My Picks From ScienceDaily

Individual Differences In Sleep Structure Are Biologically Determined:

Sleeping pattern variability has long been attributed to differences in several non-biological factors. Now a study from the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University Spokane, Wash., has shown that these individual differences are in large part biologically determined and may even prove to be genetic in origin.

North Carolina Coastal Economy Vulnerable To Sea Level Rise:

A new report finds that North Carolina's coastline will continue to experience significant loss in land area, property and recreational value in the next 30 to 75 years due to projected changes in climate, leading North Carolina researchers announced.

Breakdown Products Of Widely Used Pesticides Are Acutely Lethal To Amphibians, Study Finds:

The breakdown products (oxons) of the three most commonly used organophosphorus pesticides in California's agricultural Central Valley -- chlorpyrifos, malathion and diazinon -- are 10 - 100 times more toxic to amphibians than their parent compounds, which are already highly toxic to amphibians, according to experiments conducted by scientists of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Western Ecological Research Center.

Genes Play An Unexpected Role In Their Own Activation, Study Shows:

Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered how a single molecular "on switch" triggers gene activity that might cause effects ranging from learning and memory capabilities to glucose production in the liver.

The "on switch," a protein called CREB, is a transcription factor--a molecule that binds to a section of DNA near a gene and triggers that gene to make the specific protein for which it codes. CREB activates genes in response to a molecule called cAMP, which acts as a messenger for a variety of stimuli including hormones and nerve-signaling molecules called neurotransmitters.

The St. Jude team showed that each gene that responds to CREB chooses which co-factors, or helper molecules, CREB uses to activate that gene. This finding adds an important piece to the puzzle of how cells use CREB to activate specific genes in response to cAMP signals.

Virgin Birth: Shark Expert Comments On Parthenogenesis:

Shark evolution expert Eileen Grogan, Ph.D., discusses recent parthenogenesis findings in female sharks in captivity. The Saint Joseph's University biologist said this mode of reproduction could have significant impact on small, isolated populations.

Birds do it, bees do it, and now there is evidence that female sharks are able to do it on their own -- without the contribution of male DNA. A recent report from a team of American and Irish researchers has concluded that the mysterious appearance in 2001 of an infant female bonnethead shark at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo in a tank that held only two adult female sharks was the result of parthenogenesis (Gr. virgin birth.) Parthenogenic reproduction takes place without fertilization by a male through the process of cell division, when the mother's egg fuses with a degenerative cell called a polar body, producing a new individual.