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Frequently wearing high heels could help you walk more efficiently in flat shoes, according to a new study published in The Journal of Applied Physiology. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Georgia Institute of Technology, including Gregory S. Sawicki, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Mechanical Engineering, found that donning stilettos could help strengthen the tendons in the ankles and calves, making the legs more powerful.
Newsweek | 2024-06-20T00:00:00-04:00
Elephants use their trunks for various tasks by exploiting a remarkable range of motions. A research team has now shown that much of this dexterity can be achieved using just a small number of muscle-like actuators. Using both theoretical calculations and experiments with a simple physical model of a trunk, the researchers found that their minimal model can reproduce the complex bending and torsional motions seen in real trunks. The results might be useful in the design of “soft robotics” devices.David Hu, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Mechanical Engineering, calls the work “a triumph of mathematics and an important step in reverse engineering the elephant trunk.” He says that the important result is in “reducing the biological complexity to three degrees of freedom.” Hu adds that “the big question left in my mind is this: If elephants can achieve all these 3D trunk positions with just three actuators, why does it have to have so many other muscles, and when are those used?”
Physics Magazine | 2024-06-14T00:00:00-04:00
Sea cucumbers, scavengers of the seafloor that resemble the cylindrical vegetable, have been consumed as a delicacy in Asia for centuries. But in recent decades, they’ve been severely overharvested to a point that they are now quite rare. New research that Mark E. Hay, Regents Chair and the Harry and Anna Teasley Chair in Environmental Biology, helped conduct suggests their repopulation could play an important role in protecting and revitalizing another type of endangered marine organism: corals. (This also appeared at Statesville Record and Landmark.)
The Conversation | 2024-06-11T00:00:00-04:00
In a monograph published in npj Microgravity, researchers including School of Biological Sciences Ph.D. student Iris Irby, reviewed a growing body of experimental evidence indicating that monocytes and macrophages are altered by the spaceflight environment. These findings have implications for a wide range of physiological processes, including innate immunity, acquired immunity, host defense, and tissue remodeling.
npj Microgravity | 2024-06-11T00:00:00-04:00
A new paper published in the journal Science argues that traits that are highly variable and evolve quickly, over short time scales, are often the same ones that shape the direction of long-term evolution of new species. School of Biological Sciences Assistant Professor James Stroud, who was not involved in the research, says the study provides a fascinating insight: “As selection changes through time to chase new optima, the genetic variation of traits under selection may increase from this evolutionary back and forth,” he says. “This additive genetic variance, termed evolvability, is a window into evolution’s past.”
Nautilus | 2024-05-28T00:00:00-04:00
In the vast stretches of Georgia's saltwater marshes, where the land whispers to the ocean, a silent yet profound battle is waged beneath the surface. It's a struggle for survival and resilience, where the unassuming cordgrass, Spartina alterniflora, emerges as an ecological champion. But not without the help of its unseen allies-the intricate microbial communities thriving within its roots. Recent studies by Georgia Tech researchers, including School of Biological Sciences Professor and Associate Chair of Research Joel Kostka, have unveiled the pivotal role these microbes play in not only sustaining the cordgrass but also in bolstering the health of the entire coastal ecosystem. These findings, published in Nature Communications, shed light on the complex interplay between plant and microbe, revealing a symbiotic relationship that is as delicate as it is powerful. (This also appeared at Mirage News and Phys.org.)
Nature World News | 2024-05-16T00:00:00-04:00
Evidence from the International Space Station suggests microbial populations are rapidly adapting to the spacecraft environment; however, the mechanism of this adaptation is not understood. Bacteriophages are prolific mediators of bacterial adaptation on Earth. In this study, researchers including School of Biological Sciences Ph.D. student Iris Irby, survey 245 genomes sequenced from bacterial strains isolated on the International Space Station for dormant (lysogenic) bacteriophages. The results correlate microbial adaptation in spaceflight to bacteriophage-encoded functions that may impact human health in spaceflight.
Nature Communications | 2024-05-15T00:00:00-04:00
In a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, School of Biological Sciences Associate Professor William Ratcliff and Emma Bingham, student in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences, put forward a brand new idea, which they tested in a computational model. Bingham and Ratcliff suggest that the way prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes respond to population size may make or break their chances of evolving multicellularity. It’s a fascinating hypothesis, and if further work bears it out, it could fundamentally change how scientists conceive of this transition and challenge a key assumption they make about evolutionary forces.
Quanta Magazine | 2024-05-02T00:00:00-04:00
We all know too well how easily things get dirty. Dust gathers, and stains appear, seemingly out of nowhere. That’s no exception for the Animal Kingdom, either. But for some of these critters, staying clean isn’t just a matter of being comfortable. It’s also a matter of survival. The question of how animals manage to stay squeaky clean is something that researchers, including David L. Hu of the Schools of Biological Sciences and Mechanical Engineering, dug into in 2015.
Discover Magazine | 2024-05-01T00:00:00-04:00
Heterotrophic activity, primarily driven by sulfate-reducing prokaryotes, has traditionally been linked to nitrogen fixation in the root zone of coastal marine plants, leaving the role of chemolithoautotrophy in this process unexplored. The researchers show that sulfur oxidation coupled to nitrogen fixation is a previously overlooked process providing nitrogen to coastal marine macrophytes. In their study, they recovered 239 metagenome-assembled genomes from a salt marsh dominated by the foundation plant Spartina alterniflora, including diazotrophic sulfate-reducing and sulfur-oxidizing bacteria. Based on the findings, the researchers propose that the symbiosis between S. alterniflora and sulfur-oxidizing bacteria is key to ecosystem functioning of coastal salt marshes. The study's co-authors include School of Biological Sciences researchers: Jose Louis Rolando, Maxim Kolton, Tianze Song, Roth Conrad, Y. Liu, P. Pinamang, Professor and Associate Chair of Research Joel Kostka, and Professor Kostas Konstantinidis. (Konstantinidis is also professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.)
Nature Communications | 2024-04-29T00:00:00-04:00
