ScienceDaily: Plants & Animals News

Despite recovery efforts from federal and provincial governments, caribou populations across Canada continue to decline, largely due to human activity. But as a new study finds, in central British Columbia there is one herd of mountain caribou, the Klinse-Za, whose numbers are going in the opposite direction -- all thanks to a collaborative recovery effort led by West Moberly First Nations and Saulteau First Nations.

Drawing inspiration from cephalopod skin, engineers have invented an adaptive fabric that can be used to insulate the contents of coffee cups, to-go boxes and containers of almost any size. In a new paper, the researchers describe the manufacturing process they developed which enables economical mass production of their novel material.

Using new simulations, researchers discovered one part of RNA smoothly invades and displaces another part of the same RNA, enabling the structure to rapidly and dramatically change shape. Called strand displacement, this mechanism appears to switch genetic expression from 'on' to 'off'.

Researchers have shown a new compound delivered in a nasal spray is highly effective in preventing and treating COVID-19 caused by the Delta variant in mice. The researchers believe this is the first treatment of its kind proven to be effective against all COVID-19 variants of concern reported to date, including alpha, beta, gamma and delta.

Researchers have developed an automated auditory training program that marmoset monkeys can perform in their familiar environment on a voluntary basis. The team has accomplished getting non-human primates to complete a series of tests in which they hear different sounds and then match them to the appropriate, previously learned visual stimuli by clicking on a touchscreen. This allows scientists to track which sounds the animals can hear and discriminate.

Bacteria and yeast need to prevent leakage of numerous small molecules through their cell membrane. Biochemists have studied how the composition of the membrane affects passive diffusion and the robustness of this membrane. Their results could help the biotech industry to optimize microbial production of useful molecules and help in drug design.

By mapping the cell types and genes expressed in the human and mouse trigeminal ganglion, researchers have created an online resource for studying the molecular basis of headache and facial pain.

New research finds that in addition to size difference, relatedness affects whether or not a poison frog tadpole is more likely to be eaten.