Science News
clock | November 20, 2006Children's Sleep Difficulties: Reports Differ From Children To Parents:
Elementary-school-aged children commonly experience sleep problems, but little research has addressed the reasons behind this phenomenon. A new study finds that children of this age say they have sleep difficulties much more often than their parents report such problems.
Sleep Apnea Patients At Higher Risk For Deadly Heart Disease; Arrhythmia Found To Increase During REM:
People with sleep apnea could also be at risk for a particular kind of deadly heart arrhythmia, finds Saint Louis University researchers. They presented…
clock | November 18, 2006* Monkeys using perfume? Study investigates:
Some wild spider monkeys dab on a chewed-leaf paste that may act as a sort of cologne, researchers say.
* Red wine ingredient found to boost endurance:
A substance earlier linked to long life in animals, also "re-programs" muscle to double endurance, a mouse study indicates.
* Neanderthal DNA partially sequenced:
Scientists have preliminarily mapped out when the stocky human cousins diverged from our species.
* 'Dark energy' an age-old phenomenon, study finds:
A weird force pushing our universe outward has existed since near the beginning,…
j7uy5 | November 18, 2006Rehabilitation of disused industrial sites has been a costly and
contentious issue in urban planning. Sites that are mildly or
moderately contaminated are called
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownfield" rel="tag">brownfields.
Research is underway to see if some brownfields can be used
to grow crops, specifically for the production of biofuels.
Michigan
State University, known affectionately as "Moo-U," in
collaboration with
rel="tag">DaimlerChrysler and
href="http://www.nextenergy.org/" rel="tag">NextEnergy,
has small plots of soybean, corn, canola and switchgrass…
evolgen | November 16, 2006Yesterday, I mentioned that one of the greatest technological developments that contributed to the evolution of population genetics was the automation of DNA sequencing. I was unaware, however, that the automated DNA sequencing method that most people use was patented by a group from Caltech (including Leroy Hood) in 1998. The actual invention was conceived in the early 1980s, but a competing group claims they came up with the idea first according to this article in the NYTimes.
If Enzo Biochem, the group suing Caltech over the patent, were to win their lawsuit, companies such as Applied…
j7uy5 | November 15, 2006I've quietly worried about this for a few years, but now I have
company. Increased temperatures, combined with increased
climate variability, could have a significant effect on human health
worldwide.
href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CLIMATE_HEALTH">Diseases
Appear on Rise With Temperature
Nov 14, 5:51 PM EST
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- A warmer world already seems to be producing a
sicker world, health experts reported Tuesday, citing surges in Kenya,
China and Europe of such diseases as malaria, heart ailments and dengue…
clock | November 14, 2006* Cleansing nuclear fallout from the body:
A U.S. government scientist envisions purging the body of fallout with a compound from crab shells.
* Gay men likelier to gamble addictively, study suggests:
A small study may fuel a charged debate over why homosexuals, as growing evidence suggests, suffer addictions unusually often.
* Saturn moon found to resemble Earth at life's birth:
Hazy skies on early Earth, similar to those on Saturn's moon Titan, could have provided the ingredients for life, chemists say.
* Mystery of sudden infant deaths may be solved:
"Sudden infant death syndrome" results…
clock | November 10, 2006Microbes Compete With Animals For Food By Making It Stink:
Microbes may compete with large animal scavengers by producing repugnant chemicals that deter higher species from consuming valuable food resources, a new study suggests. Ecologists have long recognized microbes as decomposers and pathogens in ecological communities. But their role as classic consumers who produce chemicals to compete with larger animals could be an important and common interaction within many ecosystems, according to a paper published this week in the journal Ecology
Decoded Sea Urchin Genome Shows Surprising…
evolgen | November 10, 2006In case you didn't hear, a sea urchin genome has been sequenced, analyzed, and the results published (Science has a page dedicated to it here). I say a sea urchin genome because there are many species of sea urchins. This paper reports the sequence of one species, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, a model organism in developmental biology.
