ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

Researchers have shown for the first time the detrimental effect of wildfires on moths and the ecological benefits they provide by transporting pollen, making interacting plant and insect communities more vulnerable to local extinctions.

Ancient DNA has revealed how the prehistory of the Near East's largest domestic animal, the cow, chimes with the emergence of the first complex economies, cities and the rise and fall of the world earliest human empires.

Researchers have now found a new way to extract useful information out of sequenced DNA. By cataloging subtle evolutionary signatures shared between pairs of genes in bacteria, the team discovered hundreds of previously unknown protein interactions. This method is now being applied to the human genome to seek new insights into how our proteins interact.

The new system, dubbed RESCUE, allows RNA edits to be made that were not previously possible.

A new type of therapeutic food, specifically designed to repair the gut microbiomes of malnourished children, is superior to standard therapy in an initial clinical trial conducted in Bangladesh. Researchers have undertaken a new approach for addressing the pressing global health problem of childhood malnutrition. Their approach focuses on selectively boosting key growth-promoting gut microbes using ingredients present in affordable, culturally acceptable foods.

Scientists have identified a new cellular mechanism that alters placental development, potentially causing serious complications during pregnancy. The mechanism is linked with the production of interferon, a molecule produced in response to infection, especially viral infection.

A study in zebrafish indicates that some genes linked to cancers in humans have been strictly regulated throughout evolution.