https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. In a new study, Northwestern University scientists explored how snow flies—small, wingless insects that crawl across snow to find mates and lay eggs—survive in freezing cold temperatures. They discovered this snow-dwelling fly uses a surprising combination of strategies: it generates its own body heat like a mammal and produces antifreeze proteins like an Arctic fish. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-flies-proteins.html Plants & Animals Tue, 24 Mar 2026 11:00:03 EDT news693478621 University of Tokyo researchers have investigated the origin and dispersal scenarios of Homo sapiens into East Eurasia. The team examined how migration routes, genetic contributions from archaic humans, and environmental adaptations helped shape modern populations and found an improbable flaw in one origin idea. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-africa-east-eurasian-genomic.html Evolution Tue, 04 Mar 2025 07:30:05 EST news660219872 The unusual odor of the titan arum, commonly called the corpse flower because its scent is reminiscent of rotting flesh, draws crowds of curious visitors to greenhouses around the world during its rare blooms. What also intrigues scientists is the corpse flower's propensity for warming itself up just before blooming through a process known as thermogenesis, an uncommon trait in plants that is not well understood. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-secrets-corpse-revealed.html Plants & Animals Mon, 11 Nov 2024 09:28:04 EST news650539675 Thermogenesis is a process by which organisms generate internal heat. Although it is usually associated with animals, some plants have also developed this ability. This metabolic process allows certain parts of the plant, such as flowers and inflorescences, to raise their temperature above that of the surrounding environment. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-thermogenesis-played-key-role-pollinating.html Plants & Animals Fri, 06 Sep 2024 05:00:01 EDT news644756881 Around 100 million years ago, a remarkable evolutionary shift allowed placental mammals to diversify and conquer many cold regions of our planet. New research from Stockholm University shows that the typical mammalian heater organ, brown fat, evolved exclusively in modern placental mammals. The work is published in the journal Science. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-marsupials-key-heater-mammals.html Plants & Animals Thu, 06 Jun 2024 14:00:01 EDT news636883398 Mitochondria, organelles with an inner and outer membrane, are responsible for creating the energy that cells use to survive, and their morphology is key to accomplishing this task. The inner mitochondrial membrane contains folds, called cristae, that maximize the surface area available for mitochondrial energetic processes. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-mitochondria-life-stages.html Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 08 Apr 2024 13:17:22 EDT news631800929 Researchers Toru Miyamoto, Ko Mochizuki, and Atsushi Kawakita of the University of Tokyo have discovered the first species pollinated by sap beetles in the genus Pandanus, a group of palm-like plants native to the tropics and subtropics of Africa and Eurasia. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-fragrant-pollinated-sap-beetles.html Plants & Animals Wed, 27 Mar 2024 11:00:01 EDT news630747061 Researchers have shed light on the molecular mechanisms underlying hibernation, publishing their findings today as a Reviewed Preprint in eLife. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-reveals-molecular-mechanisms-hibernation-mammals.html Plants & Animals Tue, 20 Feb 2024 16:09:04 EST news627667741 A team of researchers from the University of Queensland, La Trobe University and Monash University, all in Australia, has found evidence that suggests the evolutionary loss of a ryanodine receptor isoform may explain how muscles in warm-blooded creatures evolved to allow for the generation of heat even when at rest. The paper is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-evolutionary-loss-ryanodine-receptor-isoform.html Evolution Thu, 19 Jan 2023 11:07:10 EST news593348825 An international team of researchers including Florian Etl and Jürg Schönenberger from the University ofVienna, Stefan Dötterl and Mario Schubert from the University of Salzburg, and Oliver Reiser and Christian Kaiser from the University of Regensburg, have for the first time succeeded in providing evidence for an important hypothesis on the evolution and diversity of animal pollination. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-animal-pollination.html Evolution Fri, 07 Oct 2022 09:35:30 EDT news584354125 Hot summer temperatures may have you reaching for a fan and an iced drink in your quest to keep cool. But now, researchers from Japan have found that some mutant proteins are even less tolerant of the heat, getting trapped in a cycle of activation that can have deadly consequences. https://phys.org/news/2022-08-links-malignant-hyperthermia-heat-hypersensitive-mutant.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 08 Aug 2022 10:21:02 EDT news579172861 Researchers have shown that aggregation of amyloid-beta, one of two key proteins implicated in Alzheimer's disease, causes cells to overheat and "fry like eggs." https://phys.org/news/2022-05-alzheimer-disease-cells-overheat-eggs.html Biochemistry Tue, 31 May 2022 07:16:22 EDT news573200177 The evolutionary origin of endothermy (the ability to maintain a warm body and higher energy levels than reptiles), currently believed to have originated separately in birds and mammals, could have occurred nearly 300 million years ago. https://phys.org/news/2021-12-warm-bodied-ties-mammals-birds-ancient.html Evolution Mon, 13 Dec 2021 16:53:19 EST news558636791 Sea otters are a hardy lot. https://phys.org/news/2021-07-scientists-otters-hotter.html Plants & Animals Thu, 08 Jul 2021 16:34:20 EDT news544980842 Scientific evidence shows specialized features in the large brains of whales and dolphins that are adapted for heat production. https://phys.org/news/2021-03-whale-dolphin-brains-specialfor-production.html Plants & Animals Tue, 09 Mar 2021 10:18:08 EST news534507484 Although the CRISPR/Cas9 system has seen widespread application in editing the nuclear genome, using it to edit the mitochondrial genome has been problematic. The main hurdles have been a lack of suitable editing sites in the small mtDNA, and the traditional difficulty of importing the guide RNA into the mitochondrial matrix where nucleoids can be accessed. https://phys.org/news/2021-02-crispr-mitochondria-biotech.html Biotechnology Fri, 05 Feb 2021 09:00:01 EST news531731817 A mitochondrial hormone expressed by cells deep in the brain appears to play a role in improving metabolism and fighting off obesity, according to a new study in mice. https://phys.org/news/2021-02-body-mind-hormones-brain-metabolism.