Biology

Quirks and Quarks54:01Cat facts — the latest science on our feline companionsCats have lived alongside humans for millennia, but there's still much we don't know about our companions. How do cats purr? Why do they look so annoyed all the time? And when and where did cats begin sharing homes with humans? Part of the issue with finding the answers to these questions is the notoriously secretive nature of domestic cats and their unwillingness to do what they're told — something that makes studying cats in a laboratory…

The Progress 84 cargo craft is pictured shortly after undocking from the International Space Station’s Poisk Module at 2:55 a.m. EST on November 29. Credit: NASA The Expedition 70 crew members turned their attention toward robotics and physics research on Thursday, November 30, while continuing ongoing space biology studies. The orbital septet also will soon welcome a cargo craft due to launch to the International Space Station early Friday. NASA Flight Engineer Jasmin Moghbeli turned on the Astrobee robotic free-flyers…

This story is part of CBC Health's Second Opinion, a weekly analysis of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers on Saturday mornings. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.The impacts of climate change hit Canada hard in recent years, from the deadly heat dome of 2021 to the country's worst-ever wildfire season last summer. And those devastating environmental disasters provoked a lot of anxiety among pregnant individuals."Pregnancy, even without heat and smoke, is a time when…

The city lights (bottom center to far left) of Moscow and Saint Petersburg in Russia, to Helsinki, Finland, are framed by an aurora in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 264 miles above. Credit: NASAAstronaut health, an aging study, and cargo operations kept the Expedition 70 crew busy on Tuesday, November 21. The International Space Station (ISS) residents also explored space manufacturing and downloaded radiation data.Scientific Research and ExperimentationScientists representing NASA and…

Cranberries, domesticated about 200 years ago in the U.S., have unique cultivation and genetic traits. They are a Thanksgiving staple due to their harvest season aligning with the holiday. Wisconsin leads in production, and the fruit is also significant in Canada. Cranberries have expanded into various products but remain a holiday favorite.Cranberries, a recent addition to agriculture, were domesticated around 200 years ago in the U.S.Cranberries are a staple in U.S. households at Thanksgiving – but how did this bog…

The International Space Station is pictured from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour during a fly around of the orbiting lab that took place following its undocking from the Harmony module’s space-facing port on November 8, 2021. Credit: NASASpace biology and Dragon work were the top duties at the beginning of the week for the Expedition 70 crew. The International Space Station (ISS) also turned 25 years old today with its first module having orbited Earth since 1998.Biomedical Research and Eye ExamsEye scans were on the…

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine.For a pathogen to make us sick, it must overcome a lot. First it has to enter the body, bypassing natural barriers such as skin, mucus, cilia, and stomach acid. Then it needs to reproduce; some bacteria and parasites can do this virtually anywhere in the body, while viruses and some other pathogens can only do so from within a cell. And all the while, it must parry attacks from the body’s immune system.So while we are constantly inundated by microbes, the…

Researchers have created a novel fluorogenic probe to illuminate the interactions between sugars and proteins, crucial for understanding various biological processes and diseases.Researchers at the University of Montreal’s Chemistry Department have created an innovative fluorogenic probe for analyzing interactions between sugars and proteins, two families of biomolecules essential to life.The findings by professor Samy Cecioni and his students, which open the door to a wide range of applications, were recently published…

This story originally appeared in Hakai and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.Arah Narida leans over a microscope to gaze into a plastic petri dish containing a hood coral. The animal—a pebbled blue-white disk roughly half the size of a pencil eraser—is a marvel. Just three weeks ago, the coral was smaller than a grain of rice. It was also frozen solid. That is, until Narida, a graduate student at National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan, thawed it with the zap of a laser. Now, just beneath the coral’s tentacles,…

The signal doesn’t necessarily have to be a visible color change—the team has also experimented with temperature. A second receptor pathway in these engineered plants responds to diazinon, an insecticide that’s currently banned for residential use in the United States. As part of the same study, the team used diazinon to turn on the plant’s normal ABA signaling, triggering a stress-induced increase in leaf temperature that can be seen by infrared night-vision cameras, similar to what the MIT team had tried before.The…