Toxins from one bacterial species contribute to genetic diversity of others
A toxin produced by bacteria as a defense mechanism causes mutations in target bacteria that could help them survive, according to a study published today in eLife.
A toxin produced by bacteria as a defense mechanism causes mutations in target bacteria that could help them survive, according to a study published today in eLife.
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 23, 2021
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6
Macrocyclic peptides are promising candidates for pharmaceuticals, but their screening is difficult. Scientists have now developed an easy-to-use, high-throughput screening assay for cyclic peptides with affinity to ubiquitin, ...
Biochemistry
Feb 22, 2021
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11
Bacteria have many ways to evade the antibiotics that we use against them. Each year, at least 2.8 million people in the United States develop an antibiotic-resistant infection, and more than 35,000 people die from such infections, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 18, 2021
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81
American values, attitudes and activities have changed dramatically during COVID-19, according to a new study of online behavior.
Social Sciences
Feb 18, 2021
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6
Serious pollution caused around 160,000 premature deaths in the world's five most populous cities last year, even as air quality improved in some places due to coronavirus lockdowns, an environmental group said Thursday.
Environment
Feb 18, 2021
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19
Modern medical technology is helping scholars tell a more nuanced story about the fate of an ancient king whose violent death indirectly led to the reunification of Egypt in the 16th century BC. The research was published ...
Archaeology
Feb 17, 2021
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307
Plastic in the ocean can be deadly for marine wildlife and seabirds around the globe, but our latest study shows single-use plastics are a bigger threat to endangered albatrosses in the southern hemisphere than we previously ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 17, 2021
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462
Scientists at the University of Stirling have been able to unpick what determines the size and evolution of disease in a first-of-its-kind study.
Ecology
Feb 16, 2021
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Florida's manatees had an especially deadly year in 2020, marked by particularly grim incidents: flood gates closing and crushing the "gentle giants," and even decapitating one.
Plants & Animals
Feb 12, 2021
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218
Considered the most lethal form of DNA damage, double-strand breaks must be repaired to prevent cell death. In developing therapies for hard-to-treat breast and ovarian cancers in patients with BRCA gene mutations, scientists ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 11, 2021
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269
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that define a living organism. It refers to both a particular event and to the condition that results thereby. The true nature of the latter has for millennia been a central concern of the world's religious traditions and of philosophical enquiry. Many religions maintain faith in either some kind of afterlife or reincarnation. The effect of physical death on any possible mind or soul remains for many an open question.
Animals almost without exception (see hydra) die in due course from senescence. Intervening phenomena which commonly bring death earlier include malnutrition, predation, disease, accidents resulting in terminal physical injury, or, in extreme circumstances, grave ecosystem disruption. Intentional human activity causing death includes suicide, homicide, and war. Roughly 150,000 people die each day across the globe. Death in the natural world can also occur as an indirect result of human activity: an increasing cause of species depletion in recent times has been destruction of ecological systems as a consequence of the widening spread of industrial technology.
Death in this context is now seen as less an event than a process: conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible. Where in the process a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs. In general, clinical death is neither necessary nor sufficient for a determination of legal death. A patient with working heart and lungs determined to be brain dead can be pronounced legally dead without clinical death occurring. Precise medical definition of death, in other words, becomes more problematic, paradoxically, as scientific knowledge and technology advance.
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