ScienceDaily: Plants & Animals News

A new study reveals that high-grade gliomas, or brain tumors, in dogs contained more immune cells associated with suppressing immune response than low-grade gliomas.

Researchers have devised a new 'greener' method to make a key compound in fertilizer, and that may pave the way to a more sustainable agricultural practice as global food demand rises.

Unprecedented visualizations of SARS-CoV-2 have allowed researchers to discover how the virus enters and infects healthy human cells. Supercomputing movies have revealed how glycans -- molecules that make up a sugary residue around the edges of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein -- act as infection 'gates' that open to allow access to our cell's receptors.

Researchers have found antibodies that protect against specific mosquito-borne viruses that cause arthritis and brain infections. The findings could lead to a universal therapy or vaccine for the viruses.

Rattlesnakes increase their rattling rate as potential threats approach, and this abrupt switch to a high-frequency mode makes listeners, including humans, think they're closer than they actually are, researchers report.

New research shows how deforestation and population growth have greatly impacted landslide risk in the Kivu Rift. This is what researchers established from an analysis of six decades of forest cover and population trends in the region.

Teenagers who use cannabis frequently may be more likely to have children born preterm, when they become parents up to twenty years later, finds a new study. The research repeatedly assessed 665 participants in a general population cohort on their tobacco and cannabis use between ages 14 to 29 years, before pregnancy.

Scientists have used CT scans to digitally reconstruct the brain, inner ear, and surrounding bones (known as the braincase) of two well-preserved Daspletosaurus specimens. This massive tyrannosaur lived in the coastal forest of what is now Alberta around 75 million years ago -- preceding the more famous T. rex by about 10 million years. Their results suggest that dinosaur brains, and the bones enclosing and protecting, them vary more than previously thought within species, or among closely related species.

A new study confirms that for millennia, Indigenous people managed their relationship with shellfish and sea otters to safeguard their access to shellfish which remain important for food, social, and ceremonial uses today.

Scientists are developing new fish vaccines using nanocellulose produced from Maine's wood pulp industry. Nanocellulose poses no known harmful effects to fish tissue and is unlikely to cause cellular damage. Fish vaccines made with nanocellulose may also be more effective and less expensive to produce than current vaccines made with adjuvants that are water and oil based, according to researchers.

Eating fructose appears to alter cells in the digestive tract in a way that enables it to take in more nutrients, according to a preclinical study. These changes could help to explain the well-known link between rising fructose consumption around the world and increased rates of obesity and certain cancers.

(Gatersleben, 17.08.2021) Genetic data stored in genebanks confirm that pepper, thanks to its flexible features (easily preserved and transportable in dried form, needed in moderate quantity to enrich dishes, easy to produce and wide scale) has been spread along with the very earliest intercontinental traders, being among the first examples of a globally-traded, mass-market, consumer-discretionary good. These are the conclusions of a study conducted by an international team in which IPK Leibniz Institute researchers played a central role, the results of which have now been published in the magazine PNAS.