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La mayoría de los organismos vivos adaptan su comportamiento al ritmo de día y de noche. Las plantas no son una excepción: las flores se abren por la mañana, algunas hojas de los árboles se cierran durante la noche. Los investigadores han estado estudiando el ciclo de día y noche en las plantas durante mucho tiempo: Linneo observó que las flores en un sótano oscuro continuaron abriendo y cerrando y Darwin registró el movimiento durante la noche de las hojas de plantas y tallos y lo llamaron "el sueño". 

SAR11, el plancton más abundante en los océanos del mundo, está bombeando grandes cantidades de gases de azufre que desempeñan papeles importantes en la atmósfera de la Tierra, se ha anunciado hoy en la revista Nature Microbiología.

"Todo el mundo sabe de estos gases por sus olores", dijo Steve Giovannoni, un distinguido profesor de microbiología de la Facultad de Ciencias de la Universidad Estatal de Oregón y autor del estudio.

The UN intersessional negotiations on climate change (UNFCCC) which started in Bonn last week enter their second week with the big question - how to find and allocate by 2020 the $100bn as agreed in the Paris Agreement. Delegate Pavlos Georgiadis reports.

The burning question for week two of these negotiations is how to raise and allocate the $100bn agreed as part of the Paris Agreement

The first week of the negotiations started slowly, and ended even slower. Negotiators look like they still have some sort of bad hangover, thanks to the fact they are still celebrating the Paris agreement. And while discussions take place inside the UN building in Bonn, Sri Lanka tries to recover from the worst floods in its history, India reports the hottest day every recorded in the countryand Carbon Brief warn that we only have five years until the 1,5°C carbon budget is blown.

For years, one of the major arguments that has been made against genetically engineered crops is the fear that, by tampering with a plant’s DNA, it could potentially cause health issues for consumers. It’s an understandable worry, however, the scientific consensus now seems to be undeniable: Whatever faults GMO crops may have, they are safe for human consumption.

Immune cells play essential roles in the maintenance and repair of our bodies.  When we injure ourselves, immune cells mount a rapid inflammatory response to protect us against infection and help heal the damaged tissue. 

Lead researcher Dr Helen Weavers, from the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences said: “While this immune response is beneficial for human health, many human diseases (including atheroscelerosis, cancer and arthritis) are caused or aggravated by an overzealous immune response. A greater understanding of what activates the immune response is therefore crucial for the design of novel therapies to treat these inflammatory disorders.

“Our study found that immune cells must first become ‘activated’ by eating a dying neighbouring cell before they are able to respond to wounds or infection. In this way, immune cells build a molecular memory of this meal, which shapes their inflammatory behaviour.”