Four schools in Wales, UK will be offering primary school pupils bugs as an “alternative protein” source in a project directed to ascertain children’s attitudes to “environmentally friendly” foods. Academics at Cardiff University and the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) are targeting children ages 5-11 in this experiment offering plant-based and insect-based protein replacements. The... 

Researchers in the United States have developed a new method for controlling the brain circuits associated with complex animal behaviours, using genetic engineering to create a magnetised protein that activates specific groups of nerve cells from a distance. Understanding how the brain generates behaviour is one of the ultimate goals of neuroscience – and one of its most difficult questions. In... 

Scientists studying the Red Planet have for the first time detected nitrogen, a component crucial to the existence of life, extracted from nitrate molecules as a result of heating surface sediments, adding evidence that Mars could once have sustained life. Carbon-based life is not possible without nitrogen. The element is required for the shaping of molecules such as DNA and RNA, both of which carry... 

Italian researchers expect to observe individual DNA molecules through a silicon pillars technique performed to observe the seven wires of the chain. Previously, the interpretation of the images required very complex mathematical calculations. Scientists at the University of Genoa have taken direct photographs of the seven strands of DNA. Scientists at the University of Genoa, in the west of Italy,...