ScienceDaily: Plants & Animals News

A study has shown species that rely on darkness to forage and feed are losing the gift of camouflage thanks to advances in the lighting used to illuminate the world's cities and coastlines.

Thanks to antiretroviral therapy, HIV infection is no longer the life sentence it once was. But despite the effectiveness of drugs to manage and treat the virus, it can never be fully eliminated from the human body, lingering in some cells deep in different human tissues where it goes unnoticed by the immune system. Now, new research by University of Alberta immunologist Shokrollah Elahi reveals a possible answer to the mystery of why infected people can't get rid of HIV altogether. Elahi and his team found that in HIV patients, killer T cells -- a type of white blood cells responsible for identifying and destroying cells infected with viruses -- have very little to none of a protein called CD73. Because CD73 is responsible for migration and cell movement into the tissue, the lack of the protein compromises the ability of killer T cells to find and eliminate HIV-infected cells, explained Elahi.

Researchers have developed a novel strategy for identifying potent miniature antibodies, so-called nanobodies, against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. The approach led to the discovery of multiple nanobodies that in cell cultures and mice effectively blocked infection with different SARS-CoV-2 variants. The findings could pave the way for new treatments against COVID-19.

Camera traps in the forest canopy document a nocturnal mammal that may be helping Zamia pseudoparasitica survive up in the air.

By comparing century-old eggs preserved in museum collections to modern observations, scientists were able to determine that about a third of the bird species nesting in Chicago have are laying their eggs a month earlier than they were a hundred years ago. As far as the researchers can tell, the culprit in this shift is climate change.

Scientists have long puzzled about a critical way that cells communicate with one another, but researchers have now used a simple roundworm to solve the mystery.

A new type of ultraviolet light that is safe for people destroyed more than 98 percent of airborne microbes in a room within five minutes, a study found.