| Animal Study Registry could improve data quality and reduce wasted lives
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 A recently launched online registry aims to improve the quality and reproducibility of animal research around the world while reducing harm to animals, according to an article published Oct. 15 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Gilbert Schönfelder of the German Centre for the Protection of Laboratory Animals (Bf3R), and colleagues.
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| Stretched photons recover lost interference
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 The smallest pieces of nature—individual particles like electrons, for instance—are pretty much interchangeable. An electron is an electron is an electron, regardless of whether it's stuck in a lab on Earth, bound to an atom in some chalky moon dust or shot out of an extragalactic black hole in a superheated jet. In practice, though, differences in energy, motion or location can make it easy to tell two electrons apart.
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| New survey confirms muscadine grapes are affected by parasitic nematodes
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 Muscadines are also known for being hearty grapes, with a tough skin that protects them from many fungal diseases. Bunch grapes are highly susceptible to damage from plant-parasitic nematodes (PPNs), which affect their health, quality, production, and maintenance. Now, thanks to a combined effort between scientists at the University of Georgia and North Carolina State University, we know that PPNs also affect muscadines.
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| Piranha fish swap old teeth for new simultaneously
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 With the help of new technologies, a team led by the University of Washington has confirmed that piranhas lose and regrow all the teeth on one side of their face multiple times throughout their lives. How they do it may help explain why the fish go to such efforts to replace their teeth.
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| Last year's extreme snowfall wiped out breeding of Arctic animals and plants
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 In 2018, vast amounts of snow were spread across most of the Arctic region and did not melt fully until late summer, if at all. Publishing on Oct. 15 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, researchers documented the consequences of this extreme weather event at Zackenberg, Northeast Greenland by extensively monitoring all components of the local ecosystem for more than 20 years, allowing them to compare life in the extreme year of 2018 to other, more 'normal,' years.
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| NASA's new Artemis spacesuits make it easier for astronauts of all sizes to move on the Moon
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| NASA revealed new spacesuits, specifically created for the Artemis generation of missions, which aim to get the first American woman and the next American man to the surface of the Moon by 2024. The new design's toppling feature is greater mobility and flexibility, in basically every respect. NASA unveiled both a full suit designed for use in extra-vehicular activities on the surface of the Moon, and a flight suit for use while in transit to lunar orbit. Guided by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, the agency first demonstrated the suit that astronauts will use on the surface of the Moon (and, with modifications, eventually on Mars). It's called the 'xEMU' variant, and it looks a lot like what you might think of when you imagine 'space suit' in your mind. But it's quite different in many respects from what astronauts used to visit the surface of the Moon during the Apollo program. It allows you to actually moonwalk, for instance: The original suit used for Moon-based activities actually only offered ...
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| Researchers decipher assembly of glutamate receptors and its importance for memory formation
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 Rapid communication of neurons in the brain, as well as the ability to learn, fundamentally rely on neurotransmitter receptors located in the contact sites of neurons, the synapses. The most important receptors in the mammalian brain are glutamate receptors of the AMPA-type (AMPAR) that generate the electrical signal required for fast communication between neurons. The number of AMPARs is modulated by the degree of a synapse's activity: As it learns, the number of AMPARs increases, thus making synaptic signal transduction more reliable and driving synaptic plasticity that promotes memory formation. Fundamental requirement for this synaptic plasticity is the efficient assembly of AMPARs from different protein subunits in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of nerve cells, for which little or no information has been available so far.
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, article language English ( Russian [ translation ] )
