A Blog Around The Clock

Agriculture Linked To Frog Sexual Abnormalities:

A farm irrigation canal would seem a healthier place for toads than a ditch by a supermarket parking lot. But University of Florida scientists have found the opposite is true. In a study with wide implications for a longstanding debate over whether agricultural chemicals pose a threat to amphibians, UF zoologists have found that toads in suburban areas are less likely to suffer from reproductive system abnormalities than toads near farms -- where some had both testes and ovaries.

Music Went With Cave Art In Prehistoric Caves:

Thousands of years later, we can view stone-age art on cave walls, but we can't listen to the stone-age music that would have accompanied many of the pictures. In many sites, flutes made of bone are to be found nearby.

Undergraduates Forge New Area Of Bioinformatics:

A group of undergraduate students from the University of California San Diego have forged a new area of bioinformatics that may improve genomic and proteomic annotations and unlock a collection of stubborn biological mysteries. Their work will be published in the July issue of the journal Genome Research.

Scientists Set Out To Measure How We Perceive Naturalness:

Natural products are highly valued by consumers yet their properties have been difficult to reproduce fully in synthetic materials, placing a drain on our limited natural resources. Until now ...

Rare Plants And Endangered Species Such As Tigers At Risk From Traditional Medicine:

Two reports from TRAFFIC, the world's largest wildlife trade monitoring network, on traditional medicine systems in Cambodia and Vietnam suggest that illegal wildlife trade, including entire tiger skeletons, and unsustainable harvesting is depleting the region's rich and varied biodiversity and putting the primary healthcare resource of millions at risk.

Wild Orangutans Declining More Sharply In Sumatra And Borneo Than Thought:

Endangered wild orangutan (Pongo spp.) populations are declining more sharply in Sumatra and Borneo than previously estimated, according to new findings published this month by Great Ape Trust of Iowa scientist Dr. Serge Wich and other orangutan conservation experts in Oryx - The International Journal of Conservation.

Looking For The Founatain Of Youth? Cut Your Calories, Research Suggests:

Want to slow the signs of aging and live longer? New Saint Louis University research suggests cutting back on calories could be a promising strategy.