Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda first proposed umami as a basic taste—in addition to sweet, sour, salty and bitter—in the early 1900s. About eight decades later, the scientific community officially agreed with him.
Cell & Microbiology
Oct 5, 2023
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393
Scientists revealed Sunday for the first time how some snakes can detect the faint body heat exuded by a mouse a metre (three feet) away with enough precision and speed to hunt in the dark.
Plants & Animals
Mar 15, 2010
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1
For more than a decade, a vial of rare snake venom refused to give up its secret formula for lethality; its toxins had no effect on the proteins that most venoms target. Finally, an international team of researchers figured ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 9, 2015
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123
Every day, thousands of trained K9 dogs sniff out narcotics, explosives and missing people across the United States. These dogs are invaluable for security, but they're also very expensive and they can get tired.
Analytical Chemistry
Nov 19, 2018
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322
A tiny snail may offer an alternative to opioids for pain relief. Scientists at the University of Utah have found a compound that blocks pain by targeting a pathway not associated with opioids. Research in rodents indicates ...
Biochemistry
Feb 20, 2017
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2827
If you had the grooming habits of a Neanderthal, perhaps it's a good thing your nose wasn't as sensitive to urine and sweat as a modern human's.
Evolution
Jan 5, 2023
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1034
In collaboration with colleagues from the ETH Zurich, researchers at the University of Bern, Switzerland, have for the first time investigated a substance found in liverwort that resembles THC. The psychoactive substance, ...
Biochemistry
Oct 24, 2018
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4317
(Phys.org)—The predictive power and galvanizing influence that theoretical models routinely enjoy in physics is only rarely replicated in biology. Lord Raleigh's theory of sound perception, Francis Crick's sequence and ...
The gene-editing technology called CRISPR has revolutionized the way that the function of genes is studied. So far, CRISPR has been widely used to precisely modify single-celled organisms and, more importantly, specific types ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 10, 2017
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359
(Phys.org)—One benefit of the closeness between pigs and humans is the potential to be organ donors. There are however, just a few nagging uncertainties that still stand in the way. The big one, the possibility of porcine ...
