437 news posts in Life sciences

Life sciences

01 Aug 2016

Do trees go to sleep at night?

by Juan Jovel, Frontiersin.org It may sound like something from a fantasy book, but scientists have found that trees seem to go to sleep at night. One hour after sunset, tree branches start dangling and continue doing so throughout the night, reaching their lowest point about 9-11 hours after sunset, new research published in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science has found. When morning comes they start to return to their normal position, which takes another three hours. The daily position of the branches and leaves allows trees to maximize their capture of sunlight, which fuels their biomass-producing processes, while the drooping position probably reduces the loss of heat during the night. Circadian rhythms refer to biological processes that cycle roughly every 24 hours and explain, for instance, patterns of sleeping and feeding in animals. The scientists from Finland, Austria and Hungary, setup to investigate whether silver birch trees experience movement patterns in a circadian fashion. They used a sophisticated technique called Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS), which allows monitoring the movement of objects, including trees or parts thereof, during day or nighttime. Dr. Eetu Puttonen, from the National Land Survey of Finland, and his international collaborators, used TLS to monitor the […]

Life sciences

19 Jul 2016

Call for editors for Frontiers in Physiology

Exciting News! Frontiers in Physiology is launching a number of new specialty sections, including: Aviation, Space and Environmental Physiology Avian Physiology Reproductive Physiology Embryology and Developmental Physiology Join the Frontiers in Physiology community of editors today by applying to join the board as: Specialty Chief Editor Associate Editor Review Editor In June 2016, Frontiers in Physiology, received the official Impact Factor of 4.031 — up from 3.534 in the previous report. Since its launch in 2010, it has become the #1 most cited and 2nd largest open-access journal in Physiology, and the #2 most cited amongst all journals in Physiology. Specialty Chief Editor applications will be reviewed by the Field Chief Editor of the journal. Associate and Review Editor applications will be reviewed by the Specialty Chief Editor of each section. HOW DO I APPLY? Step 1: Select the specialty section you would like to apply for. Step 2: Select the role you would like to apply for (please see below for each role’s requirements). Specialty Chief Editor: Frontiers Specialty Chief Editors are leading academics and active experts in their field, typically full professors from a recognized institution with a proven track record of publications in international, peer-reviewed journals and with editorial experience. Specialty Chief […]

Life sciences

14 Jul 2016

Antiphonal singing in indris

By Michiel Dijkstra, Science Writer – published June 14, 2014 “How to get noticed as a singer?” isn’t only a concern for young people aspiring to a career in the music industry. Young indris, critically endangered lemurs from Madagascar, sing in antiphony with their choirmates to increase their chances of getting noticed by rival groups, according to a new study in Frontiers in Neuroscience. Indris (Indri indri) are one of the few species of primates that sing. They live only in the eastern rainforests of Madagascar, a habitat threatened by illegal logging. They live in small groups, which generally consist of a dominant female and male, their immature offspring, and one or more low-ranking young adults. Both females and males sing, and their songs play an important role in territorial defense and group formation. In the new study, researchers from Italy, Germany, and Madagascar recorded 496 indri songs and analyzed their timing, rhythm, and pitch. The research is part of a long-term study on the ecology of indris in the vicinity of Andasibe-Mantadia National Park and the Maromizaha Forest, eastern Madagascar. Group members carefully coordinate their singing, show the researchers. As soon as one indri starts to sing, all group […]

Life sciences

11 Jul 2016

Horizon Scan 2017: Emerging Issues in Marine Science – call for submissions

by Nina Hall, Journal Development Manager Frontiers in Marine Science is proud to launch the first edition of our annual Research Topic Horizon Scan 2017: Emerging Issues in Marine Science. This Research Topic is unique as it is the only topic that publishes invited review and synthesis articles, and awards the authors with a free publication to showcase the latest and most important research in the marine sciences at the beginning of every year. Each of the invited manuscripts is selected by the Specialty Chief Editors across all twenty-one specialty sections of the journal based on the quality and topicality of the research. If you would like to be considered for selection, please send the title and abstract of your review/synthesis manuscript to marinescience@frontiersin.org for evaluation by the Chief Editors. The submission deadline is October 1, 2016. The average review time from submission to publication for Frontiers in Marine Science is 89 days, which should allow for publication of the manuscript in January 2017 if accepted. Frontiers in Marine Science is the most comprehensive and largest open-access marine science journal with an editorial board of 2,257 editors and over 500 submitted manuscripts, 318 of which have already been published. To […]

