Brazilian Legal Amazonia (BLA)—which comprises the entirety of the Amazon Basin located in Brazil and vast adjacent swathes of the Cerrado, spanning nine states—is more than 5 million square kilometers (km2) in area and corresponds to almost 60% of the country's land mass. Almost a quarter of this area (23%) has been deforested, and over 1 million km2 are degraded, so that the region risks reaching an ecological tipping point at which ecosystems collapse and billions of tons of carbon are released into the atmosphere.

When we need to recharge, we might take a vacation or relax at the spa. But what if we could recharge at the cellular level, fighting against aging and disease with the microscopic building blocks that make up the human body?

A protein called STING, previously shown to control a pathway that contributes to antiviral signaling, also plays an important role in cellular stress clearance and cell survival, according to a new paper published in Molecular Cell.

Diabetes, a widespread condition affecting approximately 13% of American adults, is often accompanied by complications such as impaired wound healing. If left unchecked, this can lead to severe outcomes, including the need for amputation.

In a study led by Sarah Worthan, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the Behringer Lab at Vanderbilt University, scientists have successfully evolved microbial cultures that possess the ability to sense pH changes, enabling rapid responses to environmental fluctuations.

Spintronics uses the spins of electrons to perform logic operations or store information. Ideally, spintronic devices could operate faster and more energy-efficiently than conventional semiconductor devices. However, it is still difficult to create and manipulate spin textures in materials.

Antibiotics are a lifesaving tool. Yet, due to their chronic overuse, microbes are evolving and developing immunity against them. As a result, once-effective medications can no longer stave off infections, complicating treatment and increasing mortality.

Researchers from Japan and Thailand investigating microplastics in coral have found that all three parts of the coral anatomy—surface mucus, tissue, and skeleton—contain microplastics. The findings were made possible thanks to a new microplastic detection technique developed by the team and applied to coral for the first time.

As one of the largest heat reservoirs in the climate system, the global ocean absorbs more than 90% of the excess energy from ongoing anthropogenic warming. In the last century, the greatest warming in the ocean has occurred in the upper 500 m, with relatively weak warming in the deep ocean, corresponding to a small ocean heat storage efficiency of ~0.1.

A planet swings in front of its star, dimming the starlight we see. Events like these, called transits, provide us with bounties of information about exoplanets—planets around stars other than the sun. But predicting when these special events occur can be challenging…unless you have help from volunteers.