microbial dark matter Author: Ramón Muñoz-Chápuli has been Professor of Animal Biology in the University of Málaga until his retirement. He has investigated for forty years in the fields of developmental biology and animal evolution. In recent years, single cell genomics and metagenomic studies of environmental samples have enabled insights into “microbial dark matter”, the […]
Voyager II, a NASA solar system exploration spacecraft launched in 1977, measured highly unusual magnetic fields around Uranus and Neptune. Scientists considered exotic states of so-called superionic ice as a possible explanation due to these states’ increased electrical conductivity. A new work demonstrates the existence of the previously undiscovered Ice XIX phase. It shows that […]
Hypoxia Author: Marta Irigoyen is a postdoctoral researcher at CIC bioGUNE Despite the fact that c ancer treatments have greatly improved during recent years, chemoresistance remains a major problem in eradicating cancer cells. Drug resistance involves not only many cell intrinsic mechanisms but also extrinsic induced chemoprotection by the tumor microenvironment . In fact, this […]
Oldest human North American footprints Scientists have used new methods of analysis to trace human footprints, the earliest known fossilized human footprints in North America, in New Mexico’s White Sands National Park. Researchers examined quartz grains under the tracks using optically stimulated luminescence dating to determine that the layers were at least around 21,500 years […]
Throughout the past 500 million years, our planet has experienced a total of five mass extinctions. One of these – the Permo-Triassic mass extinction event – led to the demise of roughly 90% of Earth’s species. Most of these events have coincided with the formation of a supercontinent, where Earth’s tectonic plates slowly come together […]
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vulnerabilities of our society to infectious diseases and the limitations of the tools available for viruses detection. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and antigens tests have been useful to monitor and contain the extension of the last pandemic, however it demonstrated to have severe limitations. PCR is a highly […]
One of the biggest challenges of medical imaging technologies is actually resolving the structures of interest, be it a tumour, a lung or a blood vessel, without the “noise” from other bodily parts like skin or muscle. A new imaging technique allows for visualisation inside intact animals at higher resolution than ever before. A team […]
Where do you think life is more peaceful? Here you have two options: i) in the middle of Madrid, surrounded by all the hustle and bustle of people commuting, shopping, or visiting; or ii) isolated in a monastery at the heart of the Alps. I do not think I need to answer the question, right? […]
Galaxies from the early Universe are more like our own Milky Way than previously thought, flipping the entire narrative of how scientists think about structure formation in the Universe. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of researchers has discovered that galaxies like our own Milky Way dominate throughout the universe and […]
Emotional Authors: Anna Hatzidaki, Assistant Professor and member of the Bilingualism and Psycholinguistics (BiPsy) Lab, Dept. of English Language and Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA); Mikel Santesteban, Senior Researcher and member of The Bilingual Mind research group, Dept. of Linguistics and Basque Studies, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Our brain is […]