Humanity May Hold Key For Next Earth Evolution:
Human degradation of the environment has the potential to stall an ongoing process of planetary evolution, and even rewind the evolutionary clock to leave the planet habitable only by the bacteria that dominated billions of years of Earth's history, Harvard geochemist Charles Langmuir said Thursday (Nov. 13).
Want Sustainable Fishing? Keep Only Small Fish, And Let The Big Ones Go:
Scientists at the University of Toronto analysed Canadian fisheries data to determine the effect of the "keep the large ones" policy that is typical of fisheries. What they found is that the effect of this policy is an unsustainable fishery.
Genetic Variants Giving Rise To Differences In Metabolism Identified:
Common genetic polymorphisms induce major differentiations in the metabolic make-up of the human population, according to a new article. An international team of researchers, led by Karsten Suhre, has conducted a genome-wide association study with metabolomics, identifying genetic variants in genes involved in the breakdown of fats.
Scientists Invent Machine That Sorts Pomegranate Seeds:
team of investigators from Valencia has developed a machine that separates automatically the seeds from the rind and pith of the pomegranate. The mechanism uses a computer vision system to distinguish and sort the different parts of this fruit, according to a study published on-line by the Journal of Food Engineering.
People Wasting Billions Of Dollars On 'Quack' Health Food And Weight Loss Products, Expert Says:
Globally every year, obese people waste billions of pounds on food products that 'imply' that they aid weight loss, but are totally ineffective, says a nutritional expert on the British Medical Journal website.
Hereditary information flows from parents to offspring not just through DNA but also through the millions of proteins and other molecules that cling to it. These modifications of DNA, known as "epigenetic marks," act both as a switch and a dial - they can determine which genes should be turned on or off, and how much message an "on" gene should produce.
New National Survey Says Public Reveres Bison:
Americans are woefully out of touch with the fact that the American bison, or buffalo, is in trouble as a wild, iconic species, but they do love them as an important symbol of their country--and as an entrée on the dinner table.
Life Is A Highway: Study Confirms Cars Have Personality:
No one needs to tell Disney, which brought the likes of Herbie the Love Bug and Lightning McQueen to the big screen, that cars have personality. Now a study co-authored by a Florida State University researcher has confirmed through a complex statistical analysis that many people see human facial features in the front end of automobiles and ascribe various personality traits to cars -- a modern experience driven by our prehistoric psyches. Researchers, product designers and, of course, filmmakers have long toyed with the idea that cars have faces, but this study is the first to investigate the phenomenon systematically.
The first comprehensive "inventory" of sea and land animals around a group of Antarctic islands reveals a region that is rich in biodiversity and has more species than the Galapagos. The study provides an important benchmark to monitor how they will respond to future environmental change.
Life Science
Environment
