A Blog Around The Clock

Evolution Of Symbiosis:

The aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum depends on a bacterial symbiont, Buchnera aphidicola, for amino acids it can't get from plants. The aphid, in turn, provides the bacterium with energy and carbon as well as shelter inside specialized cells. Such interdependent relationships are not unusual in the natural world. What is unusual, report Helen Dunbar, Nancy Moran, and colleagues in a new study published this week in the open access journal PLoS Biology, is that a single point mutation in Buchnera's genome can have consequences for its aphid partner that are sometimes detrimental, and sometimes beneficial.

Trends In Bird Observations Reveal Species' Changing Fortunes:

Data gathered over decades by the thousands of volunteers who participate in the North American Breeding Bird Survey have yielded a vivid portrait of trends in the abundance of birds in eastern North America. In an article in the April 2007 issue of BioScience, Ivan Valiela, of the Boston University Marine Program, and Paulina Martinetto, at Argentina's Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, describe how they analyzed data from 40 years of observations made by volunteers who each year drive set routes. Valiela and Martinetto classified the observations by species' habitat preference and migratory habit.

Marine Scientists Monitor Longest Mammal Migration:

Marine scientists recently published a research paper in the science journal, biology letters, that found humpback whales migrate over 5,100 miles from Central America to their feeding grounds off Antarctica; a record distance undertaken by any mammal. Kristin Rasmussen, a biologist with Cascadia Research Collective, and lead author in the study, finds the record-breaking migration interesting, but is most pleased that the study validates a long held assumption that humpback whales travel to warm water areas during the winter.

One Of The World's Rarest Rabbits Spotted In Sumatra:

Hippity, hoppity...click! So went the latest appearance of one of the world's rarest rabbits, captured on film by a camera trap in the rain forests of Indonesia, according to researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society. In fact, the Sumatran striped rabbit--a little over a foot in length with brown stripes--is so rare that recent photos taken in Bukit Barisan National Park are only the third ever recorded, the first dating from 1998 in Kerinci Seblat National Park, and the second taken from Bukit Barisan National Park in 2000. Before that, the last confirmed sighting by scientists of a living animal dated from 1972, and only 15 specimens exist in museums, all dating from before1929. It is currently listed as 'Critically Endangered' by the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

Eating With Our Eyes: Why People Eat Less At Unbused Tables:

People watching the Super Bowl who saw how much they had already eaten -- in this case, leftover chicken-wing bones -- ate 27 percent less than people who had no such environmental cues, finds a new Cornell study. The difference between the two groups -- those eating at a table where leftover bones accumulated compared with those whose leftovers were removed -- was greater for men than for women.