Life sciences

17 Jun 2016

Mother mongooses may risk death to protect unborn children

By K.E.D. Coan, Frontiersin.org Mothers will do anything to protect their children, but mongooses go a step further. Mongooses risk their own survival to protect their unborn children through a remarkable ability to adapt their own bodies, says new research published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. Pregnancy can takes a physical toll that, according to some theories, may increase the mother’s levels of toxic metabolites that cause oxidative damage. Increased oxidative damage can cause complications during pregnancy, but these results show how some mammals have evolved to specifically minimize such damage, albeit only temporarily. “We think mother mongooses shield their offspring by reducing their own levels of oxidative damage during breeding;” explained Dr. Emma Vitikainen of the Centre of Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter, and lead author of the study, “However, she could be trading her own long term well being for the short term benefit of protecting the growing pups.” Vitikainen and her colleagues followed groups of wild banded mongooses over five years, measuring oxidative damage markers, as well as the animals’ health and survival. Oxidative damage is a normal byproduct of metabolism throughout an animal’s lifespan, but they found that pregnant mongooses showed lower […]

Life sciences

05 Jun 2016

West African genes lower the risk of obesity in men, suggests study

By Michiel Dijkstra, science writer The obesity epidemic affects women and men of every ethnic group in the United States, but strong gender and racial disparities in the risk of overweight and obesity exist. African American women are currently more at risk than any other group in the United States: 82.1% of African American women are overweight or obese (defined as having a BMI of 25 or higher), compared to 76.2% of Hispanic women and 64.6% of Caucasian women, according to the 2011-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Socioeconomic factors, such as inequalities in access to healthcare, healthy food, and safe places to exercise, are known to be important causes of these and other racial disparities in health characteristics. In contrast, “only” 69.1% of African American men are overweight or obese – a percentage that is still alarmingly high in absolute terms, but lower than the percentages for Caucasian men (73.2%), and Hispanic men (77.9%), according to the NHANES data. A similar pattern has been reported for type-2 diabetes, a disease strongly associated with overweight and obesity: according to a 2007 study in The American Journal of Public Health, the incidence of diabetes is higher among African American […]

Life sciences

05 Jun 2016

New interest sparked in the transportation of fluids in porous media

by Michelle Ponto, science writer With the oil situation stealing news headlines and the need for clean energy a growing concern, a group of scientists have rekindled interest in developing new solutions in the transport of fluids in porous media. Oil effects the economy, the environment, and in some cases, political situations within a region. One of the problems is that approximately half of the oil remains in the ground when a reservoir has yielded all it can with today’s technology. This has led to the evolution of dirty methods such as fracking and tar sand exploitation. “Transport in porous media is, perhaps surprisingly, at the core of fuel cell technology,” said Professor Alex Hansen. “Simply put…the world needs energy, and that energy needs to be clean.” Hansen, the Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Physics, is professor of physics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Norway. He is also a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Royal Norwegian Society of Science and Letters and the Norwegian Academy of Technical Sciences. He is Dr. h. c. at the University of Rennes 1, and over the years has researched the transport and breakdown […]

Life sciences

01 Jun 2016

Conquering the great divide between physics complexity and real-world complexity

By Michelle Ponto, science writer The divide between “physics complexity” and real-world complexity is wide, but understanding characterization of real-world complexity is growing in importance. While phase transitions and associated phenomena in physical systems has been one defining subject in the field, how they connect and create parallels within real-life systems is still underexplored. This is one of the reasons Professor Zbigniew R. Struzik from the University of Tokyo launched a Frontiers Research Topic entitled “Critical Phenomena in Complex Systems.” Struzik specializes in biophysics and medical physics as well as complex system’s physics and condensed matter physics. With the launch of the research topic he’s hoping physicists from around the world will submit their manuscripts dealing with criticality and phase transitions in real-world complex systems towards the topic to help advance it forward and focus the attention of the community around it. Struzik says this problem has been around for some time already, but only in recent years has the tool of ‘research topics’ become available to help him explore it. And the timing could not be more perfect. “Modern physics is rapidly expanding from the domains which are traditionally considered to be the matter of physics. At the same […]

Life sciences

24 May 2016

Can legumes solve environmental issues?

