Polygenic risk scores — a patient’s chance, based on tiny DNA variants, of developing cardiovascular disease, breast cancer and more — are coming to clinics. But there are kinks to iron out and accuracy remains an issue.

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/health-disease/2024/polygenic-risk-score-genes-heart-disease-cancer-coming-to-clinic

#KnowableMagazine
#ScienceMastodon

New research suggests that to maintain a healthy brain, we should tend our gut microbiome. The best way to do that right now is not through pills and supplements, but better food.

Tim Vernimmen

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/mind/2024/gut-brain-axis-mental-health-microbiome

#KnowableMagazine
#ScienceMastodon

“Each species is its own little series of mysteries,” says botanist Wesley Knapp, the CEO of the California-based Center for Plant Conservation. “This is really frontline science, in many ways, and we’re trying to figure out what these very rare plants may need.”

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2025/seed-banking-to-preserve-rare-plants

From meditation to smiling, researchers take a second look at studies claiming to reveal what makes us happy.

Amber Dance

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/mind/2024/scientists-scrutinize-happiness-research

#KnowableMagazine
#ScienceMastodon

As trees choked by saltwater die along low-lying coasts, marshes may move in — for better or worse, scientists are learning.

Learn more about this in our recent article republished by Ars Technica.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/ghost-forests-are-growing-as-sea-levels-rise/

#KnowableMagazine
#ScienceMastodon

Do forests warm or cool the Earth? What’s their effect on global climate change?

In our 2018 comic, polymath Benjamin Franklin describes the evolution of thought on this issue and what we still don’t know — an essential #ArborDay read

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2018/centuries-pondering-and-squabbling-about-trees

On our radar: Clever coyotes in our midst

“Though many urban species lived on the landscape long before we developed it, people still tend to think of them as pests who’ve invaded our space—as interlopers who should be evicted. But scientists increasingly think of these animals as intriguing research subjects who can help answer key questions about existing, and coexisting, in urban landscapes.”

Betsy Mason, @hakaimagazine

https://www.biographic.com/the-coyote-next-door/

To attract insects, thermogenic plants turn up the heat, emit strong odors and even disguise themselves as corpses.

Rachel Ehrenberg

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2025/how-thermogenic-plants-woo-pollinators

#KnowableMagazine
#ScienceMastodon

White House Proposal Could Gut Climate Modeling the World Depends On - #GlobalWarming #Climate #Weather #ClimateCrisis #RepublicansDidThis #RepublicansOwnThis #Science #ScienceMastodon https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-noaa-budget-cuts-climate-change-modeling-princeton-gfdl

Deadwood typically represents less than a tenth of the organic matter in forests, but plays an outsized role in supporting fungi, bacteria, insects and other life forms

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2025/rotting-logs-mini-ecosystems-habitat-and-food

#KnowableMagazine
#ScienceMastodon

Join us as the new Community Manager to run @the_node.

A great opportunity for someone with a love of developmental and/or stem cell biology, science communication and engaging with researchers.

Apply by 19 May 2025.

https://www.biologists.com/about-us/work-for-us/

To safeguard threatened plants, science must unravel the hidden biology of often-persnickety seeds as they age, sleep and awaken.

Katarina Zimmer

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2025/seed-banking-to-preserve-rare-plants

#KnowableMagazine
#ScienceMastodon

#Journals | EPJ B

#CallforPapers for a Topical Issue on
“100 Glorious Years of the Ising Model”
Guest Editors from #presiuniv , #Kolkata, #India, #TheNASUkraine
and #WignerResearchCentre, Budapest

April 30, 2025
https://buff.ly/4fTP7uA
#ScienceMastodon
#ScientificPublishing
@ScienceScholar
@academia @phdlife @phdstudents
@academicsunite @academicchatter
@ScienceAdm

Four billion years ago, our planet was water and barren rock.

Out of this, some mighty complicated chemistry bubbled up, perhaps in a pond or a deep ocean vent.

Eventually, that chemistry got wrapped in membranes, a primitive cell developed and life emerged from the ooze.

But how?

Among the many mysteries is a chicken-and-egg problem to solve.

“At the dawn of life, did metabolism come first?”: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2025/evolution-of-life-metabolism-first

A parasitic fungus takes over the brains of flies and controls them for its own sinister ends. Here’s the science behind the horror.

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2024/parasitic-fungus-turns-insect-into-zombie

#KnowableMagazine
#ScienceMastodon

And this is why #science needs public funding to ensure indepedent results ... #ScienceMastodon #humor #publicscience

For climate and livelihoods, Africa bets big on solar mini-grids

Nigeria is pioneering the development of small, off-grid solar panel
installations to bring reliable electricity to remote communities — setting a
model for other African countries.

Learn more in @KnowableMag
https://knowmag.org/Minigrids_KM

Lea en español en Knowable en español
https://knowmag.org/Minigrids_KEE

No goal for metformin in cancer trials, but some researchers think the drug might help earlier on in tumor development or to combat aging, among other things.

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/health-disease/2024/diabetes-drug-metformin-doesnt-help-treat-cancer

#KnowableMagazine
#ScienceMastodon

“That was one of the most important things that anyone has done in the last 50 years, for the origin of life — to really look at how certain reactions can work non-enzymatically." —Martina Preiner

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2025/evolution-of-life-metabolism-first #KnowableMagazine #ScienceMastodon