Under global climate change, the Earth’s climatic zones will shift toward the poles. This is not just a future prediction; it is a trend that has already been observed in the past decades. The dry, semi-arid regions are expanding into higher latitudes, and temperate, rainy regions are migrating poleward. In a paper that that was recently published in Nature Geoscience, Weizmann Institute of Science researchers provide new insight into this phenomenon by discovering that mid-latitude storms are steered further toward the poles in a warmer climate. Their analysis, which also revealed the physical mechanisms controlling this phenomenon, involved a unique approach that traced the progression of low-pressure weather systems both from the outside – in their movement around the globe – and from the inside – analyzing the storms’ dynamics.  

In a new study, MIT researchers have developed nanoparticles that can deliver the CRISPR genome-editing system and specifically modify genes in mice. The team used nanoparticles to carry the CRISPR components, eliminating the need to use viruses for delivery.

Post-doctoral researcher Andrés Posso-Terranova and his former supervisor José Andrés have found evidence that a single gene called MC1R controls the deep black color on the skin of these poisonous frogs. The researchers have found that the disruption of the gene is responsible for the black blobs and stripes. Their results have been published this week in the international journal Evolution.

The first astronomers had a limited toolkit: their eyes. They could only observe those stars, planets and celestial events bright enough to pick up unassisted. But today’s astronomers use increasingly sensitive and sophisticated instruments to view and track a bevy of cosmic wonders, including objects and events that were too dim or distant for their sky-gazing forebears.

You may not find them in the produce aisle yet, but it’s only a matter of time before new disease-resistant apple cultivars overtake favorites like Honeycrisp in popularity, according to a University of Illinois apple expert.

Pesticides significantly reduce the number of pollen grains a bumblebee is able to collect, a new University of Stirling study has found.

Fossil leaves from Africa have resolved a prehistoric climate puzzle — and also confirm the link between carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and global warming.

Nearly two months after Hurricane Maria swept through Puerto Rico, the infrastructural damage remains evident — today, FEMA estimates that only 41 percent of the island has had power restored. But the impact on human behavior is just beginning to be understood.

An international study has shed new light on the genetic factors associated with Parkinson’s disease, pointing at a group of lysosomal storage disorder genes as potential major contributors to the onset and progression of this common neurodegenerative disorder. The study appears in the journal Brain.

A simple colour-changing test to detect fluoride in drinking water, devised by researchers at the University of Bath, could in the future prevent the crippling bone disease, skeletal fluorosis, in developing countries such as India and Tanzania.