Science News
clock | September 15, 2007Who Went There? Matching Fossil Tracks With Their Makers:
Fossilized footprints are relatively common, but figuring out exactly which ancient creature made particular tracks has been a mystery that has long stumped paleontologists. In the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, a team of researchers overcome this dilemma for the first time, and link a fossil trackway to a well-known fossil animal.
Bird Completes Epic Flight Across The Pacific:
A female bar-tailed godwit, a large, streamlined shorebird, has touched down in New Zealand following an epic, 18,000-mile-long (29,000…
clock | September 15, 2007Extra Gene Copies Were Enough To Make Early Humans' Mouths Water:
To think that world domination could have begun in the cheeks. That's one interpretation of a discovery, published online September 9 in Nature Genetics, which indicates that humans carry extra copies of the salivary amylase gene. Humans have many more copies of this gene than any of their ape relatives, the study found, and they use the copies to flood their mouths with amylase, an enzyme that digests starch. The finding bolsters the idea that starch was a crucial addition to the diet of early humans, and that natural…
clock | September 14, 2007As always on Fridays, there are new papers published in PLoS Genetics, PLoS Pathogens and PLoS Computational Biology. I like to take my own picks, and today I pick this pre-publication (there is a provisional PDF online) in my own field:
Meta-analysis of Drosophila Circadian Microarray Studies Identifies a Novel Set of Rhythmically Expressed Genes:
Five independent groups have reported microarray studies that identify dozens of rhythmically expressed genes in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Limited overlap among the lists of discovered genes makes it difficult to determine which, if…
clock | September 13, 2007
Fire Ants Killing Baby Song Birds At High Rates:
Red imported fire ants may be killing as many as a fifth of baby song birds before they leave the nest, according to research recently completed at Texas A&M University.
Ecologist Finds Dire Devastation Of Snake Species Following Floods:
In science, it's best to be good, but sometimes it's better to be lucky.
Fossil Whale Puts Limit On Origin Of Oily, Buoyant Bones In Whales:
A fossilized whale skeleton excavated 20 years ago amid the stench and noise of a seabird and elephant seal rookery on California's Año Nuevo Island turns out to be…
clock | September 11, 2007Was Ability To Run Early Man's Achilles Heel?:
The earliest humans almost certainly walked upright on two legs but may have struggled to run at even half the speed of modern man, new research suggests.
Tasmanian Tiger No Match For Dingo:
The wily dingo out-competed the much larger marsupial thylacine by being better built anatomically to resist the "mechanical stresses" associated with killing large prey, say Australian scientists.
A Dog In The Hand Scares Birds In The Bush:
New research showing that dog-walking in bushland significantly reduces bird diversity and abundance will lend support…
clock | September 11, 2007Holy Cow! Every Tuesday night I like to link to 5-6 of the brand new papers on PLoS ONE that I find personally most intriguing. But today, it is so difficult to choose - I want to highlight something like 20 out of today's 39. So, here are a few and you definitely go and see the whole list for yourself (and you know the drill, as I parrot it every week: read, rate, comment):
Impedance-Matching Hearing in Paleozoic Reptiles: Evidence of Advanced Sensory Perception at an Early Stage of Amniote Evolution
Insights into the onset of evolutionary novelties are key to the understanding of amniote…
clock | September 11, 2007Device To Predict Proper Light Exposure For Human Health:
Scientists have long known that the human body runs like clockwork, guided by a circadian system that responds to daily patterns of light and darkness. Now a team of researchers is developing a personal device to measure daily light intake and activity, which could allow them to predict optimal timing for light therapy to synchronize the circadian clock to the 24-hour solar day and relieve psychosocial stress.
Pivotal Hearing Structure Revealed:
Scientists have shed light on how our bodies convert vibrations entering the ear into…
clock | September 9, 2007Primates Expect Others To Act Rationally:
When trying to understand someone's intentions, non-human primates expect others to act rationally by performing the most appropriate action allowed by the environment, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard University. The work was led by Justin Wood, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, with David Glynn, a research assistant, and Marc Hauser, professor of psychology at Harvard, along with Brenda Phillips of Boston University.
Brain's Timing Linked With Timescales Of The…
clock | September 8, 2007Force For Democracy -- Or Information Chaos? Expert Forum Spotlights Blogging:
Controversial Internet entrepreneur turned cultural critic Andrew Keen, who says the revolution of interactivity and user-generated content on the internet is leading to 'less culture, less reliable news and a chaos of useless information' is one contributor certain to ignite debate at the two-day conference at the University of York. The conference is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through its e-Society programme.
Future Career Path Of Gifted Youth Can Be Predicted By Age 13 By SAT:
The…
clock | September 7, 2007A Balanced Memory Network:
A critical component of cognition is memory--the ability to store information, and to readily retrieve it on cue. Existing models postulate that recalled items are represented by self-sustained activity; that is, they are represented by activity that can exist in the absence of input. These models, however, are incomplete, in the sense that they do not explain two salient experimentally observed features of persistent activity: low firing rates and high neuronal variability. Here we propose a model that can explain both. The model makes two predictions: changes in…
clock | September 7, 2007'Alien' Jaws Help Moray Eels Feed:
Moray eels have a unique way of feeding reminiscent of a science fiction thriller, researchers at UC Davis have discovered. After seizing prey in its jaws, a second set of jaws located in the moray's throat reaches forward into the mouth, grabs the food and carries it back to the esophagus for swallowing.
More here and here (you can see the video on both places).
Migrating Squid Drove Evolution Of Sonar In Whales And Dolphins, Researchers Argue:
Behind the sailor's lore of fearsome battles between sperm whale and giant squid lies a deep question of evolution…
clock | September 5, 2007
Nicotine In Breast Milk Disrupts Infants' Sleep Patterns:
A study from the Monell Chemical Senses Center reports that nicotine in the breast milk of lactating mothers who smoke cigarettes disrupts their infants' sleep patterns.
River Blindness Parasite Becoming Resistant To Standard Treatment:
Ivermectin, the standard drug for treating river blindness (onchocerciasis), is causing genetic changes in the parasite that causes the disease, according to a new study by Roger Prichard (McGill University, Canada) and colleagues, published on August 30, 2007 in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected…
clock | September 4, 2007There are 38 new articles on PLoS ONE today. Below are some of my own picks, but you look around, read what you like, rate, comment and annotate:
Studying Seabird Diet through Genetic Analysis of Faeces: A Case Study on Macaroni Penguins (Eudyptes chrysolophus):
Determining what seabirds have eaten is typically accomplished with stomach flushing. Here, Deagle and colleagues use non-invasive DNA-based analysis of faeces as an alternative way to examine the diet of Macaroni penguins on Heard Island in the southern Indian Ocean. Their results show that the technique can detect changes in the…
clock | September 3, 2007Bonobo Handshake: What Makes Our Chimp-like Cousins So Cooperative?:
What's it like to work with relatives who think sex is like a handshake, who organise orgies with the neighbours, and firmly believe females should be in charge of everything? On September 11, researcher Vanessa Woods will journey to Lola ya Bonobo Sanctuary in Congo with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute in Germany to study our mysterious cousin, the bonobo.
Rare Breeds Of Farm Animals Face Extinction:
With the world's first global inventory of farm animals showing many breeds of African, Asian, and Latin American…
clock | September 3, 2007
Inside The Brain Of A Crayfish:
Voyage to the bottom of the sea, or simply look along the bottom of a clear stream and you may spy lobsters or crayfish waving their antennae. Look closer, and you will see them feeling around with their legs and flicking their antennules - the small, paired sets of miniature feelers at the top of their heads between the long antennae. Both are used for sensing the environment. The long antennae are used for getting a physical feel of an area, such as the contours of a crevice. The smaller antennules are there to both help the creature smell for food or mates…
clock | September 1, 2007One Species' Entire Genome Discovered Inside Another's:
Scientists at the University of Rochester and the J. Craig Venter Institute have discovered a copy of the entire genome of a bacterial parasite residing inside the genome of its host species. The finding, reported in Science August 30, suggests that lateral gene transfer--the movement of genes between unrelated species--may happen much more frequently between bacteria and multicellular organisms than scientists previously believed, posing dramatic implications for evolution.
More...
Fruit Flies Prefer Fizzy Drinks:
That fruit fly…
evolgen | September 1, 2007According to this press release Trends in Genetics (TIG) is "the most established monthly journal in Genetics". I have no idea what that means, but if I were asked to name the top journals in genetics, TIG wouldn't crack the top four. In fact, here is my top four:
Nature Genetics
PLoS Genetics
Genetics
Heredity
Additionally, TIG is published by Elsevier, which means TIG sold guns to terrorists and rogue nations (but they don't anymore). Well, TIG is also publishing an article in November (according to the press release) that will "shed new and unexpected light on some of the long standing…
evolgen | August 31, 2007
Eukaryotic genomes are chimeras of sequences from many different sources. There are the genes responsible for the normal functioning of the host, but there are also transposable elements (TEs), sequences from mitochondria (numts), and endogenous retroviruses (ERVs). In addition to those examples, other symbionts also infect eukaryotes and leave traces of their presence in the genomes of the hosts. One such parasite of many invertebrates is Wolbachia, a bacteria that invades the germ cells of its host and inflicts odd behaviors such as male killing, feminization of males, and reproductive…
clock | August 30, 2007Mystery Of A Third Olfactory System Unlocked:
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have found a "nose within the nose," a unique olfactory system within the noses of mice that is able to "smell" hormones involved in regulating water and salt balance in the body. This research may lead to new insights into the complex system of "chemical communication" between individuals.
First Orchid Fossil Puts Showy Blooms At Some 80 Million Years Old:
Biologists at Harvard University have identified the ancient fossilized remains of a pollen-bearing bee as the first hint of orchids…
clock | August 29, 2007
There are 32 new articles on PLoS ONE this week. Here are some titles that caught my eye - go read, rate, annotate and comment:
Why Men Matter: Mating Patterns Drive Evolution of Human Lifespan:
Evolutionary theory predicts that senescence, a decline in survival rates with age, is the consequence of stronger selection on alleles that affect fertility or mortality earlier rather than later in life. Hamilton quantified this argument by showing that a rare mutation reducing survival is opposed by a selective force that declines with age over reproductive life. He used a female-only demographic…