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Researchers have gained insight into how one member of a category of mysterious molecule called long-noncoding RNA (lncRNA) is regulated. Long-noncoding RNA, once thought to have little use, is now being shown to play a part in gene expression — but how lncRNA itself is regulated has left researchers perplexed.
Read more about this research from the 3 May issue of Science here.
[Image courtesy of Andrew Davis. Click the image for more information.]
© 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All Rights Reserved.
A flying robot the size of a house-fly is providing researchers with a new way to study the flight dynamics of nature’s smallest fliers. Flies are capable of extremely unique and agile flight maneuvers that, for example, allow them to quickly avoid flyswatters and tactfully land on flowers that are blowing in the wind. For this reason, their aerial prowess has been difficult to reproduce in the laboratory. But, Kevin Ma and colleagues have designed a tiny robot with flapping wings that can hover in place and perform controlled flight maneuvers.
Watch a video of the robots and read more about this research from the 3 May issue of Science here.
[Image courtesy of Kevin Ma, Pakpong Chirarattananon. Click the image for more information.]
© 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All Rights Reserved.
Last month, International News Editor for the journal Science, Richard Stone, traveled to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to observe progress at the National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory (NTRL), the only facility in the country capable of detecting strains of multidrug resistant tuberculosis. The article about Stone’s observations of the TB epidemic in North Korea appears in the 26 April issue of the journal Science, which is published by AAAS.
Read more here.
[Image courtesy of Richard Stone. Click the image for more information.]
© 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All Rights Reserved.
Damaged mitochondria need to be eliminated or serious health issues result, and a new study describes a previously unknown part of this elimination process. As the main energy source of cells, mitochondria are essential — but when these tiny power plants go bad, they become toxic, and cells have a special way of eliminating them.
Read more about this research from the 26 April issue of Science here.
[Image courtesy of Gerald Dorn. Click the image for more information.]
© 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All Rights Reserved.
Fire tiår med data om europeiske kjøttmeis viser at bestanden av fuglen har holdt seg ganske stabil, selv om larver, fuglenes primære matkilde, har dukket opp tidligere hvert år som følge av klimaendringer. Disse funnene er viktige fordi mange planter og dyrs livssyklus, inkludert hendelser som parring, blomstring og migrasjon er sterkt påvirket av sesongmessige og mellomårlige endringer. Mange forskere har trodd at tidligere blomstring eller tidligere ankomsttider for en art kunne være en katastrofe for andre arter som er avhengig av den. Thomas Reed og kollegene viser imidlertid at selv om stadig varmere vårer i Nederland har ført til et misforhold mellom kjøttmeisenes årlige hekketid og høysesongen for larver i regionen, har fuglenes befolkningsvekst forblitt upåvirket.
Denne forskningen var i utgaven av Science for 26. april.
[Image courtesy of Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW). Click the image for more information.]
© 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All Rights Reserved.
Four decades of data on European great tits show that populations of the bird have remained fairly stable, even though caterpillars—the birds’ primary food source—have been appearing earlier each year in response to climate change. These findings are important because the life cycles of many plants and animals, including events such as breeding, flowering and migration, are strongly influenced by seasonal and inter-annual changes, and many researchers have believed that earlier flowering dates or arrival times for one species could spell doom for another species that relies upon it. Thomas Reed and colleagues, however, show that even though increasingly warm springs in the Netherlands have led to a mismatch between the great tits’ annual breeding time and the seasonal peak of caterpillars in the region, the birds’ population growth has remained unaffected.
This research appeared in the 26 April issue of Science.
[Image courtesy of Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW). Click the image for more information.]
© 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All Rights Reserved.
Observations of a massive neutron star in a compact stellar binary in outer space confirm general relativity theory in a previously untested regime, a new study reports. General relativity (GR), proposed by Albert Einstein, has been tested outside of Earth before, but it has not been tested in the strong field of such a massive neutron star (or other, even stronger gravitational fields). Thus, scientists haven’t known whether this theory applies in such extreme environments. Now, new research by John Antoniadis and colleagues tests this theory in a strong-field setting.
Read more about this research from the 26 April issue of Science here.
[Image courtesy of European Southern Observatory / J. Antoniadis (MPIfR). Click the image for more information.]
© 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All Rights Reserved.
The Starman falls to earth. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, whose David Bowie cover captured the imagination of Earthlings yesterday, landed safely Tuesday on the steppes of Kazakhstan.
Photograph: Mikhail Metzel/AFP/Getty Images
マヤ文明の起源に関してはこれまでに、2つの優勢な説があった。1つは現在のメキシコ南部、グアテマラ、ベリーズにあたる地域でほぼ独自に発展したという説。もう1つはマヤ文明より古いオルメカ文明の文化的影響を大きく受けたという説である。今回、ともにアリゾナ大学（米国、ツーソン）の研究者であるTakeshi Inomata（猪俣健）、Daniela Triadan夫妻が率いる米国や日本の研究者から成る発掘調査チームは、これらの2説ではマヤ文明の起源を十分に説明できないことを明らかにした。セイバルの広場群やピラミッド群と、グアテマラの古代マヤ遺跡はおそらく、紀元前約1,000年～700年に南部メソアメリカで起こっていた広範な文化的交流から生じたと彼らは提唱している。
（Science 4月26日号に掲載）
[Reconstruction: Daniela Triadan; Photo: Takeshi Inomata. Click for caption information.]
Anyone wishing to use the cover of Science must contact AAAS to request permission to do so.
© 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All Rights Reserved.