Over its nearly 20 year mission, NASA's Cassini spacecraft redefined our understanding of Saturn. And while Cassini sent its final transmissions to Earth as it dove into the ringed planet last September, scientists have just published more than half a dozen papers using data collected during its "Grand Finale." The studies, published in both Science and the Geophysical Research Letters help refine our knowledge of the planet and its rings and how they evolved.
Planetary scientist Hunter ...read more
The piercing blue eyes of huskies — those beloved, wolf-like canines — stand out among most dog breeds. Now, using genetic tests, scientists find where blue-eyed Siberian huskies get their distinctive eye color. The researchers say this marks another step in our understanding of canine genetics.
“This is the first discovery that’s been made this way outside of humans,” said Adam Boyko, a genomics researcher at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and co-founder o ...read more
It’s a big week for CRISPR! Despite being a world apart, two separate research groups had the same idea: to see if CRISPR gene editing can really mimic conventional plant breeding.
One group re-domesticated a wild tomato plant; the other used a similar approach to domesticate an entirely new crop: the ground cherry, a tomato relative.
Together, the new work demonstrates how dramatically gene editing technology could speed up crop improvement efforts worldwide.
How to Make a Crop Worth ...read more
Researchers have taught a population of wild sparrows to sing a different song.
Out today in Current Biology, the research suggests new answers to the question of how birds learn to sing.
“This was a risky experiment we conducted because we didn’t know if it was going to work,” says Dan Mennill, lead author of the study.
Mennill explains that song learning has been studied for years in controlled laboratory settings. But it’s much more difficult to run an experime ...read more
It's not easy being a bee these days. Apis mellifera, the Western honey bee, is crucial to agriculture worldwide but faces a growing number of pests and pathogens against which beekeepers have few weapons.
But the bees themselves may be showing us the way forward: New research suggests the foraging insects may obtain protection against some viruses by consuming fungi, then returning to the hive to spread its medicinal value.
Honey bees contribute more than $15 billion annually to U.S ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine