Science News
clock | March 5, 2008Warming Climate May Cause Arctic Tundra To Burn:
Research from ancient sediment cores indicates that a warming climate could make the world's arctic tundra far more susceptible to fires than previously thought. The findings are important given the potential for tundra fires to release organic carbon -- which could add significantly to the amount of greenhouse gases already blamed for global warming.
Stop-And-Go Traffic: An Accident? Construction Work? No, Just Too Much Traffic:
A new study from a Japanese research group explains why we're occasionally caught in traffic jams for no visible…
clock | March 4, 2008Giant Fossil Bats Out Of Africa, 35 Million Years Old:
When most of us think of Ancient Egypt, visions of pyramids and mummies fill our imaginations. For a team of paleontologists interested in fossil mammals, the Fayum district of Egypt summons an even older and equally impressive history that extends much further back in time than the Sphinx.
Are Wolves The Pronghorn's Best Friend?:
As western states debate removing the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act, a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society cautions that doing so may result in an unintended decline in…
clock | March 3, 2008Last week's crop of PLoS ONE articles enjoyed quite a nice buzz in the media and on the blogs. But today is a new week, and we start, as always with new articles in PLoS Medicine and PLoS Biology - here are some of the article that caught my attention:
Could an Open-Source Clinical Trial Data-Management System Be What We Have All Been Looking For:
In Europe, it is a legal requirement to conduct clinical trials in accordance with the International Conference on Harmonisation's guidelines on good clinical practice (see http://www.ich.org/). A recent editorial reported that this directive has…
clock | March 1, 2008Fighting Australian Crayfish Do Not Forget The Face Of Foes:
The fighting Australian yabby, a type of crayfish, smaller than a lobster but similar in appearance, does not forget the face of its foes says new research from University of Melbourne zoologists. The two year study involving over 100 pairs of yabbies revealed that the species Cherax destructor is capable of facial recognition of individuals, particularly its opponents.
Why Juniper Trees Can Live On Less Water:
An ability to avoid the plant equivalent of vapor lock and a favorable evolutionary history may explain the unusual drought…
clock | February 29, 2008Two of the papers published today in PLoS Genetics (now on the TOPAZ platform) got my attention:
Redundant Function of REV-ERBα and β and Non-Essential Role for Bmal1 Cycling in Transcriptional Regulation of Intracellular Circadian Rhythms:
Circadian clocks in plants, fungi, insects, and mammals all share a common transcriptional network architecture. At the cellular level, the mammalian clockwork consists of a core Per/Cry negative feedback loop and additional interlocking loops. We wished to address experimentally the contribution of the interlocking Bmal1 loop to clock function in…
clock | February 28, 2008This Is Your Brain On Jazz: Researchers Use MRI To Study Spontaneity, Creativity:
A pair of Johns Hopkins and government scientists have discovered that when jazz musicians improvise, their brains turn off areas linked to self-censoring and inhibition, and turn on those that let self-expression flow.
More coverage from Smooth Pebbles, Mind Hacks, Wired Science, Neurophilosophy, Science A Go Go, PsychCentral and The Rehearsal Studio
Evolution Of Aversion: Why Even Children Are Fearful Of Snakes:
Some of the oldest tales and wisest mythology allude to the snake as a mischievous seducer,…
clock | February 27, 2008Bats Use Magnetic Substance As Internal Compass To Help Them Navigate:
They may not be on most people's list of most attractive species, but bats definitely have animal magnetism. Researchers from the Universities of Leeds and Princeton have discovered that bats use a magnetic substance in their body called magnetite as an 'internal compass' to help them navigate.
Or, if you prefer a much livelier take, with context, check out Pondering Pikaia
Why Do We Love Babies? Parental Instinct Region Found In The Brain:
Why do we almost instinctively treat babies as special, protecting them and…
clock | February 26, 2008Excitement on science blogs! Karen James of the Beagle Project Blog has just today published a paper in PLoS ONE:
Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT) for Pan-Genomic Evolutionary Studies of Non-Model Organisms:
Background
High-throughput tools for pan-genomic study, especially the DNA microarray platform, have sparked a remarkable increase in data production and enabled a shift in the scale at which biological investigation is possible. The use of microarrays to examine evolutionary relationships and processes, however, is predominantly restricted to model or near-model organisms.…
clock | February 26, 2008There are 48 new articles published this week in PLoS ONE. It's hard to choose just a couple to highlight, so look around for what interests you (avian flu, the Plague?). How about these titles that piqued my interest:
Neural Substrates of Spontaneous Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation:
To investigate the neural substrates that underlie spontaneous musical performance, we examined improvisation in professional jazz pianists using functional MRI. By employing two paradigms that differed widely in musical complexity, we found that improvisation (compared to production of…
clock | February 26, 2008Religion Colors Americans' Views Of Nanotechnology:
Is nanotechnology morally acceptable? For a significant percentage of Americans, the answer is no, according to a recent survey of Americans' attitudes about the science of the very small.
