A study by the FAPESP-funded Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center shows that toxins produced by young female stingrays cause more pain, whereas toxins produced by adult stingrays cause tissue necrosis.

Animals first developed fever as a response to infections: the higher body temperatures primed their immune systems. At the time, 600 million years ago, virtually all animal species were cold-blooded. They had to spend long periods of time in warm areas of their habitat to achieve fever-range body temperatures. Michael Logan, a Tupper Fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama (STRI), believes pathogens may be the reason why warm-blooded creatures first emerged.

Better understanding agriculture and the food system's unique place in climate change -- as both drivers of climate change and victims of it -- is helping to increase support for climate action. Unfortunately, progress across the food system is lagging, according to a new analysis.

A nonlethal dose of insecticide clothianidin can reduce honeybees' life span by half; once combined with the fungicide pyraclostrobin, it alters the behavior of worker bees to the point of endangering the whole colony.

With the aim of enhancing the quality of Brazilian space research output, scientists investigated the accuracy of different satellite data collections.

Without significant global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, Colombia will have 60% less land suitable for rice production by the 2050s. Due primarily to increased temperatures and decreased rainfall -- as opposed to sea-level rise, which is the driver of projected change to rice production in some Asian countries -- the research shows suitable conditions will need to be found at higher elevations when low-altitude fields are too hot or dry for irrigated rice.

A group of researchers from Brazil and the United States describes for the first time the structure of Ixolaris, an important anticoagulant protein found in tick saliva, and its interaction with Factor Xa, a key enzyme in the process of blood clotting. The results may benefit cancer patients, of whom approximately 20% will develop thrombosis during the disease progression.

From the urban jungle -- even the leafier parts of suburbia -- we often have a tough time naming the last plant we saw. Even if we just ate part of it. This is a symptom of 'plant blindness,' a term coined two decades ago by researchers who showed that people are perilously disconnected from the plant kingdom. This has progressed to the point where we hardly recognize the plants that feed us every day.