The western diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox) from southern Arizona and other areas of the U.S. Southwest has been seen emerging from its den to harvest rain, sleet, and even snow. The snake flattens its body and often forms a tight coil, presumably to maximize the area for water-gathering. As rain droplets coalesce on its back, the slithery reptile sucks water from the scales. Gordon Schuett, Konrad Rykaczewski, and colleagues wanted to take a closer look at rattlesnake scales to determine what makes these serpents so adept at harvesting precipitation....

In the April issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution, a group of researchers including Emmanuel Noutahi, Virginie Calderon, Mathieu Blanchette, Nadia El-Mabrouk, and Bernd Franz Lang from the Universite de Montreal, Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montreal, and McGill University published an analysis of the mitochondrial genomes of 51 green algae and land plants (Noutahi et al. 2019). This analysis relied on a newly expanded version of the bioinformatics tool CoreTracker, which was previously developed by this group (Noutahi et al....

The reason why some people tend to respond to treatments that have no active ingredients might be down to genetics. A new study indicates that the placebo effect could be linked to a genetic component. The scientists published their findings in the journal PLoS ONE. The placebo effect was examined in 104 patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Those with a particular version of the COMT gene saw an improvement in their health after placebo acupuncture, in which the needles never pierced the skin....

In some ways, learning to program a computer is similar to learning a new language. It requires learning new symbols and terms, which must be organized correctly to instruct the computer what to do. The computer code must also be clear enough that other programmers can read and understand it. In spite of those similarities, MIT neuroscientists have found that reading computer code does not activate the regions of the brain that are involved in language processing....

University of Johannesburg researchers decoded how priming enhances the ‘security system’ of plants for a much stronger, faster defense. Using metabolomics and machine learning algorithms, they identified changes in the sorghum plant’s chemical response to fungal attack. The low-cost approach can be used to counter other pathogens in economically important food crops. Fungus modus operandi The fungus Colletotrichum sublineolum sneaks up to its host in many ways. It may have been hanging around for years in the soil, on decaying plant matter or on equipment....

By measuring the body length, width, and height of free-living southern right whales photographed by drones, researchers were able to develop a model that accurately calculated the body volume and mass of the whales. Because of their large size and aquatic life, previously the only way to obtain data on the body mass of whales was to weigh dead or stranded individuals. “Knowing the body mass of free-living whales opens up new avenues of research,” says Fredrik Christiansen, an assistant professor at AIAS and lead author of the study, which was funded by a research grant from the National Geographic Society....

The scientists used the National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia to study a giant cloud of gas some 25,000 light-years from Earth, near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The chemicals they found in that cloud include a molecule thought to be a precursor to a key component of DNA and another that may have a role in the formation of the amino acid alanine....

A team of researchers from the University of Malaga (UMA) and the University of Jaen (UJA) has uncovered Egypt’s oldest tomb aligned with the winter solstice. The tomb, situated in the necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa in Aswan, is perfectly oriented towards the sunrise of the winter solstice, bathing the tomb with light and marking the final resting place of a governor of the city of Elephantine, who lived during the end of the XII Dynasty, around 1830 B....

A clinical trial conducted by Scripps Research Institute has revealed that apremilast, an FDA-approved medication for the treatment of psoriasis, significantly reduces alcohol intake by over 50% in individuals with severe alcohol use disorder (AUD). In addition, researchers from Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) and other institutions found that in mice, apremilast increases activity in a region of the brain known to play a role in AUD. The research was recently published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation....

In a “first of its kind” study, researchers also found a potential direct connection between neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), glaucoma, and the herpesvirus, said Dr. Deepak Shukla, the Marion H. Schenk Esq. Professor in Ophthalmology for Research of the Aging Eye, and vice chair for research at UIC. The research paper, “OPTN is a host intrinsic restriction factor against neuroinvasive HSV-1 infection,” led by Shukla, was published recently in the journal Nature Communications....

