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Plants feed us. Without them we're goners. Through thousands of years of genetic modification by selective breeding, humans have developed the crops that keep us alive. We have large kernels of grains, plump fruits and nutritious, toxin-free vegetables. These…

When Yang Yu, VG16, arrived in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in southern Qinghai, China, the first thing she noticed was the dogs. Huge and black with thick ruffs of fur like lions' manes, Tibetan mastiffs were everywhere. Many were leashed, lying in…

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday called on Brazilian lawmakers to reject a proposed law to relax regulations on the use of pesticides as it published a report blaming powerful landowners for the poisoning of rural residents.

Under warmer conditions, plants can take up more carbon dioxide by using carbon more efficiently for growth, shows a new study.

The Endangered Species Act, or "the Act," is arguably the most important law in the United States for conserving biodiversity and arresting the extinction of species.

Elementary cytoskeleton protein is different in parasites and represents a starting point for a possible new therapy against malaria infections. Researchers from the Heidelberg University Hospital, the Centre for Molecular Biology at the University of…

The US administration of President Donald Trump on Thursday proposed sweeping changes to the 45-year-old Endangered Species Act which would roll back protections for threatened animals, sparking alarm by environmentalists.

Tubular colonial jellies known as pyrosomes that arrived in 2014 along North America's Pacific Northwest Coast appear to be adapting to cooler water and may become permanent residents.

In a perspective published in the July 20 issue of Science, Neal Stewart and his University of Tennessee coauthors explore the future of houseplants as aesthetically pleasing and functional sirens of home health.

In 2012, environmental systems graduate student Lauren Schiebelhut was collecting DNA from ochre sea stars living along the Northern California coast—part of an effort to study genetic diversity in various marine species that serve as indicators of habitat…

As temperatures soar to record levels across much of the world, many people are complaining that it's hot enough to fry an egg outdoors. Thirty-degree heat may be too much for some, but for others it's just the ticket. Crocodile conservationists in Cambodia…

The Amazon and the adjacent Andean slopes in South America host an astonishing richness of plants and animals. These species have been sources of food, shelter and medicine since the arrival of humans and a target of scientific curiosity since the days of the…

Tremendous advancement of basic biological knowledge has come from genetically manipulating model organisms to test mechanistic hypotheses. But the selection of traditional model organisms available offers a limited view of biological diversity, meaning that…

UC San Francisco scientists have used a high-throughput CRISPR-based technique to rapidly map the functions of nearly 500 genes in human cells, many of them never before studied in detail.

Led by Benoit Vanhollebeke, WELBIO investigator at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), the Laboratory of Neurovascular Signaling has solved an important enigma of cell signaling related to Wnt signaling specificity.

Researchers from The University of Western Australia and the Australian National University have uncovered new evidence that suggests dingoes arrived in Australia between 3,348 and 3,081 years ago, more recently than previously thought.

The idea of bacteria as diverse, complex perceptive entities that can hunt prey in packs, remember past experiences and interact with the moods and perceptions of their human hosts sounds like the plot of some low-budget science fiction movie. But these are…

North America's biggest marine protected area—Mexico's Revillagigedo National Park—may have been nearly seven times smaller if not for shark-tracking data collected by researchers and alumni from the University of California, Davis.

Many animals rely on vision to detect, locate, and track moving objects. Male Drosophila fruit flies primarily use visual cues to stay close to a female and to direct their courtship song towards her. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in…

A Purdue University study has mapped a complex series of pathways that control the shape of plant cells. The findings are an important step toward customizing how plants grow to suit particular agronomic needs and improving the quality of the cotton grown in…

To achieve success in agriculture, large expenditures are required for irrigation, fertilizing, pest control, etc. However, these costs are not always justified, since plants growing in different parts of the field can differ significantly in terms of water…

Studies indicate that more than 95 percent of researchers in the life sciences are already working with big data or plan to do so—but more than 65 percent state that they only have minimal knowledge of bioinformatics and statistics. "Many are currently…

Cells curb the amount of specific proteins at any desired time via the control of mRNA degradation. As mRNA nucleotides tail plays a role in this process, biologists at the Center for RNA Research, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS, South Korea),…

Janelle Ayres, a rising star at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, has collected her second honor in a month—one which brings $1 million to fund her microbial research.

The Trump administration on Thursday proposed ending automatic protections for threatened animal and plant species and limiting habitat safeguards that are meant to shield recovering species from harm.

Caddisflies, crustaceans, mollusks and flatworms. Those are just a few of the curious creatures known as benthic (bottom-dwelling) invertebrates and commonly found in small streams. Fingernail clams and oligochaetes are part of the menagerie, too.

Fruit flies from different species can warn each other when parasitic wasps are near. But according to a new study led by Balint Z. Kacsoh of Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, published July 19th in PLOS Genetics, they are more likely to get the message…

Understanding the many factors that have played into shaping the biodiversity within Earth's ecosystems can be daunting. In a major step to that end, an international team of researchers built a computer simulation that takes into account many of the…

An international group of researchers have raised the viability of mice that were cloned using a method called somatic cell nuclear transfer, by stimulating two epigenetic factors, and by doing this have shown that creating cloned animals more efficiently will…

To investigate the scavenging behaviour first author Bryndan van Pinxteren of the University of Amsterdam analysed all video material from the camera traps by scoring the visiting behaviour of mangabey monkeys, fowl species and squirrels to chimpanzee…