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A Braarudosphaera bigelowii cell magnified 1,000-fold.Credit score: Tyler Coale
A brand new organelle that may flip atmospheric nitrogen into biologically helpful molecules has been found in a marine alga. It’s the primary time nitrogen fixation has been recorded in eukaryotes (the group of organisms that features crops and animals). The invention affords hope that crops might someday be engineered to seize nitrogen from the air — basically making their very own fertilizer.
Nature | 4 min learn
Nature Briefing: Microbiology is our new free weekly publication that’s all about probably the most plentiful residing entities on our planet – microorganisms – and the function they play in well being, the surroundings and meals methods.
A Wigner crystal — a construction made completely of electrons — has been imaged instantly for the primary time. Till now, there had solely been oblique proof of the crystal, which kinds at low temperatures. “We by no means thought that we might succeed,” says physicist and research co-author Ali Yazdani. “It was a little bit of an accident.” Utilizing high-resolution scanning tunnelling microscopy, the workforce noticed the electrons inside two skinny graphene sheets organize themselves right into a triangular lattice, simply as physicist Eugene Wigner predicted in 1934.
Proof from burial websites throughout Europe would possibly level to a standard ritual involving human sacrifice. Shared traits — such because the type of killing, damaged grindstones, remnants of animal sacrifices and spherical, silolike constructions — counsel that these rituals may need been a widespread follow amongst cultures that had been in any other case fairly completely different. Critics say that the human skeletons lack some key options, corresponding to indicators of violent harm, which places the conclusion unsure. “Human sacrifice is widespread, and many various cultures practised it,” says osteoarchaeologist Christian Meyer. “However it’s troublesome to show, and there’s no actual proof right here past the association of our bodies in a pit.”
Reference: Science Advances paper
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Final week, we learnt that some scientists are turning to Reddit as their social media community of alternative. Once we requested the working scientists amongst our readers, 11% of the self-selected respondents stated it was already their most-used platform and nearly 20% stated they’re contemplating utilizing it extra. One other 12% stated they most popular different platforms, together with Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy and ResearchGate. And 35% of respondents weren’t eager on any social media.
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As latest PhD graduates in psychology-related fields, Violeta Rodriguez and Qimin Liu needed to forgo postdoctoral coaching and as a substitute instantly change into junior professors. And so they succeeded: collectively, they obtained 15 tenure-track assistant-professorship affords. To assist others navigate the “aggravating, quick and unpredictable” journey, they share a guidelines for earlier than you even get began.
Nature | 6 min learn
A theoretical physicist will get recommendation from three of his multiverse selves within the newest brief story for Nature’s Futures collection.
Nature | 6 min learn
Scientists and 210 volunteers spent about 7,000 hours cataloguing greater than 1,000,000 kilometres of unmapped ghost roads in Borneo, New Guinea and Sumatra. “The fundamental backside line is: the place the roads go is the place the forest destruction occurs,” ecologist and research co-author Invoice Laurance tells the Nature Podcast. Main official roads usually have many ghost roads branching off them. “One of many messages we need to say to governments is: be actually cautious the place you develop your infrastructure,” Laurance says.
Nature Podcast | 23 min pay attention
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
Doctor-geneticist Francis Collins, the previous head of the US Nationwide Institutes of Well being, shares the small print of his prostate most cancers analysis to focus on the significance of early detection and scientific trials, and the pervasive well being inequities in screening and coverings. (The Washington Put up | 7 min learn)
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