ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

Cavefish have obvious adaptations such as missing eyes and pale colors that demonstrate how they evolved over millennia in a dark, subterranean world. Now researchers say these incredible fish have an equally remarkable physiology that helps them cope with a low-oxygen environment that would kill other species.

Researchers reveal new details about a key enzyme that makes DNA sequencing possible. The finding is a leap forward into the era of personalized medicine when doctors will be able to design treatments based on the genomes of individual patients.

Briefly blocking a key molecule when administering the only approved vaccine for tuberculosis vastly improves long-term protection against the devastating disease in mice, researchers report.

Researchers have found that D-serine, the structural mirror image of L-serine, regulates tissue migration in the marine organism Ciona during its juvenile-to-adult transformation. D-serine binds to NMDAR, leading to the formation and release of a vesicle that assists in tail regression in Ciona. This finding provides the first description of a biological function of a D-amino acid in a non-mammal chordate, elucidating vesicle release mechanisms in organisms other than mammals.

A luminescence reaction modeled on fireflies can detect contamination with organophosphates with high sensitivity, ease, and low cost. At the center of this technology is a new enzymatic method for the synthesis of analogues of luciferin, the substance that makes fireflies glow. As reported by a team of researchers, it could also be used in the field.

Ice cores allow climate researchers to look 800,000 years back in time: atmospheric carbon acts as fertilizer, increasing biological production. The mechanism removes carbon from the air and thereby dampens the acceleration in global warming.