Science News
clock | June 30, 2008As always on Monday night, there are new articles published in PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine. Here are some of the highlights:
Shedding Light on Animal Cryptochromes:
Anyone who's neglected a houseplant for any length of time knows that plants can't survive without light. But it's more complicated than that; in addition to serving as an energy source, light is used by plants as a signal to sense and respond to the environment. For example, both red and blue light send the signal for maturation and flower and seed development. Depriving a plant of such light signals disrupts a variety of…
clock | June 30, 2008Mammalian Clock Protein Responds Directly To Light:
We all know that light effects the growth and development of plants, but what effect does light have on humans and animals? A new paper by Nathalie Hoang et al., published in PLoS Biology, explores this question by examining cryptochromes in flies, mice, and humans. In plants, cryptochromes are photoreceptor proteins which absorb and process blue light for functions such as growth, seedling development, and leaf and stem expansion. Cryptochromes are present in humans and animals as well and have been proven to regulate the mechanisms of the…
clock | June 26, 2008Thursday night - time to check in to see what is new in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Pathogens and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases:
The Exception That Proves the Rule: An Interview with Jenny Graves:
Close to 20 years ago, I was contacted by an Australian woman who was planning to map the locations of genes that are X-linked in humans in some odd Australian critters, the monotremes. These animals comprise a distantly related branch of mammals that have hair and lactate, but additionally lay eggs. She wanted a probe from our lab, and, in exchange, little vials of DNA from…
clock | June 26, 2008Huge Genome-scale Phylogenetic Study Of Birds Rewrites Evolutionary Tree-of-life:
The largest ever study of bird genetics has not only shaken up but completely redrawn the avian evolutionary tree. The study challenges current classifications, alters our understanding of avian evolution, and provides a valuable resource for phylogenetic and comparative studies in birds.
Cocoa Genome To Be Sequenced: May Benefit Millions Of Farmers, Help Sustain World's Chocolate Supply:
The United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), Mars, Incorporated, and IBM intend to…
clock | June 25, 2008Extreme Weather Events Can Unleash A 'Perfect Storm' Of Infectious Diseases, Research Study Says:
An international research team, including University of Minnesota researcher Craig Packer, has found the first clear example of how climate extremes, such as the increased frequency of droughts and floods expected with global warming, can create conditions in which diseases that are tolerated individually may converge and cause mass die-offs of livestock or wildlife.
Our Genome Changes Over Lifetime, And May Explain Many 'Late-onset' Diseases:
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that…
clock | June 24, 2008There are 54 new articlespublished in PLoS ONE today. Here are my picks:
Climate Extremes Promote Fatal Co-Infections during Canine Distemper Epidemics in African Lions:
Extreme climatic conditions may alter historic host-pathogen relationships and synchronize the temporal and spatial convergence of multiple infectious agents, triggering epidemics with far greater mortality than those due to single pathogens. Here we present the first data to clearly illustrate how climate extremes can promote a complex interplay between epidemic and endemic pathogens that are normally tolerated in isolation…
clock | June 24, 2008Single Insecticide Application Can Kill Three Cockroach Generations:
One dose of an insecticide can kill three generations of cockroaches as they feed off of each other and transfer the poison, according to Purdue University entomologists who tested the effectiveness of a specific gel bait.
To Find Out What's Eating Bats, Biologist Takes To Barn Rooftops:
Bloodsucking pests like bat fleas and bat flies may not sound very appealing to the rest of us, but to University at Buffalo biologist Katharina Dittmar de la Cruz, Ph.D., they are among the most successful creatures evolution has ever…
clock | June 23, 2008It's Monday night - time for new articles in PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine:
On the Emergence and Awareness of Auditory Objects:
Anyone who has walked into a crowded reverberant nightclub, with a hubbub of multiple conversations amidst blaring music, will recall the initial impression of the sound as loud and undifferentiated noise. In short order, however, different sound streams begin to emerge as one attends to individual speakers, listens to the melody from the band, or even hears one instrument in it. Humans perform this remarkable feat effortlessly. Our extraordinary abilities to…
clock | June 23, 2008Britain's Last Neanderthals Were More Sophisticated Than We Thought:
An archaeological excavation at a site near Pulborough, West Sussex, has thrown remarkable new light on the life of northern Europe's last Neanderthals. It provides a snapshot of a thriving, developing population - rather than communities on the verge of extinction.
