What scientists found was that the domestic turkey that ends up on the dinner table exhibits less genetic variation than its ancestral wild counterparts, which were first domesticated in 800 B.C..

The post Today’s domestic turkeys are genetically distinct from wild ancestors appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

This past summer, Laura Walker became the first scientist to collect slime molds from soils at the Barro Colorado Nature Monument in Panama, a reserve administered by the Smithsonain since 1946.

The post Panama’s slime molds get attention from Arkansas University grad student appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Frontispiece illustration of “flies” from the 1882 book American game fishes, their habits, habitat, and peculiarities; how, when, and where to angle for them, featuring […]

The post Illustration from American game fishes, their habits, habitat, and peculiarities appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Tiny as a mouse with a ‘prout brown’ body and three black stripes on its back Monodelphis gardneri from Peru bears little resemblance to its much larger cousin the North American opossum.

The post Tiny new Peruvian opossum comes from a great big family appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

This image of a wild giant panda was taken by a trail camera in a remote forest in central China. As few as 1,600 giant […]

The post A wild giant panda from the Website Smithsonian Wild appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The process of freezing materials such as fertilized eggs – cryopreservation – provides researchers with a tool to repopulate endangered species.

The post Klondike, puppy born from a frozen embryo, fetches good news for endangered animals appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Even dying stars could host planets with life – and if such life exists, we might be able to detect it within the next decade. […]

The post New evidence of extraterrestrial life may come from dying stars appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

                  The Smithsonian Libraries will open its new exhibition “Whales: From Bone to Book” in the Smithsonian’s National Museum […]

The post Exhibition: “Whales: From Bone to Book” appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute are celebrating the birth of a female Przewalski’s (Cha-VAL-skee) horse—the first to be born via artificial insemination. The […]

The post First wild horse species born from artificial insemination at Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Unlocking the mysteries of animal migration through precise, near real-time tracking can solve major conservation challenges and transform wildlife science worldwide. For the past year, […]

The post New project to unlock migration mysteries from air appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Out in Montana’s Big Sky Country Dale Greenwalt spends his summers seeking the incredibly tiny and fragile. Armed with a putty knife honed razor-sharp on […]

The post Quality of insect fossils from Montana’s Flathead River astounds scientists appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Chip a tooth and expose a nerve and the result can be a searing sensitivity to hot and cold. The hard outer layer of a […]

The post Scientists map pathway from narwhals’ sensitive tusk to brain appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Save the Rhinos! Save the Elephants! Save the humans?! It seems strange to be connecting our own fate to that of wildlife but new research […]

The post Losing large mammals increases human risk from rodent-borne diseases appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Identifying larval stages of marine fishes in the open ocean is difficult because the young fishes often bear little or no resemblance to the adults […]

The post Smithsonian scientists link fish larva in Florida to new sea bass species from Curacao appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

WHAT A new species of stick catfish from South America, so called because the thin, elongated bodies of these fish mimic sticks. About 5 inches […]

The post New species of armored catfish from Colombia appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A mysterious X-ray signal has been found in a detailed study of galaxy clusters using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton. One intriguing possibility […]

The post Mysterious X-ray signal from space appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A bright orange poison dart frog with a unique call was discovered in Donoso, Panama, and described by researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Instituteand […]

The post New Poison Dart Frog from Panama appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The clouded leopard, a native of Southeast Asia, is among the most charismatic, secretive and least understood cat species in the world. In 2002, the […]

The post Clouded leopards, from crisis to success: Q&A with Janine Brown appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Caitlin Burrell, research scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, returned from China last night April 20, with frozen giant panda semen that had been […]

The post Panda Semen from China arrives at Zoo appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Tucked in the shadow of the towering Skylab exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, there’s an inferno raging. Lucky for all of […]

The post Video from Solar Dynamics Observatory wows museum visitors appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

New data just published in the journal Marine Mammal Science may help save the whales, or at least a good many of them. Using vertebrae […]

The post New study may help free whales from fishing rope entanglement appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

In April 2015, after traveling for about half the age of the universe, a flood of powerful gamma rays from a distant galaxy slammed into […]

The post VERITAS Detects Gamma Rays from Galaxy Halfway Across the Visible Universe appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Pulverized planet dust might lie around double stars » A planet like Star War’s Tatooine, which orbits twin suns, would have likely suffered from more […]

The post “Star Wars” Roundup: From Science Fiction to Science Fact appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

She was a stunning brown queen; drowned some 46 million years ago in a shallow lake in Montana. Her remains, recently recovered along the Flathead […]

The post New Montana ant species emerge from 46-million-year-old rock appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

In a recently completed survey of more than 3,000 fish species in 44 countries around the world marine biologists have discovered that communities with a […]

The post Discovery: Biodiversity shields fish communities from warming appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The 11 farthest known stars in our galaxy are located about 300,000 light-years from Earth, well outside the Milky Way’s spiral disk. New research by […]

