Pluto, the Solar System’s largest dwarf planet, just became even more interesting with a report that icy lava flows have recently covered substantial tracts of its surface. In this context, “recently” means probably no more than a billion years ago. That’s old, of course – and there is no suggestion that volcanoes are still active […]
Author: José R. Pineda got his Ph.D. from University of Barcelona in 2006. Since 2007 he has worked for Institut Curie and The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. Currently he is a researcher of the UPV/EHU. He investigates the role of stem cells in physiologic and pathologic conditions. Neurogenesis is a process in […]
While they may lack some of the melodic qualities of birds or whales, there are almost 1,000 species of fish that use sounds to communicate, and possibly many more. Yet, despite nearly 150 years of contemporary scientific research into fish sound production, there was no global inventory of fish species known to make sounds. Until […]
We live on a planet that is commonly known as the blue planet. This is because more than 70% of its surface is covered by water. However, it is ironic that one of the biggest problems humanity will face in the coming decades is the scarcity of drinking water. Despite the large amount of water […]
Humanity is the unlikely result of 4 billion years of evolution. From self-replicating molecules in Archean seas, to eyeless fish in the Cambrian deep, to mammals scurrying from dinosaurs in the dark, and then, finally, improbably, ourselves – evolution shaped us. Organisms reproduced imperfectly. Mistakes made when copying genes sometimes made them better fit to […]
Cod “supergenes” have shed light on how they respond to overfishing, and these supergenes could make them more resilient to other environmental changes. That’s according to a new study published by scientists in Norway. This could be good news, in that cod have genetic architecture in place that will permit them to respond to climate […]
Oviraptorosaurs are a group of birdlike dinosaurs that were part of the ancestral dinosaur lineage that later gave rise to birds. Oviraptorosaurs walked on two legs, had a powerful toothless beak and were covered in feathers. One of the first known species, Oviraptor philoceratops, was discovered in the 1920s when a skeleton was uncovered alongside […]
Two years of battling COVID-19 has been bad news for tuberculosis (TB) programmes. Respiratory clinicians and researchers have had their time and focus directed elsewhere. And TB has taken advantage. In 2021, the number of TB deaths rose for the first time in over a decade. The barriers caused by lockdowns and overstretched healthcare systems […]
C ardiovascular diseases currently form the most important class of non-contagious diseases and a leading cause of mortality in industrialized nations . Specifically, coronary heart disease is the first cause of death among the cardiovascular diseases . The myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a “heart attack”, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops in […]
In most animal species, males and females differ. This is true for people and other mammals, as well as many species of birds, fish and reptiles. But what about dinosaurs? In 2015, I proposed that variation found in the iconic back plates of stegosaur dinosaurs was due to sex differences. I was surprised by how […]