Hidden tick saliva protein may help stop disease spread at source

Millions of people in central Africa rely on wild meat for their nutrition, especially in rural areas around the Congo rainforest, the second largest tropical rainforest in the world. Here, meat from domestic animals is scarce due to poor national transport infrastructure, livestock diseases, and lack of forage. As a result, wild meat and freshwater fish are the main animal foods and provide the proteins and micro-nutrients needed for a healthy diet.

Many soybean farmers use seeds treated with fungicides to ward off disease, but the profits from these increased yields might not offset the cost of the treatment in most cases, according to a study published in Scientific Reports by researchers at Penn State.

In a major advancement for decentralized health care and environmental monitoring, researchers at Kumamoto University have successfully developed a palm-sized, battery-powered spectrophotometer that matches the performance of massive commercial laboratory equipment. Published in Sensing and Bio-Sensing Research, the study reveals a 99% reduction in device volume without sacrificing accuracy, paving the way for instant, onsite testing in hospitals, agricultural fields, and remote waterways.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have discovered a stellar bar in GN20, a massive galaxy seen just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. The new paper was submitted to the preprint server arXiv on May 14.