Global warming has forced alpine chipmunks in Yosemite to higher ground, prompting a startling decline in the species' genetic diversity, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.
In two landmark papers in the journal Nature this week, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute report that they have identified a class of proteins that detect "painful touch."
Lake Fitri is an endorheic or “terminal†lake in the southern Sahara Desert. Deserts get so little rainfall that the rivers passing through them often cannot reach the sea, instead ending at depressions in the land surface where they form lakes.
-New connections between brain cells emerge in clusters in the brain as animals learn to perform a new task, according to a study published in Nature on February 19 (advance online publication). Led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the study reveals details of how brain ci...
In a standard biology textbook, cells tend to look more or less the same from all sides. But in real life cells have fronts and backs, tops and bottoms, and they orient many of their structures according to this polarity explaining, for example, why yeast cells bud at one end and not the other.
Pulsars, superdense neutron stars, are perhaps the most extraordinary physics laboratories in the Universe. Research on these extreme and exotic objects already has produced two Nobel Prizes. Pulsar researchers now are poised to learn otherwise-unavailable details of nuclear physics, to test General...
We are frequently reminded of the complex challenges Africa faces when it comes to feeding its population, particularly in the sub-Saharan region. Dealing with hunger and famine – let alone broader food security issues – is paramount and needs a global effort. Overcoming these challeng...
The past decade has witnessed a significant growth in Asian air pollution, causing a great concern for air quality and climate. If government policy makers hope to contain the problem, they will need increased research and better computer models of black carbon and other aerosol pollutants, also kno...
Contrary to Earth, our Moon has no active volcanoes, and the traces of its past volcanic activity date from billions of years ago. This is surprising, because recent Moonquake data suggest that there is plenty of liquid magma deep within the Moon because part of the rocks residing there are thought ...
Climate change, economic turmoil and cultural upheaval may be pressing concerns today – but history can teach us how best to respond, research suggests. Scientists studying the past environments and archaeological remains of Greenland and Iceland have been able to analyse how well the Norse ...
Studying the origin of life at its building blocks offers a unique perspective on evolution, says a researcher at Michigan State University. Robert Root-Bernstein, MSU physiology professor, will answer the question of why a physiologist studies the origin of life at the annual meeting of the Americ...
Vulnerability to climate change presents policy challenges to local, state, regional, national and international entities, particularly at a time when the public and policy-makers still struggle conceptually with the complexities of rising ocean levels, falling water tables and shifting ecoclines. H...
