News

Researchers have overturned the long held view that congenital nystagmus, a condition where eyes make repetitive involuntary movements, is a brain disorder by showing that its cause is actually retinal. Deficits in just a few proteins involved in one of the retina's earliest light-signal processing steps result in the eye sending an erroneous movement signal to the brain rhythmically.

Bone marrow-derived cells play a role in changes to the mouse uterus before and during pregnancy, enabling implantation of the embryo and reducing pregnancy loss, according to new research.

For the first time, researchers have discovered exactly how a reactive copper-nitrene catalyst works, a finding that could revolutionize how chemical industries produce everything from pharmaceuticals to household goods. The team describes how the catalyst performs its magic and how to bottle the tool to break stubborn carbon-hydrogen bonds and make products like solvents, detergents, and dyes with less waste, energy, and cost.

Researchers have developed a new method for making highly desirable catalysts from metal nanoparticles that could lead to better fuel cells, among other applications. The researchers also discovered the method can take spent catalysts and recycle them into active catalysts. Made mainly of precious metals, these coveted catalysts are shaped like gems. Each particle has 24 different faces that present atoms at the surface in ways that make them more catalytically active than those available commercially.

New research shows how the world's most widely used insecticides could be partly responsible for dramatic declines in farmland bird populations. In the first experiment to track effects of a neonicotinoid pesticide on birds in the wild, the team found that white-crowned sparrows who consumed small doses of imidacloprid insecticide suffered weight loss and delays to their migration — effects that could severely harm the birds' chances of surviving and reproducing.

Life on Earth is amazingly diverse, and exhibits striking geographical global patterns in biodiversity. A pair of companion papers reveal that mountain regions — especially those in the tropics — are hotspots of extraordinary and baffling richness. Although mountain regions cover only 25% of Earth's land area, they are home to more than 85% of the world's species of amphibians, birds, and mammals, and many of these are found only in mountains.

A simple epidemiological model accurately captures long-term measles transmission dynamics in London, including major perturbations triggered by historical events.

Algae remove vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis thanks to an organelle called the pyrenoid, which boosts the efficiency of carbon-fixation. Researchers have known that the pyrenoid forms via a process of phase separation, the same process that causes oil to cluster into droplets in water. The new study looks deeper into how this happens.

African Americans are seeing growth in engineering and physical sciences but are not progressing at the same rate when compared to the general population. A report examined the number of bachelor's degrees earned from 2005 to 2015.

Researchers have made a breakthrough discovery that solves a mystery long forgotten by science and have identified a potentially novel avenue in pre-clinical models to treat non-small cell lung cancers.