. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org The ocean can be a dangerous place, even for a shark. Despite sitting at the top of the food chain, these predators are now reeling from destructive human activities like overfishing, pollution and climate change. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Virgin Orbit said Thursday its first attempt to launch satellites into orbit from the U.K. failed after its rocket’s upper stage prematurely shut down. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org News headlines such as “Why More Women Are Choosing to Stay Single Now,” “Craving Freedom, Japan’s Women Opt Out of Marriage,” “Nearly Half of Canadians Feel “Marriage is Simply Not Necessary,'” and “Chileans are Marrying Less and Later,” would make it seem marriage is at a risk of survival all over the world. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org The male reproductive system serves as a hotspot for the emergence of new genes. Perhaps that explains why more new mutations are inherited from fathers than from mothers. It doesn’t, however, clarify why older fathers pass on more mutations than younger ones do. The mechanisms that might underlie these well-documented trends have long remained a mystery. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org “Suppose you knew everything there was to know about a water molecule—the chemical formula, the bond angle, etc.,” says Joseph Thywissen, a professor in the Department of Physics and a member of the Centre for Quantum Information & Quantum Control at the University of Toronto. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Less-educated U.S. workers often face a lifetime of financial challenges, but some among them are more disadvantaged than others: Young Asian and white men without college education are paid more—sometimes far more—than both Black men and women of all racial groups, according to a new study co-authored at UC Berkeley. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Morgan Ruelle was living in the remote mountains of Ethiopia in 2011, researching his dissertation on food diversity, when he kept hearing about a crop that confused him. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org As humans, we share many characteristics with bonobos, who together with chimpanzees are the ape species that are most closely related to us. There are a lot of similarities in our social behavior, but also some remarkable differences. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org By at least one measure, China now leads the world in producing high-quality science. My research shows that Chinese scholars now publish a larger fraction of the top 1% most cited scientific papers globally than scientists from any other country. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Gene expression rewiring often contributes to phenotypic evolution between newly diverged species. Changes in gene expression patterns can be caused by mutations in either cis-regulatory regions (promoter) of the gene itself or trans-acting regulatory genes (transcription factors). However, the effects of cis-and trans-regulatory variants at the whole genome level of gene expression leading to phenotypic differentiation in floral organs during the closely related newly diverged species are not very clear.

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source: Phys.org Astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) have unveiled a first-of-its-kind map that could help answer decades-old questions about the origins of stars and the influences of magnetic fields in the cosmos. Read Full Article Here

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