By Alice Rolandini Jensen, Frontiersin.org It’s a win-win situation for the environment and the economy when it comes to introducing legumes into agricultural systems, says new research published in Frontiers in Plant Science, carried out by an international team of scientists as part of the European Union project, Legume Futures. Currently Europe’s crop production is highly specialized in only a small number of plant species, to the detriment of the environment. Cereal crops dominate, meaning Europe imports over 70% of its protein feed stocks to support the meat industry. “The introduction of legumes such as clovers, lupins, lucerne and faba beans can increase the sustainability of agriculture and the supply of protein in Europe,” stated Moritz Reckling of the Leibniz Centre for Agriculture Research (ZALF) in Germany and lead author of this study. Legumes are protein-rich and would provide relief for the deficit; they also increase the amount of nitrogen available to plants through biological nitrogen fixation, reducing the need for fertilisers. With less than 2% of European arable land currently used to grow grain legumes, Reckling and co-workers created a model to determine the effects of integrating legumes into cropping systems. The team set out to evaluate the trade-offs […]

Life sciences

13 May 2016

Using precision-genetics in pigs to beat cancer

Because of their similarities to people, using new technology in pigs turns up as a valuable alternative to rodent models of cancer. By Mônica Favre, Frontiers Staff Science Writer The numbers are staggering: more than 40 % is the lifetime risk of developing cancer in the U.S., with only 66 % survival-rates 5 years after diagnosis, for all types of cancer. Trends suggest that in 2015, over 1.6 million new cases were diagnosed in the U.S., with over 580,000 deaths in consequence. These numbers emphasize the need to better understand and treat the various forms of the disease, but mouse models usually used in cancer research have given us limited answers. However, Senior Scientist Adrienne Watson and colleagues at Recombinetics and the University of Minnesota, say that pigs may turn out to be the best alternative models. “Many organ systems vary so greatly between rodents and humans that certain types of cancer cannot be accurately modelled,” says Watson, despite the major role mouse models have played in our understanding of the disease. The authors conclude that the five deadliest cancers in the U.S. cannot be modeled in rodents, or have ineffective models for identification of treatments that translate to the […]

Life sciences

12 May 2016

Gene and tonic: Genetic link in binge-drinking teens

By Abigail Pattenden, Frontiers science writer From minor acts of rebellion such as bunking off school, to the more serious experimentation with illicit substances, the teenage years can be a stressful time for parents. But what if your child goes beyond the odd cigarette behind the bike shed or sneaking sherry from the drinks cabinet? Some teenagers develop riskier behavior, such as binge drinking or drug taking, which can follow them into adulthood with all the health concerns that go with them. New research conducted at the University of Sussex has identified a specific gene that links impulsive behavior to binge-drinking in teens. “Our findings are important because we show that certain variations in the KALRN gene are associated both with alcohol binge drinking and with brain activation during impulsive responding in adolescents,” said Dr. Yolanda Peña-Oliver, who led the researchers under the supervision of Professor Dai Stephens. “These results provide a novel insight into the possible neurobiological and genetic determinants of impulsivity and alcohol abuse. Studies like ours will be instrumental in discovering biomarkers that might be used to predict future vulnerability to develop disorders such as ADHD or drug addiction, in which impulsivity is a core symptom.” The […]

