ScienceDaily: Plants & Animals News

Researchers may have developed long-lived biological computers that could potentially persist inside cells. Researchers forgo the traditional DNA-based approach, opting instead to use the nucleic acid RNA to build computers. The results demonstrate that the RNA circuits are as dependable and versatile as their DNA-based counterparts. What's more, living cells may be able to create these RNA circuits continuously, something that is not readily possible with DNA circuits.

In a new study, researchers report that a group of cone snails produces a venom compound similar to the protein somatostatin. While they continue to learn more about this venom compound and its possible pharmaceutical applications, the results show the wide variety of drug leads that venomous animals produce, which they've designed and refined over millions of years.

One of the great mysteries of late medieval history is why did the Norse, who had established successful settlements in southern Greenland in 985, abandon them in the early 15th century? The consensus view has long been that colder temperatures, associated with the Little Ice Age, helped make the colonies unsustainable. However, new research upends that old theory. It wasn't dropping temperatures that helped drive the Norse from Greenland, but drought.

Spinosaurus is the largest predatory dinosaur known -- over two metres longer than the longest Tyrannosaurus rex -- but the way it hunted has been a subject of debate for decades. In a new paper, palaeontologists have taken a different approach to decipher the lifestyle of long-extinct creatures: examining the density of their bones.

Immune cells are our body's police force, but how can they reach the crime scene fast? Researchers have now discovered a new protein that boosts energy production inside immune cells and thus increases their power to invade. Apart from improving immune responses, the results could revolutionize our understanding of energy regulation in cells throughout the human body.

A study in mice and lab-grown cells finds sulforaphane could help prevent and treat illnesses caused by certain coronaviruses, including COVID-19.

How does one help save an iconic, nutritious Egyptian crop that will help meet the food security challenges resulting from climate change? An international team of researchers discovered that the best way to start is to drive throughout central and northeastern Egypt, knock on the doors of small farmers, and ask for a handful of their pumpkin seeds.

Although many wild birds carry Salmonella, the strains of the bacteria they convey usually do not harbor antimicrobial-resistance genes, according to researchers.

Researchers were inspired by marinated eggs to demonstrate how diffusion works in an easy and quantifiable way. The basis of the recipe is marinating hard boiled eggs in vinegar or brine, which cures the eggs by sufficiently saturating the egg whites via diffusion. In their experiment, the researchers compared penetration levels of red food dye in the whites of peeled hard-boiled eggs at three different temperatures: refrigerator temperature, room temperature, and in a cool convection oven.

Researchers are calling for new national planning policies to mandate the inclusion of trees in any future housing developments and architectural designs.

Scientists have found that humans might give viruses back to animals more often than previously understood.

Tiny predatory bacteria attack microorganisms. These ultramicrobacteria are widely distributed, for example, in sewage treatment plants and in the seafloor.

Researchers have found that beetles first roamed the world in the Carboniferous and later diversified alongside the earliest dinosaurs during the Triassic and Jurassic.