Microscopic 'Clutch' Puts Flagellum In Neutral:
A tiny but powerful engine that propels the bacterium Bacillus subtilis through liquids is disengaged from the corkscrew-like flagellum by a protein clutch, Indiana University Bloomington and Harvard University…
clock | June 20, 2008Birds Migrate Earlier, But Some May Be Left Behind As The Climate Warms Rapidly:
Many birds are arriving earlier each spring as temperatures warm along the East Coast of the United States. However, the farther those birds journey, the less likely they are to keep pace with the rapidly changing climate. Scientists at Boston University and the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences analyzed changes in the timing of spring migrations of 32 species of birds along the coast of eastern Massachusetts since 1970. Researchers at Manomet gathered this data by capturing birds in mist nets, attaching…
clock | June 19, 2008It's Friday - and time for new articles in PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Pathogens and PLoS Genetics:
An Evolutionarily Conserved Sexual Signature in the Primate Brain:
The contribution of genetics versus environment to behavioral differences between the sexes is a fundamental question in neuroscience. We hypothesized that some differences between the sexes might be partially explained by sexually dependent gene expression differences in the brain. We further speculated that if differences in gene expression between males and females are functionally important, they may be conserved in the…
clock | June 19, 2008Great Apes Think Ahead: Conclusive Evidence Of Advanced Planning Capacities:
Apes can plan for their future needs just as we humans can - by using self-control and imagining future events. Mathias and Helena Osvath's research, from Lunds University Cognitive Science in Sweden, is the first to provide conclusive evidence of advanced planning capacities in non-human species.
Female Chimps Use Copulation Calls Strategically:
Female chimps are more concerned with having sex with many different males than finding the strongest mate, according to researchers. The new study by University of St…
clock | June 17, 2008First Successful Reverse Vasectomy On Endangered Species Performed At The National Zoo:
Veterinarians at the Smithsonian's National Zoo performed the first successful reverse vasectomy on a Przewalski's horse (E. ferus przewalskii; E. caballus przewalskii--classification debated), pronounced zshah-VAL-skeez. Przewalksi's horses are a horse species native to China and Mongolia that was declared extinct in the wild in 1970.
Lizards Pull A Wheelie:
Why bother running on hind legs when the four you've been given work perfectly well? This is the question that puzzles Christofer Clemente. For birds…
clock | June 17, 2008There are 61 cool new papers in PLoS ONE this week - take a look at these for starters:
Risk and Ethical Concerns of Hunting Male Elephant: Behavioural and Physiological Assays of the Remaining Elephants:
Hunting of male African elephants may pose ethical and risk concerns, particularly given their status as a charismatic species of high touristic value, yet which are capable of both killing people and damaging infrastructure. We quantified the effect of hunts of male elephants on (1) risk of attack or damage (11 hunts), and (2) behavioural (movement dynamics) and physiological (stress…
clock | June 16, 2008Humor Shown To Be Fundamental To Our Success As A Species:
First universal theory of humour answers how and why we find things funny. Published June 12, The Pattern Recognition Theory of Humour by Alastair Clarke answers the centuries old question of what is humour. Clarke explains how and why we find things funny and identifies the reason humour is common to all human societies, its fundamental role in the evolution of homo sapiens and its continuing importance in the cognitive development of infants.
Male Bird At Smithsonian's National Zoo Has Special Reason To Celebrate Father's Day:
How…
clock | June 16, 2008A dozen or so years ago, I drove my Biochemistry prof to tears with questions - she had 200 people in front of her and she tried hard to make Biochem interesting enough not to get us all bored to tears, and she was pretty good at that, as much as it is possible not to make people bored to tears with Biochem. But my questions exasperated her mainly because she could not answer them, because, as I learned later, the field of biochemistry was not able to answer those questions yet at the time: questions about dynamics - how fast is a reaction, how long it takes for a pathway to go from…
clock | June 14, 2008Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome Linked To Irregular Menstrual Cycles, Premenstrual Symptoms In Women:
Women with delayed sleep phase syndrome are more likely to report irregular menstrual cycles and premenstrual symptoms, according to a research abstract that will be presented on June 10 at SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).
All kinds of cycles affect each other in some way?
Pigeons Show Superior Self-recognition Abilities To Three Year Old Humans:
Keio University scientists have shown that pigeons are able to discriminate video images of…
clock | June 13, 2008Mysterious Mountain Dinosaur May Be New Species:
A partial dinosaur skeleton unearthed in 1971 from a remote British Columbia site is the first ever found in Canadian mountains and may represent a new species, according to a recent examination by a University of Alberta researcher.
Memory Loss Linked To Common Sleep Disorder:
For the first time, UCLA researchers have discovered that people with sleep apnea show tissue loss in brain regions that help store memory. Reported in the June 27 edition of the journal Neuroscience Letters, the findings emphasize the importance of early detection of…
clock | June 12, 2008Woolly Mammoth Gene Study Changes Extinction Theory:
A large genetic study of the extinct woolly mammoth has revealed that the species was not one large homogenous group, as scientists previously had assumed, and that it did not have much genetic diversity.
Fossils Found In Tibet Revise History Of Elevation, Climate:
About 15,000 feet up on Tibet's desolate Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau, an international research team led by Florida State University geologist Yang Wang was surprised to find thick layers of ancient lake sediment filled with plant, fish and animal fossils typical of far lower…
clock | June 10, 2008Circadian Math: 1 Plus 1 Doesn't Always Equal 2:
Like a wristwatch that needs to be wound daily for accurate time-telling, the human circadian system -- the biological cycles that repeat approximately every 24 hours -- requires daily light exposure to the eye's retina to remain synchronized with the solar day. In a new study published in the June issue of Neuroscience Letters, researchers have demonstrated that when it comes to the circadian system, not all light exposure is created equal.
Morningness Is A Predictor Of Better Grades In College:
Morningness is a predictor of better grades in…