Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine have pinpointed a molecular defect that seems almost universal among patients with Parkinson’s disease and those at a high risk of acquiring it.

More than 65,000 meltwater lakes have been discovered on the edge of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet by our researchers.

The Oceans not only host large predators such as sharks or orcas. Even in the realm of the microscopic some unicellular species consume others. Choanoflagellates belong to these unicellular predators. They are widespread in the ocean and eat bacteria and small algae. Choanoflagellates are considered among the closest living unicellular relatives of animals and can transition to a multicellular state. For that reason they are often studied for understanding how multicellular organisms like us came to be.

Now, a team of scientists led by Professor Alexandra Z. Worden (GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany/Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, MBARI, USA) has provided the first insights in the interaction between choanoflagellates and viruses. In a multi-year intensive effort the team was able to detect the genome of a giant virus in these unicellular predators. The virus had a genome size and gene numbers comparable to small bacteria. More surprising than the genome size were the many functions it encodes and brings to the host. The study has just been published in the international journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

For the study the scientists repeatedly went to sea with high-tech instrumentation and the goal to look at all the predatory unicellular organisms in the water using a laser-based visualization system. Then they individually separated these cells from other microbes in a process called single-cell sorting. “Each individual predator from the wild was then sequenced – and the single-cell sorts from one Pacific Ocean sample were dominated by an uncultured species of choanoflagellate”, Professor Worden explains.

Read more at: Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Geomar)

Plant growth is strongly shaped by environmental conditions like light, humidity, drought and salinity, among other factors. But how plants integrate environmental signals and the developmental processes encoded in their genes remains a mystery.

NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite provided a full visible image of a strengthening Hurricane Lorenzo in the eastern North Atlantic Ocean. On Sept. 26, Lorenzo attained status as a major hurricane.

On Star Trek, Captains Kirk and Picard often had to contend with their Romulan adversaries who possessed a “cloaking device” that rendered their ships invisible.

Plastic pollution in the oceans has become an important societal problem, as plastics are the most common and persistent pollutants in oceans and beaches worldwide

Floods are some of the most damaging weather-related events in Canada, occurring so frequently that they’re the most commonly experienced natural hazard. 

Chemical signatures recently found in rock formations are providing critical insight for understanding the formation of Earth, according to scientists.

If you find yourself in the tropical deciduous forest of the Querétaro, Mexico, you may run into Natasha Mhatre. Or, at least, the tree cricket that bears the Biology professor’s name.