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Categories: Biology: Genetics, Ecology: Sea Life

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Scientists are trying to raise as many urchins as possible because they eat algae that could otherwise smother reef ecosystems and kill corals. Researchers have identified algae on which larval sea urchins grow into juveniles in a lab setting.

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Scientists identify a new and surprising function of a membrane protein on the surface of cancer cells: It supports and stabilizes an important 'co-stimulatory' factor that enhances the activation of T cells, thus improving the immune response against the tumor.

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Sitting calmly in their webs, many spiders wait for prey to come to them. Arachnids along lakes and rivers eat aquatic insects, such as dragonflies. But, when these insects live in mercury-contaminated waterways, they can pass the metal along to the spiders that feed on them. Now, researchers have demonstrated how some shoreline spiders can move mercury contamination from riverbeds up the food chain to land animals.

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HIV anti-retroviral therapy is considered a treatment and not a cure because patients usually carry a reservoir of HIV-infected cells that can re-emerge if treatment stops. These reservoirs have long been thought to be dormant, but two independent groups of researchers report that a subset of these cells spontaneously produce HIV RNA and proteins that may impact patients' HIV-specific immune responses.

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A new article uses environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding to analyze fish and zooplankton communities. The study found that the movement of water between freshwater bodies, or freshwater connectivity, can transport eDNA. This highlights the potential of eDNA to provide a comprehensive view of freshwater biodiversity.

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Researchers have produced a comprehensive picture of insulin signalling in mice and suggest that it is shaped by entangled effects of genetics and diet.

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Researchers have uncovered new genetic insights into Staphylococcus aureus, revealing what makes the bacterium so dangerous when it enters the blood.

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Peppers are a versatile, flavorful, and widely popular crop, used not only as a healthy food source but also for their medicinal properties. Scientists have now sequenced the genomes of key cultivated and wild pepper species, offering unprecedented insights into pepper evolution, domestication, and genetic diversity.

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Researchers are assessing the efficacy of shark sanctuaries by developing a modeling system that utilizes publicly accessible fishing data to determine shark catch and mortality rates. Their findings represent an important step in utilizing data science to tackle oceanic conservation challenges.

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More than 400 million years ago, an insect-like animal called the springtail developed a small protein that prevents its cells from freezing.

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Root hairs represent a low-cost strategy to enhance nutrient uptake because they can significantly increase the nutrient-acquiring surface of plant roots. While primary and lateral roots are stimulated to elongate when plants grow under mild nitrogen deficiency, the existence of such a foraging response for root hairs and its underlying regulatory mechanism remain elusive. Now, researchers have revealed a framework composed of specific molecular players meditating auxin synthesis, transport and signaling that triggers root hair elongation for nitrogen acquisition.

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A herring in the North Sea, a crab in the Wadden Sea or an anemone fish on a coral reef, ... biologists like to think in terms of individual species that all have their own place within food webs in ecosystems across the world. 'But that is surely too simplistic thinking,' researchers warn.

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The sun and the sea -- both abundant and free -- are being harnessed in a unique project to create vertical sea farms floating on the ocean that can produce fresh water for drinking and agriculture.

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A new study presents genomic evidence of hybridization between two closely related species of sea stars -- Asterias rubens, the common starfish, and Asterias forbesi, known as Forbes' sea star.

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Researchers have unveiled an intriguing phenomenon of cellular reprogramming in mature adult organs, shedding light on a novel mechanism of adaptive growth. The study, which was conducted on fruit flies (Drosophila), provides further insights into dedifferentiation -- where specialized cells that have specific functions transform into less specialized, undifferentiated cells like stem cells.

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Researchers have developed a new imaging technique to observe active gene expression in real time. They found that four molecules work together to control the timing of each stage of the C. elegans worm's development. This timekeeping process could provide important clues about the natural rhythm of development in humans and other animals.

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An international consortium of scientists is using an unprecedentedly large database of canine DNA to take an unbiased look at how our furry friends evolved into the various breeds we know and love.

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In many animals, including ants, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) ensures normal brain function by controlling the movement of various substances in and out of the brain. Now, researchers have made the unexpected discovery that the BBB in carpenter ants plays an active role in controlling behavior that's essential to the function of entire ant colonies. The key is production in the BBB of a particular hormone-degrading enzyme.

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By adding synergistic self-adjuvanting properties to COVID-19 RNA vaccines, researchers showed they could significantly boost the immune response generated in mice.

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Genetic manipulation of a puzzling, miniscule bacteria that has lived in human mouths at least since the Middle Stone Age is elucidating the genes needed for its unusual lifestyle. These Patescibacteria in the human oral microbiome reside on the surface of another, larger host microbe. Found in many water and land environments, Patescibacteria in general lack the genes required to make many molecules necessary for life, such as the amino acids that make up proteins, the fatty acids that form membranes, and the nucleotides in DNA. This has led researchers to speculate that many of them rely on other bacteria to grow. In a new study, researchers present the first glimpse into the molecular mechanisms behind their relationship with their host cells. They also share details gleaned from fluorescent, time-lapse microsopic imaging of these bacteria as they bud and send out swarms of tiny progeny, only a fraction of which are able to establish a host relationship.