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Since it was discovered, the enzyme known as PETase has been drawing a great deal of scientific interest for its capacity of digesting PET (polyethylene terephthalate). A polymer used mainly to manufacture drink bottles (but also clothing, carpets, and other objects), PET is appreciated by the industry for the same reason that makes PET a threat for the environment: its resistance to degradation. Bottles and other objects made of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) take at least 800 years to [...]

The production of devices to store or transmit information is one of the most frequent technological applications of magnetism. An experimental and theoretical study conducted at the University of São Paulo's Physics Institute (IF-USP) in Brazil has discovered an ultrafast way of magnetizing matter with minimal energy consumption. Using a technique called magnetization by light, the researchers magnetized a sample of europium selenide (EuSe) in 50 picoseconds with a 50-watt bulb located a few [...]

Xanthomonas citri, the bacterium that causes citrus canker, a disease responsible for major damage to lemon and orange groves in worldwide scale, has a veritable arsenal of weapons to overcome constant competition with other bacterial species and ward off natural predators such as amoebae. Despite the fact that citrus canker have already caused significant economic losses, X. citri's ability to persist in the environment is still poorly understood. However, a new study performed in Brazil [...]

Some 15,000 new cancer cases are diagnosed in Brazil each year, and researchers have found that approximately 4% of these cases could be avoided by reducing overweight and obesity. The epidemiological study was conducted by scientists at the Preventive Medicine Department of the University of São Paulo's Medical School (FM-USP) in Brazil in collaboration with colleagues at Harvard University in the United States. It predicts that the number of new cancer cases attributable to overweight and [...]

A group of Brazilian researchers affiliated with the National Space Research Institute (INPE) is working to install a network comprised of magnetometers (instruments used to measure the intensity of a magnetic field) across South America. Known for its acronym Embrace MagNet (Embrace Magnetometer Network for South America), the project involves joint efforts from other Latin American institutions with the aim of studying the specific characteristics of magnetic field disturbances over the [...]

The Solar System is much vaster and more complex than is usually assumed. The Sun's gravitational pull on the gravitational fields of the nearest stars is estimated to extend for approximately two light-years (125 astronomical units), meaning the light emitted by the Sun takes approximately two years to reach the outer edge of the Solar System. This enormous gravitational niche is home to millions of objects, from planets and moons to comets, asteroids and meteoroids. One object differs from [...]

Critically endangered South American forests thought to be the result of climate change were actually spread by ancient communities, archaeologists have found. Huge swathes of land in Chile, Brazil and Argentina are covered with millions of Araucaria, or monkey puzzle trees, thanks to people planting or cultivating them more than a thousand years ago, a new study shows. Recent logging means the landscape is now one of the world's most at-risk environments. It had been thought the forests [...]

Earth is estimated to be home to between 10 million and 15 million eukaryotes - species of plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms with cells in which the chromosomal DNA is organized into a membrane-bound nucleus. Only 14% of these species (2.3 million) are known, and under 0.1% (15,000) have partially or completely sequenced genomes. Knowledge of this small fraction of Earth's biodiversity has facilitated enormous advances in agriculture, medicine and biotechnology-based industries, as [...]

One of the most frequent causes of drug-resistant epilepsy, considered a difficult disease to control, is a brain malformation known as focal cortical dysplasia. Patients with this problem present with discreet disorganization in the architecture of a specific region of the cortex, which may or may not be associated with the presence of nerve cells that have structural and functional abnormalities. A new study by the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil suggests that dysregulation in [...]