STUDY FINDS - The vanilla flavoring found in over half of tested e-cigarette products may be capable of disrupting cells at the earliest, most fragile stage of pregnancy. A new study published in Human Reproduction found that vanillin, the chemical behind that flavor, pushed early human embryonic stem cells off course at concentrations a model...
AOL - A chemical commonly found in vapes could harm unborn babies, scientists have warned. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) have urged the NHS to warn pregnant women after finding that vanillin, a common flavouring in e-cigarettes, could impair foetal development. They examined the impact of the chemical on embryonic stem cells...
ZME SCIENCE - Discovering Venus-like conditions beyond our Solar System could reveal why some rocky worlds remain havens for life while others become scorching greenhouse infernos. Before solving that mystery, however, astronomers must determine how quickly those distant planets are truly spinning. Slower rotations can cause hellish conditions astronomers see on Venus, but new research...
SCIENCE ALERT - At some point in evolutionary history, possibly around 400 million years ago, things started having sex. This adaptational (and sensual) advance introduced multiple benefits by allowing increased gene sharing, thereby helping to prune deleterious mutations and boost general fitness. Avocado trees also ostensibly like to have sex, but face a problem: Each...
THE COOL DOWN - Before a young avocado tree ever produces its first flowers, breeders may now be able to predict whether it will follow the A or B type blooming schedule. Researchers at two University of California campuses identified its corresponding gene, according to a UC Riverside press release. What happened? A research team...
SFGATE - Even as a fixture in California cuisine and a sizable industry for the state’s farmers, avocados have presented an ongoing mystery for scientists: How do they easily flip sexes? In a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, California researchers have finally answered that question by tracing...
ABC7 NEWS - A new study suggests a major ocean current in the Atlantic Ocean is slowing down, a shift researchers say could influence weather patterns around the world, including the intensity of storms affecting California. Researchers have been examining changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, known as the AMOC, a system of ocean...
LIVE SCIENCE - Astronomers have found the strongest evidence yet that a rocky planet beyond our solar system has managed to hold onto an atmosphere — a crucial ingredient for life as we know it. The discovery marks the first time scientists have detected an atmosphere surrounding a rocky planet orbiting in the habitable zone...
SCIENCE ALERT - Earth's climate systems are inexorably and often unexpectedly interconnected. Dust from North Africa's Sahara Desert drifts thousands of miles to fuel food webs in the Amazon and the ocean's depths, while pollution-eating microbes hitch a ride through the atmosphere on gusts of wind or wisps of fog. Among the most influential planet-shaping...
YAHOO NEWS - Fossils from South Australia are offering a surprising clue about the deep history of animal behavior. Spriggina floundersi, an ancient organism that lived about 550 million years ago, may represent the oldest known example of "right-handedness" in animals, suggesting a preference for turning right emerged long before hands, feet, or widespread complex...
EARTH.COM - A slowdown in one of Earth’s most important ocean currents could reshape weather far beyond the Atlantic. Weakening of the ocean current could strengthen storms that slam into California while reducing the snowfall that helps keep Greenland’s massive ice sheet intact. A new study shows how changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation...
THE COOL DOWN - A Californian research team found fungi inside desert moss tissue, a result that could change how scientists think about plant life on land. According to Discover Wildlife, the implications may reach beyond moss biology. If the association is confirmed as a true symbiosis, it could also help explain how plants first...
EUREKA ALERT! - Scientists have uncovered what may be the earliest evidence of “right-handedness” in the animal kingdom, dating back more than half a billion years. The discovery comes from the fossil record of Spriggina floundersi, an organism from the Ediacaran Period that lived about 550 million years ago. New research published today in the...
LIVE SCIENCE - Astronomers have reconstructed the "skeleton" of the cosmos in unprecedented detail, thanks to the largest-ever survey conducted by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The resulting map reveals how galaxies have evolved since the universe's infancy around 13 billion years ago and how they fall together in a vast structure called the...
BBC WILDLIFE MAGAZINE - While studying California dryland biocrusts (communities of living organisms which inhabit the surface of soils), researchers from University of California, Riverside found something unlikely inside moss. Not only could the discovery completely rewrite what we know about moss biology, but it could also offer an insight into how plants first moved...
THE NEW YORK TIMES - Any large earthquake can be dangerous, but the residents of Caracas and Venezuelan coastal cities like La Guaira and Catia La Mar were victims of several unlucky factors. Two quakes in rapid succession, a fault that ruptured toward more populated areas, soft ground and the shallow depth of the temblors...
By James Glanz, Helmuth Rosales and Marco Hernandez | The New York Times |
CNN - Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told residents to brace themselves for an “extraordinarily challenging summer.” A flesh-eating parasite that did hundreds of millions of dollars of damage across the state in the 1960s and ’70s, one that had been considered eradicated from the US for decades, has come back and poses...
EARTH.COM - Moss seems to get by on almost nothing. It colonizes bare rock, survives near-total desiccation, and springs back minutes after rain. The vast majority of land plants form underground partnerships with fungi, trading sugars for nutrients they can’t reach alone. Mosses had always been treated as the exception. New research from California’s desert...
SCITECHDAILY - In some of the driest places on Earth, the ground itself can be alive. What looks like a thin, dark crust on desert soil may actually be a miniature ecosystem, packed with mosses, fungi, bacteria, algae, and tiny animals. These biological soil crusts help hold fragile landscapes together, trapping dust, storing nutrients, and...
NEWSWEEK - A new study is raising questions about one of the most widely held ideas in Alzheimer’s research—suggesting the disease may not start with plaques in the brain after all. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) say the earliest changes could instead happen inside nerve cells, where two key proteins appear to...