Male Fertility May Be Harmed By Mix Of Endocrine Disrupters:
Endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which are harmless individually in small doses, can together be a dangerous cocktail. Concurrent exposure to several endocrine-disrupting substances may, among other things, result in malformed sexual organs. Risk assessments of chemical substances should therefore…
clock | February 25, 2008Snakes Locate Prey Through Vibration Waves:
It is often believed that snakes cannot hear. This presumption is fed by the fact that snakes lack an outer ear and that scientific evidence of snakes responding to sound is scarce. Snakes do, however, possess an inner ear with a functional cochlea.
Masters Of Disguise: Secrets Of Nature's 'Great Pretenders' Revealed:
A gene which helps a harmless African butterfly ward off predators by giving it wing patterns like those of toxic species, has been identified. The mocker swallowtail butterfly, Papilio dardanus, is unusual because it emerges from its…
clock | February 25, 2008There are a bunch of new papers in PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine and, somewhat out of usual schedule, in PLoS ONE. So, check out these and then look around for more:
Does Mutation Rate Depend on Itself:
Many a research paper, textbook chapter, and grant proposal has begun with the phrase "Mutation is the ultimate source of genetic variation." Implicit in this phrase is the assumption that genetic variation is required for evolution. Without mutation, evolution would not be possible, and life itself could never have arisen in the first place. However, there is overwhelming evidence that the…
clock | February 24, 2008Early Experience Affects Where Birds Breed For Life: What Happens If Habitat Changes?:
How young migratory birds choose the nesting location of their first breeding season has been something of a mystery in the bird world. But a new University of Maryland/National Zoo study of the American redstart suggests that the environmental conditions the birds face in their first year may help determine where they breed for the rest of their lives, a factor that could significantly affect the population as climate change makes their winter habitats hotter and drier.
Ancient Puzzle Solved In Fossils…
clock | February 21, 2008Saving The Rainforest With ... Toys?:
Villagers in tiny communities including Guayabo, Sawacito and Mahor, in the rainforest of northeastern Honduras, used to take part in the rampant illegal trade in mahogany, but recently they have formed a cooperative and learned to harvest the prized wood in sustainable ways. Now, they mostly use trees that have fallen naturally or harvest them in a sustainable way from around the fringes of the nearby Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve, and remove planks from the forest, first on their backs, then on muleback to avoid the disruption caused by heavy machinery…
clock | February 20, 2008Do Animals Think Like Autistic Savants?:
When Temple Grandin argued that animals and autistic savants share cognitive similarities in her best-selling book Animals in Translation (2005), the idea gained steam outside the community of cognitive neuroscientists. Grandin, a professor of animal science whose best-selling books have provided an unprecedented look at the autistic mind, says her autism gives her special insight into the inner workings of the animal mind. She based her proposal on the observation that animals, like autistic humans, sense and respond to stimuli that nonautistic humans…
clock | February 19, 2008There are 50 new articles in PLoS ONE this week - here are some of my picks for you to check out (and post comments, ratings, etc.):
Clocking the Lyme Spirochete:
In order to clear the body of infecting spirochetes, phagocytic cells must be able to get hold of them. In real-time phase-contrast videomicroscopy we were able to measure the speed of Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), the Lyme spirochete, moving back and forth across a platelet to which it was tethered. Its mean crossing speed was 1,636 µm/min (N = 28), maximum, 2800 µm/min (N = 3). This is the fastest speed recorded for a spirochete,…
clock | February 19, 2008Identical Twins Not As Identical As Believed:
Contrary to our previous beliefs, identical twins are not genetically identical. This surprising finding may be of great significance for research on hereditary diseases and for the development of new diagnostic methods. How can it be that one identical twin might develop Parkinson's disease, for instance, but not the other? Until now, the reasons have been sought in environmental factors. The current study complicates the picture.
Genome Of Marine Organism Tells Of Humans' Unicellular Ancestors:
The newly sequenced genome of a one-celled,…
clock | February 19, 2008Are Animals Autistic Savants:
Do animals have privileged access to lower level sensory information before it is packaged into concepts, as Temple Grandin has argued for autistic savants? Giorgio Vallortigara and colleagues critique this perspective, and Grandin responds.
see also.
Maternal Death, Autopsy Studies, and Lessons from Pathology:
Clara Menendez and colleagues analyze 139 complete autopsies following maternal deaths in Maputo, Mozambique and find a predominance of infectious and preventable causes. Sebastian Lucas discusses the study in a related perspective.
clock | February 18, 2008Cheating 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…
j7uy5 | February 18, 2008Do cell phones decrease male fertility? Researchers at the
Cleveland Clinic think so. According to
href="http://www.clevelandclinic.org/reproductiveresearchcenter/staff/agarwala.html">Ashok
Agarwal, et. al., greater
use of cell phones is associated with decreased sprem count.
Other factors, such as sperm motility, are diminished as well.
href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/17482179">Effect of
cell phone usage on semen analysis in men attending infertility clinic:
an observational study.
Agarwal A, Deepinder F, Sharma RK, Ranga G, Li J.
Fertil Steril. 2008
Jan;89(1):124…