https://phys.org/biology-news/biology-other en-us The latest news on biology, natural sciences, environment A multi-institutional team of environmental scientists and physical limnologists has found that there may be a scientific explanation for Jesus' "miraculous catch of fish"—one that does not involve miracles. In their paper published in the journal Water Resources Research, the group describes their study of natural fish die-offs in Lake Kinneret, which is believed to be the Biblical Sea of Galilee mentioned in the Bible. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-jesus-miraculous-fish-explanation.html Ecology Other Mon, 04 Nov 2024 10:39:55 EST news649939191 Scientists don't just want their results to be published; they want them to be published in the most influential journal they can find. This focus on a high impact factor is driven by their concerns about promotion and tenure, but it may be overlooking the important role that smaller publications can play in the advancement of their science. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-smaller-specific-academic-journals-sway.html Ecology Other Thu, 17 Oct 2024 16:10:06 EDT news648400201 A team of pathophysiologists at the University of Milan has found that climbing stairs or walking for short bursts allows people to consume 20% to 60% more energy than if they do the same activity nonstop for the same distance. In their study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group asked volunteers to walk on a treadmill or climb stairs while also monitoring their oxygen intake. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-short-consume-energy-distance.html Other Wed, 16 Oct 2024 10:20:01 EDT news648292671 Maybe you've seen the meme. Classic film characters up to their necks in muck, with text reading, "As a kid, I thought quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem in my life." Quicksand was an uncannily common plot point in the 70s and 80s, but murky wetland depictions in film haven't gone away. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-swamps-silver-screen-mirror-wetlands.html Ecology Other Mon, 14 Oct 2024 14:36:17 EDT news648135371 Fish taxies—refrigerated cargo vessels or reefers that function as mobile ports for fishing boats—are frequently described as weak links in the traceability of the seafood value chain. For the first time, research has identified the owners of all globally used reefers, the flags they use, and the fishing vessels they meet. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-reveals-key-players-global-transshipment.html Other Agriculture Fri, 11 Oct 2024 14:00:01 EDT news647858232 Women working in the field of ecology contribute overproportionately to research output, as shown by a recent study that reveals facets of gender bias in the context of scientific publications that have received little attention until now. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-reveals-gender-gap-ecology.html Ecology Other Fri, 20 Sep 2024 11:40:51 EDT news646051240 Are the biggest and most bulging calf muscles necessarily the most powerful? The scientists behind new research into muscle architecture say it's not the size of a muscle that delivers the most force, but rather its layout—in particular, a feathered layout called "pennate." https://phys.org/news/2024-09-strong-feather-insights-optimal-muscle.html Other Wed, 18 Sep 2024 11:37:20 EDT news645878236 As far as the causes of global biodiversity loss are concerned, there are evidently perception gaps among students of environment-related subjects worldwide, as a survey conducted by Goethe University Frankfurt with more than 4,000 students from 37 countries has now shown. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-biodiversity-loss-students-environment-subjects.html Ecology Other Fri, 30 Aug 2024 13:11:01 EDT news644242256 Compared to other mammals, human children are dependent on their caregivers for a remarkably long time. Throughout the ages, they have developed "psychological tactics" to endear themselves to adults and thus enhance their chances of survival. This prolonged dependency is believed to have driven the evolution of complex signaling mechanisms to help infants attract and maintain adult attention. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-baby-decoding-children-vocal-cognitive.html Evolution Other Tue, 06 Aug 2024 09:59:06 EDT news642157142 The lab of University of Virginia systems engineer Gregory J. Gerling recently made a discovery on a touchy subject: why women generally seem to have a more acute sense of touch than men. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-finger-men-women-differently.html Other Wed, 31 Jul 2024 16:25:57 EDT news641661946 New research led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows that super spikes, scientifically described as advanced footwear technology (AFT) spikes, can give runners about a 2% edge in middle-distance track races, like the 800- and 1,500-meters. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-super-spikes-track.html Other Mon, 29 Jul 2024 16:01:06 EDT news641487544 The human eye registers three colors of light: red, green and blue. But pigeons (and many other animal species) can also see a fourth color, ultraviolet. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-world-pigeon-theory-reality.html Plants & Animals Other Thu, 25 Jul 2024 11:25:48 EDT news641125542 A psychologist at the University of London has found that humans have a surprisingly precise degree of tactile localization beneath their fingernails. In his study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Matthew Longo tested how well volunteers could pinpoint the part of their fingernail being stimulated and outlines possible reasons. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-subsurface-fingernails-precise-tactile-localization.html Evolution Other Wed, 10 Jul 2024 09:59:03 EDT news639824339 Two new species of psychoactive mushrooms in the genus Psilocybe have been described from southern Africa, bringing the list to six known species indigenous to Africa. Psilocybe species are among the most well-known and well-studied species of psychoactive mushrooms in the world, with around 140 described species. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-species-psilocybe-mushrooms-southern-africa.html Ecology Other Tue, 02 Jul 2024 16:57:03 EDT news639158221 The field of synthetic biology, the science of manipulating biology, has a lot of "cooks in the kitchen," which has both helped it flourish and made it unusually difficult to create a cohesive, consistent curriculum for students at every level of study. Each discipline involved—from chemical engineering to ethics—has a unique approach to teaching and literature, which creates inconsistencies between what scientists learn. