ScienceDaily: Plants & Animals News

Researchers have created a new type of fiber that can perform like a muscle actuator, in many ways better than other options that exist today. And, most importantly, these muscle-like fibers are simple to make and recycle.

Zebra finches innovate solutions to novel foraging tasks, where sometimes success is related to personality type.

Our cells perform a marvel of engineering when it comes to packing information into small spaces. Every time a cell divides, it bundles up an amazing 4 meters of DNA into 46 tiny packages, each of which is only several millionths of a metre in length. Researchers have now discovered how a family of DNA motor proteins succeeds in packaging loosely arranged strands of DNA into compact individual chromosomes during cell division.

Scientists have revealed two enzymes that regulate protein degradation of proteins in the cell membrane of plants, and established the roles they play in plant growth and development.

New research finds that the ecological effect of invasive species alone is comparable to the combined effects of invasives plus warming temperatures, drought or nitrogen deposition. This suggests that a critical preparation for climate change is to manage invasive species at the local level.

Mosquitofish and guppies, though known to be cannibalistic in captivity, are extremely unlikely to be cannibals in wild settings, and the rare instances of cannibalism in these fish are likely due to strong competition for food.

Indiscriminate snaring for bushmeat hunting may have varying collateral effects on non-target species, ranging from mild injuries to death. Beyond immediate mortalities these effects are rarely examined. A team of scientists now analyzed the life-history consequences of debilitating snare injuries in individually known female spotted hyenas between 1987 and 2020 in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. The long-term data revealed that injuries did not decrease the age expectancy of the hyenas, but hampered their reproductive performance. Debilitating injuries caused by snares delayed their age at first reproduction, decreased the size of their litters and reduced the survival of their offspring.

Plesiosaurs are characterized by four uniform flippers. It was possible to reconstruct whether they used these in a rowing or flying motion underwater thanks to a combination of paleontological and engineering methods.

High-resolution microscopy now enabled an international research team to enlarge the knowledge about species-specific differences of the architecture of cortical neurons.

Sparse data often make it difficult to track how climate change is affecting populations of insect species. A new study has now evaluated an extensive species mapping database (Artenschutzkartierung, ASK) and assessed the population trends of butterflies, dragonflies and grasshoppers in Bavaria since 1980. The main finding: heat-loving species have been increasing.

Could the Glasgow Leaders' Declaration on Forests and Land Use's ambitions be too ambiguous? An international team of researchers looked into this question.

A new method to combat malaria which sees the disease turn against itself could offer an effective treatment for the hundreds of millions of people infected globally each year, as the efficacy of current antimalarial drugs weakens. The research has identified an anti-malarial compound, ML901, which inhibits the malaria parasite but does not harm mammalian -- human or other mammals' -- cells.

An investigation into the evolution of Salmonella bacteria infecting Brazilian poultry shows that the introduction of a Salmonella vaccine, combined with increasing antibiotic usage by Brazilian farmers, has led to the rise of strains that are more antibiotic-resistant, but less likely to cause disease in humans.

Bumblebee colonies exposed to glyphosate are significantly affected in times of resource scarcity, according to recent research.

Researchers have developed a new highly sensitive blood test for tuberculosis (TB) that screens for DNA fragments of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria that causes the deadly disease.

According to a new study, a new class of antibiotics is highly effective against drug-resistant tuberculosis. If validated in clinical trials, the new drug class would represent a major advance in the treatment of tuberculosis.