Life sciences

04 May 2016

Turn up the heat to increase altitude tolerance

By Tania FitzGeorge-Balfour, Frontiers science writer Altitude training is a popular method for athletes wanting to improve their physical performance. At high altitudes oxygen levels are lowered so our bodies compensate by increasing the number of red blood cells. This enables an enhanced performance at lower altitudes because more oxygen can be delivered to the muscles. Many companies now offer altitude training in specialist chambers (often referred to as normobaric training) as an alternative to traveling to a high altitude country (hypobaric training), which is costly in terms of both time and money. New research reported in the open-access journal Frontiers in Physiology, suggests that heat-based exercise can offer a more efficient means of improving altitude tolerance and physical performance than normobaric altitude training can provide. “We show that when the duration and frequency of training performed in heat or at altitude are the same, the heat-based training can offer a more obtainable and time-efficient method to improving tolerance to altitude,” says Dr. Ben J. Lee, who completed this study as part of his PhD research at the University of Coventry. This is the first investigation that compares the effects of heat and low-oxygen training side by side. Dr. Lee and his co-authors […]

Life sciences

29 Apr 2016

Advancing immunology and primary immunodeficiencies in the genomic era: The importance of being collaborative

We celebrate the day of Immunology with an interview with Sergio Rosenzweig, Deputy Chief of the Immunology Service at the Clinical Center, NIH and the Co-Director of the Primary Immunodeficiency Clinic, NIAID, NIH and Associate Editor for Frontiers in Immunology and for Frontiers in Pediatrics. After more than 20 years of experience as pediatrician and researcher in the field of primary immunodeficiencies, Dr Rosenzweig has no doubt: the best is yet to come. “It is a fascinating time to be practicing medicine: if you take into consideration that the first genome was sequenced in 2003 and just six years later, in 2009, the first patient that diagnosed using next-generation sequencing, with a test cost reduction of 1 million times (from approximately 1billion dollars to 1 thousand dollars, that is just amazing” he said. Through omics technologies, the field of primary immunodeficiencies field is evolving at an exponential rate “We discover, on average, more than one new gene associated with primary immunodeficiencies per month”, he explained, “and this is teaching us so much: we thought we knew about those diseases, but now we are completely rethinking the way we study them.” Can you tell us a bit more about primary […]

Life sciences

27 Apr 2016

Decoding Zika virus to fight future outbreaks

By Fernando Bolaños, Frontiers science writer The constant emergence of viral outbreaks has become a permanent threat to human health. Last year, Zika virus infected thousands of people in the Americas. It is also associated to several cases of neurological disorders and has raised worldwide public health alerts. Now due to the urgency, researchers are detailing the characteristics of the virus to find solutions. The study completed by a group of researchers from the Department of Biotechnology of the Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria in Madrid, was published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Microbiology. It reveals the challenges humanity could face because of the increasingly frequent and devastating viral outbreaks. “Zika is spread by mosquitoes Aedes Ae. Aegypti, and Ae. Albopictus. They are considered the most invasive species in the world due to their adaptability to different climates. This has facilitated the rapid spread of the virus to five continents during the last 30 to 40 years. The virus was first detected in 1947 in Nigeria, but because it had a low affect on people´s health, not much was done until the recent huge outbreaks in the Americas,” explains researcher Juan Carlos Saiz. We already […]

Life sciences

27 Apr 2016

Are brain-training apps effective?

By Tania FitzGeorge-Balfour, Frontiers science writer In recent years there has been an explosion in the number of smartphone apps aimed at ‘brain training’. These games often make confident statements about improving our mental performance, but there is little scientific evidence to show that they do. A new study in the open-access journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience has investigated why consumers decide to download these apps, how they use them and what they think their benefits may be. “While the evidence of the effectiveness of brain training remains controversial, our results suggest that the public is interested in learning more about the actual science behind the claims made by the app developers,”says Dr. John Torous, a clinical psychiatrist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, lead author of the study. Young people and those with internet access tend to have high rates of smartphone ownership, so Dr. Torous and his co-authors designed a survey targeted at this group. They asked participants about their thoughts, use and experience of brain-training apps. Over three thousand people responded, making this the largest internet survey to date asking consumers about these apps; the results were insightful. Over two thirds of those that responded […]