biology
Paris (AFP) - Baleen whales have evolved a special voice box to help them to sing underwater -- but this could also make them uniquely vulnerable to being drowned out by human noise pollution, according to new research published Wednesday. Complex whale melodies, first recorded some 50 years ago, are known to play a key role in the social and reproductive communication of these massive marine mammals. While toothed whales have a nasal vocal organ, filter-feeding baleen whales use a larynx, although scientists had not figured out exactly how it created the vocalisations. In a new study publish...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - Researchers at Google DeepMind, the tech giant's artificial intelligence arm, on Tuesday introduced a tool that predicts whether genetic mutations are likely to cause harm, a breakthrough that could help research into rare diseases. The findings are "another step in recognising the impact that AI is having in the natural sciences," said Pushmeet Kohli, vice president for research at Google DeepMind. The tool focuses on so-called "missense" mutations, where a single letter of the genetic code is affected. A typical human has 9,000 such mutations throughout their genome; they...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - Edward O. Wilson, the trailblazing US scientist, professor and author whose study of insects and clarion call to protect Earth earned him the nickname "Darwin's natural heir," has died at age 92. Wilson, whose death was announced Monday by his foundation, was an award-winning biologist and longtime Harvard University research professor, considered the world's leading authority on ants and their behavior. While an entomologist early in his career, he broadened his scope immensely, studying not just insects but the social interactions of birds, mammals and humans, and he effec...
AFP
Tokyo (AFP) - Scientists have generated early-stage human embryo models that could help shed light on the "black box" of initial human development stages and improve research on pregnancy loss and birth defects. Two separate teams found different ways to produce versions of a blastocyst -- the pre-embryonic mass of cells at the stage of development around five days after a sperm fertilises an egg -- potentially opening the door for a huge expansion of research. The scientists make clear that the models differ from human blastocysts and are not capable of developing into embryos. But their work...
AFP
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