The post Farthest Milky Way stars might be ripped from another galaxy appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

“Think of a lion shrunk to the size of a mouse that needs to eat every 20 minutes or so.” That is a shrew, says […]

The post New Costa Rican shrew species named from a single specimen found 44 years ago appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Finding clean ways to store water is a challenge that humans have faced for millennia. In a new paper in Environmental Health, anthropologist Sabrina Sholts […]

The post Study shows ancient California Indians risked toxins from bitumen-coated bottles appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The next time you swat a fly ponder this: inside its belly is the DNA of whatever it ate before landing on your picnic dinner—roadkill, […]

The post Innovation: Belly gunk from flies used to survey forest animals appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Covered in sharp spines, when harassed the porcupine fish inflates like a balloon. Think of a small soccer ball bristling all over with nails. Most predators […]

The post Indestructible jaws from ancient, extinct porcupine fish reveal new species appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A bat specimen collected in France at the end of World War I, since housed in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural […]

The post DNA on 100-year-old bat from France may help fight deadly fungus in North America appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

When a natural disaster strikes, it devastates lives and homes, and can even destroy a culture’s identity and history. After a disaster, humanitarian response is […]

The post Protecting Puerto Rico’s heritage from another disaster appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

People often use the words turtle and tortoise interchangeably, but these reptiles have distinct differences: Turtle shells are typically more flattened and not as deeply […]

The post Five fun turtle and tortoise facts from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Five new species of snail-eating snake, from a group of snakes affectionately known to scientists as “goo-eaters,” have been discovered by a team working in […]

The post Newly discovered snakes use curved teeth to pry snails from their shells appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Aldo-keto reductases (AKRs) are NADPH/NADP+-dependent oxidoreductase enzymes that metabolize an aldehyde/ketone to the corresponding alcohol. AKR4C14 from rice exhibits a much higher efficiency in metabolizing malondialdehyde (MDA) than do the Arabidopsis enzymes AKR4C8 and AKR4C9, despite sharing greater than 60% amino-acid sequence identity. This study confirms the role of rice AKR4C14 in the detoxification of methylglyoxal and MDA, and demonstrates that the endogenous contents of both aldehydes in transgenic Arabidopsis ectopically expressing AKR4C14 are significantly lower than their levels in the wild type. The apo structure of indica rice AKR4C14 was also determined in the absence of the cofactor, revealing the stabilized open conformation. This is the first crystal structure in AKR subfamily 4C from rice to be observed in the apo form (without bound NADP+). The refined AKR4C14 structure reveals a stabilized open conformation of loop B, suggesting the initial phase prior to cofactor binding. Based on the X-ray crystal structure, the substrate- and cofactor-binding pockets of AKR4C14 are formed by loops A, B, C and β1α1. Moreover, the residues Ser211 and Asn220 on loop B are proposed as the hinge residues that are responsible for conformational alteration while the cofactor binds. The open conformation of loop B is proposed to involve Phe216 pointing out from the cofactor-binding site and the opening of the safety belt. Structural comparison with other AKRs in subfamily 4C emphasizes the role of the substrate-channel wall, consisting of Trp24, Trp115, Tyr206, Phe216, Leu291 and Phe295, in substrate discrimination. In particular, Leu291 could contribute greatly to substrate selectivity, explaining the preference of AKR4C14 for its straight-chain aldehyde substrate.

Pullulanase (EC 3.2.1.41) is a well known starch-debranching enzyme that catalyzes the cleavage of α-1,6-glycosidic linkages in α-glucans such as starch and pullulan. Crystal structures of a type I pullulanase from Paenibacillus barengoltzii (PbPulA) and of PbPulA in complex with maltopentaose (G5), maltohexaose (G6)/α-cyclodextrin (α-CD) and β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) were determined in order to better understand substrate binding to this enzyme. PbPulA belongs to glycoside hydrolase (GH) family 13 subfamily 14 and is composed of three domains (CBM48, A and C). Three carbohydrate-binding sites identified in PbPulA were located in CBM48, near the active site and in domain C, respectively. The binding site in CBM48 was specific for β-CD, while that in domain C has not been reported for other pullulanases. The domain C binding site had higher affinity for α-CD than for G6; a small motif (FGGEH) seemed to be one of the major determinants for carbohydrate binding in this domain. Structure-based mutations of several surface-exposed aromatic residues in CBM48 and domain C had a debilitating effect on the activity of the enzyme. These results suggest that both CBM48 and domain C play a role in binding substrates. The crystal forms described contribute to the understanding of pullulanase domain–carbohydrate interactions.

Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae is a prokaryotic pathogen that colonizes the respiratory ciliated epithelial cells in swine. Infected animals suffer respiratory lesions, causing major economic losses in the porcine industry. Characterization of the immunodominant membrane-associated proteins from M. hyopneumoniae may be instrumental in the development of new therapeutic approaches. Here, the crystal structure of P46, one of the main surface-antigen proteins, from M. hyopneumoniae is presented and shows N- and C-terminal α/β domains connected by a hinge. The structures solved in this work include a ligand-free open form of P46 (3.1 Å resolution) and two ligand-bound structures of P46 with maltose (2.5 Å resolution) and xylose (3.5 Å resolution) in open and closed conformations, respectively. The ligand-binding site is buried in the cleft between the domains at the hinge region. The two domains of P46 can rotate with respect to each other, giving open or closed alternative conformations. In agreement with this structural information, sequence analyses show similarities to substrate-binding members of the ABC transporter superfamily, with P46 facing the extracellular side as a functional subunit. In the structure with xylose, P46 was also bound to a high-affinity (Kd = 29 nM) Fab fragment from a monoclonal antibody, allowing the characterization of a structural epitope in P46 that exclusively involves residues from the C-terminal domain. The Fab structure in the complex with P46 shows only small conformational rearrangements in the six complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) with respect to the unbound Fab (the structure of which is also determined in this work at 1.95 Å resolution). The structural information that is now available should contribute to a better understanding of sugar nutrient intake by M. hyopneumoniae. This information will also allow the design of protocols and strategies for the generation of new vaccines against this important swine pathogen.

Warner’s narrative covers the major natural sweeteners, including sugar, molasses from cane, beet sugar, corn syrup, honey and maple, as well as artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, cyclamate, aspartame and sucralose.

The post New Book: “Sweet Stuff: An American History of Sweeteners from Sugar to Sucralose” appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Some of the earliest humans to inhabit America came from Europe according to a new book "Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America's Clovis Culture."

The post New book reveals Ice Age mariners from Europe were America’s first inhabitants appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Now, for the first time, Charles Darwin's life is portrayed pictorially in an illustrated biography in graphic novel-style for all ages to enjoy.

The post “Darwin: A Graphic Biography,” new release from Smithsonian Books appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

In the first volume of the Secret Smithsonian Adventures graphic-novel series from Smithsonian Books, The Wrong Wrights, four middle-school kids visit the Smithsonian’s National Air […]

The post ‘The Wrong Wrights’: A Graphic Novel from Smithsonian Books appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Fluorite is well known and prized for its rich variety of colors, most commonly pale green, purple, yellow, orange, blue, pink and colorless. “We acquired this specimen because it is a very nice quality fluorite with an attractive color and it is large enough to be exhibited,” Curator Jeff Post says.

The post Smithsonian’s National Gem Collection acquires a yellow fluorite from Tanzania appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

We value gold for many reasons: its beauty, its usefulness as jewelry, and its rarity. Gold is rare on Earth in part because it’s also […]

The post Earth’s gold came from colliding dead stars appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The universe is 13.8 billion years old, while our planet formed just 4.5 billion years ago. Some scientists think this time gap means that life […]

The post Is Earthly Life Premature From a Cosmic Perspective? appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Under the anomalous transmission condition in the Bragg mode, X-ray interference fringes were observed between two beams with different hyperbolic trajectories in a very weakly bent plane-parallel perfect crystal with negative strain gradient. The origin of the fringes was analysed based on the dynamical theory of diffraction for a distorted crystal. In the reflected beam from the entrance surface, the interference fringes were observed between once- and twice-reflected beams from the back surface. In the transmitted beam from the back surface, the interference fringes were observed between the direct beam and once-reflected beam from the entrance surface. In the emitted beam from the lateral surface, the interference fringes were observed between the beams after different numbers of reflections in the crystal. The multiply reflected beams were formed by a combined result of long propagation length along the beam direction with large divergence of the refracted beams when the strain gradient was negative. The period of these interference fringes was sensitive to very weak strain, of the order of 10−7.

A novel approach for finding and evaluating structural models of small metallic nanoparticles is presented. Rather than fitting a single model with many degrees of freedom, libraries of clusters from multiple structural motifs are built algorithmically and individually refined against experimental pair distribution functions. Each cluster fit is highly constrained. The approach, called cluster-mining, returns all candidate structure models that are consistent with the data as measured by a goodness of fit. It is highly automated, easy to use, and yields models that are more physically realistic and result in better agreement to the data than models based on cubic close-packed crystallographic cores, often reported in the literature for metallic nanoparticles.

The use of strongly bent crystals in spectrometers for pulses of a hard X-ray free-electron laser is explored theoretically. Diffraction is calculated in both dynamical and kinematical theories. It is shown that diffraction can be treated kinematically when the bending radius is small compared with the critical radius given by the ratio of the Bragg-case extinction length for the actual reflection to the Darwin width of this reflection. As a result, the spectral resolution is limited by the crystal thickness, rather than the extinction length, and can become better than the resolution of a planar dynamically diffracting crystal. As an example, it is demonstrated that spectra of the 12 keV pulses can be resolved in the 440 reflection from a 20 µm-thick diamond crystal bent to a radius of 10 cm.