In fossil remnants of iron-loving bacteria, researchers of the Cluster of Excellence Origin and Structure of the Universe at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM), found a radioactive iron isotope that they trace back to a supernova in our cosmic neighborhood. This is the first proven biological signature of a starburst on our earth. The age determination of the deep-drill core from the Pacific Ocean showed that the supernova must have occurred about 2....

A team of researchers led by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has identified a protein with broad virus-fighting properties that potentially could be used as a weapon against deadly human pathogenic viruses such as HIV, Ebola, Rift Valley Fever, Nipah and others designated “priority pathogens” for national biosecurity purposes by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. In a study published in the January issue of the journal Immunity, the researchers describe the novel antiviral property of the protein, cholesterol-25-hydroxylase (CH25H), an enzyme that converts cholesterol to an oxysterol called 25-hydroxycholesterol (25HC), which can permeate a cell’s wall and block a virus from getting in....

A study published in Functional Ecology has shown for the first time that a species of ant has the remarkable ability to adapt its tool use. When provided with small containers of sugar water, black imported fire ants were able to float and feed on the surface, but when researchers reduced the surface tension, the ants started depositing sand grains on the inside of the container leading out of it....

Scientists, policymakers, and healthcare workers are eager to discern to what extent COVID-19 may be seasonal. Understanding this aspect of the disease could guide our response to the pandemic. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have found evidence that the spread of COVID-19 is sensitive to UV exposure. While this suggests that COVID-19 may vary with the seasons, there are other seasonal factors — such as temperature, specific humidity and precipitation — whose effects are uncertain given the available data....

The research was mainly carried out by Tuomas Ollikainen, a Ph.D. student at Aalto University who split his time between carrying out experimental work in Amherst in Massachusetts, and analyzing the data and developing his theories at Aalto. “We hadn’t been able to study the dynamics of these sorts of three-dimensional structures experimentally before, so this is the first step in this direction,” says Ollikainen. “The fact that the knot decays is surprising, since topological structures like quantum knots are typically exceptionally stable....

The instrument, named Alice, began mapping the comet’s surface last month, recording the first far-ultraviolet light spectra of the comet’s surface. From the data, the Alice team discovered the comet is unusually dark – darker than charcoal-black – when viewed in ultraviolet wavelengths. Alice also detected both hydrogen and oxygen in the comet’s coma, or atmosphere. Rosetta scientists also discovered the comet’s surface so far shows no large water-ice patches....

In the resort town Mallacoota, Australia, wildfires surrounded the southeastern seaside town. Over 4,000 people were forced to seek refuge on the beach and even boats in the water yesterday as deadly blazes closed in. The scene was described by residents as apocalyptic, with the sky turning a dark orange. On the major fire updates page of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service page (this is discounting more fires that have plagued the states of Victoria and Queensland) there are nearly 1....

In a recent article in the Journal of Osteopathic Medicine, authors gathered previously published research to summarize current thinking on the feasibility and efficacy of using scent detection dogs to screen for the COVID-19 virus. The researchers report that sensitivity, specificity, and overall success rates reported by the canine scent detection studies are comparable or better than the standard RT-PCR and antigen testing procedures. These findings indicate scent detection dogs can likely be used to effectively screen and identify individuals infected with the COVID-19 virus in hospitals, senior care facilities, schools, universities, airports, and even large public gatherings for sporting events and concerts....

Scientists cannot be expected to drop everything they’re working on to turn their attention to beating COVID-19, according to the winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Professor Sir Peter Ratcliffe. Speaking before he delivered the prestigious Michel Clavel lecture to the 32nd EORTC-NCI-AACR [1] Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, which was due to take place in Barcelona, Spain, and was moved online because of the coronavirus pandemic, Sir Peter said: “There is a belief in some quarters that the whole world of science should stop what it’s doing and work on coronavirus....

A research project led by Joseph R. Michalski, Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, has identified what could be a supervolcano on Mars – the first discovery of its kind. In a paper published October 3 in the journal Nature, Michalski and co-author Jacob E. Bleacher of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center describe a new type of volcanic construction on Mars that until now has gone unrecognized. The volcano in question, a vast circular basin on the face of the Red Planet, previously had been classified as an impact crater....