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-holistic-synthetic-biology.html Other Thu, 27 Jun 2024 16:02:03 EDT news638722918 Despite hosting some of the world's most biodiverse ecosystems and the urgency of the region's conservation challenges, researchers in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru often struggle to share their unique insights into these complex ecosystems with the global scientific community. This results in a "publication gap," where crucial biodiversity knowledge from the region remains underrepresented in global conversations. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-biodiversity-insights-tropical-andes.html Ecology Other Thu, 27 Jun 2024 13:43:45 EDT news638714619 Opera singers have to use the extreme limits of their voice range. Many pedagogical and scientific sources suggest that the highest pitches reached in classical singing can only be produced with a so-called "whistle" voice register, in analogy to ultrasonic vocalizations of mice and rats. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-biomechanics-production-high-pitched-classical.html Other Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 18 Jun 2024 10:20:03 EDT news637924802 For most people, biting into a lemon would leave them puckered up and desperate to lose that sour flavor, but a new study by Penn State researchers revealed that roughly one in eight adults like intensely sour sensations. The cross-cultural study, recently published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, demonstrated there is a subset of "sour likers" who enjoy exceptionally sour foods. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-sour-patch-adults-grown-ups.html Other Mon, 29 Apr 2024 16:31:24 EDT news633627076 It has long been known that there is a complex interplay between genetic factors and environmental influences in shaping behavior. Recently it has been found that genes governing behavior in the brain operate within flexible and contextually responsive regulatory networks. However, conventional genome-wide association studies (GWAS) often overlook this complexity, particularly in humans where controlling environmental variables poses challenges. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-linking-environmental-genetic-human-behavior.html Other Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 27 Feb 2024 14:00:01 EST news628247420 A systematic analysis of 40 years of studies on public crop breeding programs found that cereal grains receive significantly more research attention than other crops important for food security, such as fruits and vegetables; only 33% of studies sought input from both men and women household members; and there is significantly less research in South America, the Middle East and North Africa than in sub-Saharan Africa. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-years-crop-inequities.html Other Agriculture Thu, 22 Feb 2024 11:31:03 EST news627823861 The editors at the journal Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology have retracted a paper after it was pointed out to them by readers that supporting images had been generated improperly by an AI image generator. In their retraction, the editors report that the reason for the retraction was that "concerns were raised regarding the nature of its AI-generated figures." https://phys.org/news/2024-02-ai-generated-disproportioned-rat-genitalia.html Other Mon, 19 Feb 2024 11:11:41 EST news627563496 Biodiversity data collection is growing exponentially. The increase is driven in part by international commitments to conservation, market investments and technological advances, and the growing urgency of human impacts including climate change. Nations increasingly rely on biodiversity data in order to strategically meet global conservation targets for the coming decades. But not all data is collected equally. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-social-equity-biodiversity-interdisciplinary-policy.html Ecology Other Tue, 16 Jan 2024 16:07:02 EST news624643620 Watching someone cry often evokes an emotional response—but according to a new study published Thursday, human tears themselves contain a chemical signal that reduces brain activity linked to aggression. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-whiff-male-aggression.html Other Mon, 25 Dec 2023 08:50:02 EST news622397748 A Hobart-based solicitor built his reputation as "the foremost scientist in the colony" in the mid-1800s, despite limited contributions to scientific knowledge. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-solicitor-19th-century-tasmania-human-aboriginal.html Plants & Animals Other Tue, 28 Nov 2023 19:00:01 EST news620411401 For the first time, researchers have developed a model to estimate how much energy the original colonizers of New Zealand expended to maintain their body temperatures on the cold, harrowing ocean journey from Southeast Asia. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-larger-body-sizes-colonizers-zealand.html Other Thu, 13 Jul 2023 05:41:27 EDT news608445678 Many Americans can trace some lines of their family tree back to the 1600s. However, African Americans descended from enslaved Africans, who began arriving in North America in 1619, lack ancestral information spanning several centuries. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-centuries-identity-lost-slavery.html Biotechnology Other Thu, 06 Jul 2023 11:00:01 EDT news607842703 New research, undertaken by an interdisciplinary team of Stanford Law and Stanford Medicine students, looks at the overlap between biomedical research paper authors and those authors who go on to be named inventors of their research on patents. Among the findings is a gender discrepancy between male and female authors, with male authors receiving patents more frequently. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-gap-male-female-author-inventors-inventor.html Biotechnology Other Wed, 07 Jun 2023 10:32:22 EDT news605352739 Before any physical conflict, people assess their opponent's features to determine if the ideal tactical response is to fight, flee or attempt to negotiate. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-sizing-competition-based-sensitivity-pain.html Evolution Other Tue, 03 Jan 2023 16:40:52 EST news591986448 Hibernation is a state adopted by certain mammals as an adaptation to adverse winter conditions. Typical features of hibernation include greatly reduced metabolic activity and lowered body temperature. https://phys.org/news/2022-12-successful-hypothermia-nonhuman-primate-paves.html Other Molecular & Computational biology Fri, 23 Dec 2022 12:20:17 EST news591020413 A team of researchers at the University of Liverpool's Institute of Life Course & Medical Sciences, working with a colleague from Liverpool John Moores University, has discovered why people use more energy when walking on surfaces that deform (such as sand) than on hard, cement-like surfaces. In their study, published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface, the group studied the behavior of muscles in the legs, feet and toes of volunteers walking on varied surfaces. https://phys.org/news/2022-12-deforming-surfaces-energy.html Other Thu, 01 Dec 2022 11:05:41 EST news589115111