Science Trends

A Nobel-winning biologist, two engineering schools, and a vial of Houston rainwater cast new light on the origin of life on Earth Date: August 21, 2024 Source: University of Chicago Summary: New research shows that rainwater could have helped create a meshy wall around protocells 3.8 billion years ago, a critical step in the transition from tiny beads of RNA to every bacterium, plant, animal, and human that ever lived. One of the major unanswered questions about the origin of life is how droplets of RNA floating around the primordial soup turned into the membrane-protected packets of life we call cells. A new paper from the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Houston Chemical Engineering Department and Chicago Center for the Origins of Life suggests rainwater could have helped create a meshy wall around protocells 3.8 billion years ago, a critical step in the transition from tiny beads of RNA to every bacterium, plant, animal, and human that ever lived. (Il...

Source: University of California - Davis Summary: Maize is one of the world's most widely grown crops. It is used for both human and animal foods and holds great cultural significance, especially for indigenous peoples in the Americas. Yet despite its importance, the origins of the grain have been hotly debated for more than a century. Now new research shows that all modern maize descends from a hybrid created just over 5000 years ago in central Mexico, thousands of years after the plant was first domesticated. Maize is one of the world's most widely grown crops. It is used for both human and animal foods and holds great cultural significance, especially for indigenous peoples in the Americas. Yet despite its importance, the origins of the grain have been hotly debated for more than a century. Now new research, published Dec. 1 in  Science , shows that all modern maize descends from a hybrid created just over 5000 years ago in central Mexico, thousands of years after the plant ...

Effects will depend on how much global warming is controlled, study finds Date: August 2, 2024 Source: Ohio State University Summary: The rising earth beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet will likely become a major factor in future sea level rise, a new study suggests. The rising earth beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet will likely become a major factor in future sea level rise, a new study suggests. Despite feeling like a stationary mass, most solid ground is undergoing a process of deformation, sinking and rising in response to many environmental factors. In Antarctica, melting glacial ice means less weight on the bedrock below, allowing it to rise. How the rising earth interacts with the overlying ice sheet to affect sea level rise is not well-studied, said Terry Wilson, co-author of the study and a senior research scientist at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center at The Ohio State University. In the new study, Wilson's colleagues at McGill University developed a model to predict ...