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 02 Feb 2021 12:42:49 EST news531492163 Precisely manipulating various liquids is essential in many fields and unlike solid objects, fluids are intrinsically divisible. Fluids are also sticky with appropriate functions for lossless manipulation to prevent loss and contamination. In a new report now published on Science Advances, Wei Li and colleagues in mechanical engineering and research and innovation in China presented photopyroelectric microfluidics to meet such diverse requirements. The fluidic platform facilitated the development of a unique wavy dielectrophoretic force field from a single beam of light to remarkably perform the desired loss-free manipulation of droplets and function as a "magic" wetting-proof surface. The liquid platform could navigate, fuse, pinch and cleave fluids on demand to establish cargo carriers with droplet wheels and has potential to upgrade the maximum concentration of deliverables such as protein by 4000-fold. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-photopyroelectric-microfluidics.html Nanophysics Thu, 24 Sep 2020 10:10:05 EDT news520158972 Researchers have discovered a new set of signals that cells send and receive to prompt one type of fat cell to convert fat into heat. The signaling pathway, discovered in mice, has potential implications for activating this same type of thermogenic fat in humans. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-approach-energy-burning-fat-cells.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 12 Jun 2020 11:00:01 EDT news511170257 Yes, fat cells deep under your skin can sense light. And when bodies do not get enough exposure to the right kinds of light, fat cells behave differently. https://phys.org/news/2020-01-fat-cells-sunlightnot-metabolic-syndrome.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 21 Jan 2020 12:25:10 EST news498831904 A new Tel Aviv University study suggests that the genetic profiles of two extinct mammals with African ancestry—woolly mammoths, elephant-like animals that evolved in the arctic peninsula of Eurasia around 600,000 years ago, and Neanderthals, highly skilled early humans who evolved in Europe around 400,000 years ago—shared molecular characteristics of adaptation to cold environments. https://phys.org/news/2019-04-woolly-mammoths-neanderthals-genetic-traits.html Evolution Mon, 08 Apr 2019 13:03:00 EDT news473947373 Once almost wiped out from existence, the mighty bison has recovered to become a symbol of pride for the American West and European conversation efforts. https://phys.org/news/2016-07-buffalo-evolutionarily-roamed.html Evolution Tue, 19 Jul 2016 17:00:01 EDT news388162050 (Phys.org) —In the winter, brown and black bears go into hibernation to conserve energy and keep warm. https://phys.org/news/2014-02-polar-genes.html Plants & Animals Mon, 10 Feb 2014 13:31:21 EST news311261395 (Phys.org) —If you asked a biologist what any given cell is going to do next, they might ask you first to tell them its electrical potential, oxygenation, pH, osmolarity or glucose concentration. Depending on how finely-scaled your answer might be, they might be able to predict anything from firing an action potential or entering mitosis, to undergoing apoptosis. But what if you knew the subcellular temperature profile in such detail that each mitochondria, centriole and even regions of the endoplasmic reticulum could be read as easily as a mother her child's fever? That question now drives some of the most exciting research in biology. This year several groups have come up with ingenious thermometric methods ranging from fluorescence lifetime microscopy to exotic diamond nanosensors employing nitrogen vacancy centers. The latest breakthrough, just published in Nature Methods, describes a method that uses a genetically-encoded sensor built from green fluorescent protein (GFP) that is fused to a thermosensing protein borrowed from Salmonella. The researchers used this construct to probe thermogenesis in brown fat mitochondria, and perhaps most astoundingly, were able to correlate temperature with both mitochondrial membrane potential and ATP production. https://phys.org/news/2013-10-subcellular-temperature-profiles-genetically-encoded-thermosensors.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 16 Oct 2013 14:30:01 EDT news301150967 When mammals are cold, they can employ physical changes to stay warm -- such as intense shivering. Like any form of aerobic exercise, though, "shivering thermogenesis" is especially challenging at high altitudes because there is less oxygen in the thin mountain air. So how do high-altitude mammals maintain a constant body temperature in low-oxygen, extremely cold alpine environments? https://phys.org/news/2012-05-metabolic-high-altitudes.html Plants & Animals Thu, 17 May 2012 08:36:06 EDT news256462551 A developmental biologist at New York Medical College is proposing a new theory of the origin of birds, which traditionally has been thought to be driven by the evolution of flight. Instead, Stuart A. Newman, Ph.D., credits the emergence of enlarged skeletal muscles as the basis for their upright two-leggedness, which led to the opportunity for other adaptive changes like flying or swimming. And it is all based on the loss of a gene that is critical to the ability of other warm-blooded animals to generate heat for survival. https://phys.org/news/2011-06-scientist-cites-enlarged-skeletal-muscles.html Evolution Wed, 22 Jun 2011 11:19:02 EDT news227960330 Chili peppers can do more than just make you feel hot, reports a study in the August 1 Journal of Biological Chemistry; the active chemical in peppers can directly induce thermogenesis, the process by which cells convert energy into heat. https://phys.org/news/2008-08-hot-peppers.html Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:55:35 EDT news137246135 A University of Sussex biochemist will brave the stench of the world's smelliest - and largest - flower, the Titan arum, when he gives a series of public lectures about the plant's special heat-producing properties. https://phys.org/news/2007-02-professor-scent-world-smelliest.html Fri, 02 Feb 2007 15:57:41 EST news89654261