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As Online, Open Access, and Outreach Journal, we promote the democratization of scientific literature to foster dialogues and interest over the most recent scientific advances. Discover our mission.
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We publish short lay-summaries ("breaks") of scientific research. Our authors are scientists involved in the field of the summarized research. Our readers are academics and laypeople likewise. Learn more.
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Figuring out the evolved chemistry of fig trees
Fig trees (Ficus carica) produce furanocoumarins, a class of small organic molecules with various medicinal and agricultural applications. Villard et al. studied the enzyme catalysing the first synthetic step in the production of these molecules. They revealed how this enzyme emerged recently and independently within the Ficus lineage in a mechanism called convergent evolution.
Blocking protein folding to fight antibiotic resistance
May 13, 2022 | 4 min read by R. Christopher D. Furniss , Nikol Kaderabkova , Despoina A.I. MavridouMagic Squares: A children’s puzzle meets quantum physics
May 9, 2022 | 3.5 min read by Gemma de las Cuevas , Tom Drescher , Tim NetzerWatching the death of a distant galaxy
May 4, 2022 | 4 min read by Annagrazia PuglisiGenetics agrees: Africa is thriving in diversity
Apr 27, 2022 | 3 min read by Neil Hanchard , Ananyo Choudhury , Zane LombardHighlights
Tiny molecular probes reveal invisible forces inside cells
Jan 10, 2022 in Maths, Physics & Chemistry | 4 min read by Margot RiggiThe seed’s hidden defense arsenal: using bacteria to defend against disease
Feb 10, 2022 in Plant Biology | 3 min read by Haruna Matsumoto , Tomislav Cernava , Mengcen WangBrain activity of conservatives and liberals diverge while watching the news
Jan 5, 2022 in Psychology | 4 min read by Yuan Chang LeongNo need to stress when the dissertation deadline approaches
Feb 18, 2022 in Psychology | 3.5 min read by Max KorbmacherSubjects
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Fighting back antibiotic resistance: a new hope from the soil
Antibiotic resistance represents a critical threat for our health and disease treatment. New discoveries are crucial to develop further medicaments against future superbugs.
Feb 24, 2016 | 4 min readHigh performance silks deployed by web building wolf spiders
Wolf spiders that build webs produce silks that perform differently than those that do not build webs, supporting hypotheses that web building and silk performance co-evolved in spiders.
Nov 12, 2018 | 4 min readThe lifetime of memories
Jun 22, 2016 | 3.5 min readWhat were the ice age ‘stilt-legged’ horses of North America?
Were these extinct animals related to horses, donkeys, or zebras, or were they something else entirely? Using ancient DNA, we have finally solved this mystery.
Nov 2, 2018 | 3.5 min readHow do plants breathe?
Breathing air in and out is something that we, as humans, perform in every moment of our lives. Plants do likewise thanks to tiny mouths called stomata.
Nov 22, 2017 | 4 min readTiny barcodes for a global food chain
Determining the origin of the foods we eat is harder than ever in our globalized world, yet in the case of food borne illness this answer could save lives and money. By harnessing microbial spores, we developed a technique using microscopic DNA barcodes to determine the origin of objects in a way that is safe, scalable, and durable to be used in real-world settings.
Jun 7, 2021 | 4 min read