ScienceDaily: Plants & Animals News

Researchers have sequenced the genome of the dry jujube. They identified the genomic region that underlies the sugar and acid content of the fruits -- a key factor in jujube domestication -- as well as genes involved in fruit texture and breeding compatibility. The genome will serve as a resource for jujube breeding efforts.

A sophisticated new type of 'tag' on whales that can record data every second for hours, days and weeks at a time provides a view of whale behavior, biology and travels never before possible, scientists reported today in a new study. The data are also making whales partners in the study of climate change.

A cellular gatekeeper for water molecules finds new use in magnetic resonance imaging, a new report explains.

“Algae for a Healthy World” is born, a consortium to produce biocompounds with food applications from microalgae. Researchers have met to formalize the commencement of the project, whose aim encompasses the development of the necessary biotechnological tools to improve and to optimize the production of biomass of marine origin.

Using ultrafast imaging of moving energy in photosynthesis, scientists have determined the speed of crucial processes for the first time. This should help scientists understand how nature has perfected the process of photosynthesis, and how this might be copied to produce fuels by artificial photosynthesis.

A team of researchers and fishermen used video and audio recordings to observe false killer whales removing fish from a longline fishing hook, a behavior known as depredation.

Researchers have uncovered the mechanism that cells use to find and destroy an organelle called mitochondria that, when damaged, may lead to genetic problems, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, inflammatory disease, and aging.

Why is the diversity of animals and plants so unevenly distributed on our planet? An international research team of researchers has provided new data on this core issue of ecology. They found biodiversity to be driven by temperature.

New research reveals the molecular composition of firefly "nuptial gifts", offering the first peek into the content of these special packages and shedding new light on post-mating sexual selection.

Reserachers are using mathematical models to explain how bacteria and cancer cells exploit an evolutionary process known as bet-hedging to resist medical intervention.

Scientists have published a description of a new species of coral-reef fish that they named in honor of President Barack Obama. The fish, formally named Tosanoides obama, was discovered during a June 2016 NOAA expedition to the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

It isn't an animal, a plant, or a fungus. The slime mold (Physarum polycephalum) is a strange, creeping, bloblike organism made up of one giant cell. Though it has no brain, it can learn from experience, as biologists have demonstrated. Now the same team of scientists has gone a step further, proving that a slime mold can transmit what it has learned to a fellow slime mold when the two combine.

Many biological processes in cells function solely due to the phenomenon of diffusion. This ensures that particles are able to move randomly and aimlessly on the basis of their thermal energy alone. In this way, protein molecules get into close enough proximity to each other to, for example, carry out metabolic processes only achievable when acting together. A team of international researchers has now shown that weak attraction forces between proteins can enormously influence diffusion, if the protein molecules are as densely concentrated as under natural conditions in living cells.