A Blog Around The Clock

Cheating Is Easy For The Social Amoeba:

Cheating is easy and seemingly without cost for the social amoeba known as Dictyostelium discoideum, said a team of researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University in Houston who conducted the first genome-scale search for social genes and found more than 100 mutant genes that allow cheating.

Warming Waters May Make Antarctica Hospitable To Sharks: Potentially Disastrous Consequences:

It has been 40 million years since the waters around Antarctica have been warm enough to sustain populations of sharks and most fish, but they may return this century due to the effects of global warming. If they do, the impact on Antarctic ecology could be serious, according to researchers from the University of Rhode Island.

Predicting The Perfect Predator To Control Invasive Species:

Garlic mustard has become an invasive species in temperate forests across the United States, choking out native plants on forest floors and threatening ecosystem diversity. University of Illinois ecologist Adam Davis has created a computer model that in combination with quarantined research tests he believes will be able to predict the perfect predator -- a pest that can be introduced into a forested area that will help reduce the garlic mustard population.

Spider Silk: Protein's Strength Lies In H-bond Cooperation:

Researchers in Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT reveal that the strength of a biological material like spider silk lies in the specific geometric configuration of structural proteins, which have small clusters of weak hydrogen bonds that work cooperatively to resist force and dissipate energy.

Peptide Discovered In Scorpion Venom May Hold Key To Secretory Diseases:

Researchers have discovered a peptide in scorpion venom that may hold the key to understanding and controlling cystic fibrosis and other secretory diseases.

Sharks In Peril: Ocean's Fiercest Predators Now Vulnerable To Extinction:

Sharks are disappearing from the world's oceans. The numbers of many large shark species have declined by more than half due to increased demand for shark fins and meat, recreational shark fisheries, as well as tuna and swordfish fisheries, where millions of sharks are taken as bycatch each year.

'Genetic Corridors' Are Next Step To Saving Tigers:

The Wildlife Conservation Society and the Panthera Foundation announced plans to establish a 5,000 mile-long "genetic corridor" from Bhutan to Burma that would allow tiger populations to roam freely across landscapes. The corridor, first announced at the United Nations on January 30th, would span eight countries and represent the largest block of tiger habitat left on earth.

Direct Democracy In Science May Be Too Much Of A Good Thing:

Publicly funded science in America traditionally is accountable to the people and their government representatives. However, this arrangement raises questions regarding the effect such oversight has on science. It is a problem of particular relevance in this election year, as the nation prepares for the end of the Bush administration, which has taken strong and divisive stances on a number of scientific issues, including stem cell research and global warming.

Physics Explains Why University Rankings Won't Change:

A Duke University researcher says that his physics theory, which has been applied to everything from global climate to traffic patterns, can also explain another trend: why university rankings tend not to change very much from year to year.