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Categories: Biology: General, Environmental: Water

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     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The Epstein-Barr virus can cause a spectrum of diseases, including a range of cancers. Emerging data now show that inhibition of a specific metabolic pathway in infected cells can diminish latent infection and therefore the risk of downstream disease.

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A new study shows that the use of psilocybin, a compound found in the widely known 'magic mushrooms,' initiates a pattern of hyperconnectivity in the brain linked to the ego-modifying effects and feelings of oceanic boundlessness. The findings help explain the so-called mystical experiences people report during the use of psychedelics and are pertinent to the psychotherapeutic applications of psychedelic drugs to treat psychiatric disorders such as depression.

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Biologists have provided new insights on a longstanding puzzle in biology: How complex organisms arise from a single fertilized cell. Producing a new 'gene atlas' with 4-D imaging, the researchers captured unprecedented insights on how embryonic development unfolds.

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With Ontario's eight species of turtles considered at risk, a new nest designed by researchers has the potential to significantly bolster their struggling populations. The habitat is the first designed for turtles in rock barren landscapes, such as the research site around Georgian Bay. It uses moss and lichen. The researchers found that the design provided a more stable environment for incubating eggs compared to natural sites, where the probability of an egg hatching was only 10 per cent compared to 41 per cent in the created site.

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Humans have been long fascinated by bird song and the cacophony of other avian sounds -- from coos and honks to quacks and peeps. But little is known about how the unique vocal organ of birds -- the syrinx -- varies from species to species or its deeper evolutionary origins. A trio of recent studies is changing that. The studies include high-resolution anatomical scans of syrinxes from hummingbirds and ostriches -- the world's smallest and largest bird species -- and the discovery that the syrinx and larynx, the vocal organ of reptiles and mammals, including humans, share the same developmental programming.

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Researchers have developed a quantitative real-time PCR-based detection method for the emerging zoonotic organism Escherichia albertii. They found that E. albertii survives in the human intestinal tract for about four weeks at least.

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Multicellular organisms, like animals and plants, have complex cells with diverse functions. This complexity arises from the need for cells to produce distinct proteins that interact with each other. This interaction is crucial for cells to carry out their specific tasks and to form complex molecular machinery. However, our current understanding of such protein-protein interactions often lacks cellular contexts because they were usually studied in an in vitro system or in cells isolated from their tissue environment. Effective methods to investigate protein-protein interactions in a tissue-specific manner are largely missing.

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Water scarcity will intensify with climate and socioeconomic change, disproportionately impacting populations located in the Global South.

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Constantly on the hunt for food: Harbor porpoises more vulnerable than previously thought to the disturbances from humans. The small whales spend more than 60 percent of their day hunting small fish to stay warm in the cold waters. New research shows that harbor porpoises spend little energy on this hunting strategy, but that it makes them vulnerable to human disturbance.

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Treatment of autoimmune diseases like lupus has long relied on steroids to knock down the immune system, but more targeted therapies are currently undergoing clinical trials. To make sure these therapies get to the patients who will benefit, work is needed to identify the specific mutations behind each patient's disease. Researchers now report several dozen mutations associated with oversensitive toll-like receptors -- a major cause of autoimmune disease -- and linked two mutations to patients.

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Members of the vertebrate group including anglerfishes are unique in possessing a characteristic known as sexual parasitism, in which males temporarily attach or permanently fuse with females to mate. Now, researchers show that sexual parasitism arose during a time of major global warming and rapid transition for anglerfishes from the ocean floor to the deep, open sea.

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The Colorado River makes life possible in many Western cities and supports agriculture that sustains people throughout the country. Most of the river's water begins as snowmelt from the mountainous watersheds of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, and a warming climate will drastically reduce these streamflows, new research finds.

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Southern California's iconic sandy coastlines are vanishing at an alarming rate, and it's a warning sign for coastal communities worldwide, new research suggests.

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Community science volunteers -- laypeople with an interest in bees and conservation -- significantly contribute to the scientific knowledge of native bumble bees across Canada and the United States. It's buzz worthy confirmation that community science programs can play an important role in monitoring the changing distributions of bumble bees and more.

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Animals and fungi predominantly use two different modes of cell division -- called open and closed mitosis, respectively. A new study has shown that different species of Ichthyosporea -- marine protists that are close relatives of both animals and fungi -- use either open and closed mitosis, closely correlated to whether the species has multinucleate life cycle stages. The study demonstrates the way animals do cell division might have evolved long before animals themselves did and how this is linked to an organism's life cycle.

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Researchers found that adding a newly developed modified sugar, BNAP-AEO, to gapmer antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) increased their affinity for target RNAs, thus significantly enhancing their gene-silencing effects in vitro and in vivo. The BNAP-AEO modification also decreased gapmer ASO toxicity to the central nervous system (CNS), suggesting that it could improve the clinical application of ASO treatment of CNS disease.

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A new study demonstrates that kangaroos, wallabies and other Australian marsupials fear humans far more than any other predator.

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A new study shows that real-world ocean conditions make a huge difference in how viral infection affects host bacteria. The findings indicate it is very important to study cells and virocells under nutrient conditions that more closely resemble what they encounter in nature.

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Researchers have developed a method to produce very low emission concrete at scale -- an innovation that could be transformative in the transition to net zero. The method, which the researchers say is 'an absolute miracle', uses the electrically-powered arc furnaces used for steel recycling to simultaneously recycle cement, the carbon-hungry component of concrete.

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As much as 70 percent of California was covered by wildfire smoke during parts of 2020 and 2021, according to a new study.