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Venus flytraps’ predatory ways may have roots in defense The genes that allow Venus flytraps to be carnivores may come from defensive mechanisms carried over from their non-insect-eating ancestors. Researchers found that gene expression patterns shift radically when prey steps into the plants’ traps, signaling digestive enzymes along the same protein paths used to help […]

Stammering, stuttering or alalia literalis is a speech disorder characterized by involuntary repetition and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases and involuntary silent pauses or blocks where the affected person is unable to produce sounds. Around 1-in-20 children aged 2 to 5 years old will stammer at some moment, but most grow out of […]

Amplifying Voltage If we place a large resistor in a circuit containing a transistor we can amplify the incoming voltage, since according to Ohm’s law voltage is equal to current times resistance. So a current crossing a small resistance corresponds to a small voltage. But if the same current is made to cross a much […]

Author: Leire Gartzia Rivero got a Chemistry degree and completed her Master studies in “New Materials” at the University of the Basque Country. She holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Technology obtained at the same university, in the Molecular Spectroscopy Laboratory, where she focused on the spectroscopic characterization of photoactive nanomaterials based on energy […]

It is not only a piece of matter that moves but also a universe of meanings and contexts. For philosophers, the word Meaning is everything but trivial. In a crowded street, you may point the location of the closest train station by extending your arm at speed in the direction of someone else’s head – […]

Nonhuman primates may be involved in Zika transmission Scientists who collected biological samples from 15 wild marmosets and eight pet capuchin monkeys plus one free-ranging capuchin in Brazil found four marmosets and three capuchins had been infected with the Zika virus. The Scientist Cosmic-particle technology opens window into Bent Pyramid New cosmic-particle technology has allowed […]

As an intellectual discipline, moral philosophy is afflicted by a very deep ambivalence. On the one hand, moral philosophers have always pursued to have a prominent position in the debates about what is morally good and what is morally bad; most of their theories can be interpreted hence as sophisticated attempts to answer the old-as-mankind […]

Nanoparticles of certain metals, like gold or silver, have attracted substantial interest in recent years owing to their ability to support localized surface plasmon resonances (collective oscillations of conduction electrons). These plasmonic excitations allow manipulation of light at the nanoscale and have enabled technological advances ranging from improved catalytic and photovoltaic cell efficiencies to sensitive […]

What are lysosomes doing inside your cells? When I was in High School my teacher used to say that lysosomes are only the trash bin of the cell. 20 years later we have discovered a dozen new functions that make this small organelle a core component of the cell. You may already know that the […]

The Sahara is the world’s largest hot desert covering about one quarter of the African continent. The sun is constantly up and makes some spots in the Sahara the hottest and driest on Earth, with average highest temperatures above 38 degrees Celsius and very low, if any, annual rainfall. As fresh water dwindles, most of […]