Despite the fact they are quite common-place, genome sequencing projects still draw some attention in the popular science press (see the honeybee as an example). And, as usual, the articles written about this scientific study are fraught with errors and…
clock | November 9, 2006Two Nerve Cells In Direct Contact:
For the first time, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology in Martinsried near Munich have been able to show how two nerve cells communicate with each other from different hemispheres in the visual center. This astoundingly simple circuit diagram could at a later date provide a model for algorithms to be deployed in technical systems.
A Silent Pandemic: Industrial Chemicals Are Impairing Brain Development Of Children Worldwide:
Researchers found that 202 industrial chemicals have the capacity to damage the human brain, and they conclude that…
clock | November 9, 2006Cell transplant for eyes?
In the current study, the scientists looked at these photoreceptors' development -- from the embryonic stages to those in the newborn. They found that the cells that worked best came from animals between the first and fifth days of life. "Photoreceptors are just being born and starting to make connections," said Pearson, one of the co-authors of the study, published this week in Nature.
The retinal cells were transplanted in normal adult mice and others with two different types of vision problems that cause blindness. In earlier studies, researchers found that the…
clock | November 7, 2006Fossil Is Missing Link In Elephant Lineage:
A pig-sized, tusked creature that roamed the earth some 27 million years ago represents a missing link between the oldest known relatives of elephants and the more recent group from which modern elephants descended, an international team that includes University of Michigan paleontologist William J. Sanders has found.
Saving Threatened Turtles In The Caribbean:
Ecology and conservation experts from the University of Exeter are urging international governments to work together to protect threatened Caribbean sea turtle populations. The Cayman Islands…
clock | November 6, 2006Fossils Of Ancient Sea Monster Found In Montana:
A complete skull of a long-necked plesiosaur has been discovered in Montana. The 70-million-year-old skull is one of the best specimens of its kind found in North America.
Snow Data Helps Maintain Nation's Largest, Oldest Bison Herd:
NASA satellite data and computer modeling and US Department of Agriculture information are helping track the remnants of the once mighty bison herd in Yellowstone National Park as they migrate with the melting snowpack.
Reduced Body Temperature Extends Lifespan, Study Finds:
Scientists at the Scripps Research…
j7uy5 | November 5, 2006I've long been a fan of
href="http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/solidstate/SSLWhat.htm">LED
lighting, thinking that it holds a
href="http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16135&z=318&p=1&ch=nanotech">lot
of promise for reducing electricity demands. Early
on in the development of light emitting diodes, it became apparent that
they produced a lot of light and not a lot of heat per watt of energy
used. There have been two persistent problems, though. One
problem is that the light from LEDs comes out in
only one color.
The second problem is the cost.
The…
clock | November 3, 2006Low Levels Of Neurotransmitter Serotonin May Perpetuate Child Abuse Across Generations :
Infant abuse may be perpetuated between generations by changes in the brain induced by early experience, research shows. A research team found that when baby rhesus monkeys endured high rates of maternal rejection and mild abuse in their first month of life, their brains often produced less serotonin, a chemical that transmits impulses in the brain. Low levels of serotonin are associated with anxiety and depression and impulsive aggression in both humans and monkeys.
Scientists Discover Molecular Basis…
clock | October 31, 2006Groups And Grumps: Study Identifies 'Sociality' Neurons:
A University of California, San Diego study has for the first time identified brain cells that influence whether birds of a feather will, or will not, flock together. The research demonstrates that vasotocin neurons in the medial extended amygdala -- which are present in most animals, including humans -- respond differently to social cues in birds that live in colonies compared to their more solitary cousins.
Evolutionary Oddity: Erectile Tissue Helps Flamingos Eat:
With their spindly legs, long necks and bright plumage, flamingos are a…
clock | October 30, 2006Trotting With Emus To Walk With Dinosaurs:
One way to make sense of 165-million-year-old dino tracks may be to hang out with emus, say paleontologists studying thousands of dinosaur footprints at the Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite in northern Wyoming. Because they are about the same size, walk on two legs and have similar feet, emus turn out to be the best modern version of the enigmatic reptiles that once trotted along a long-lost coastline in the Middle Jurassic.
Grape Seed Extract Halts Cell Cycle, Checking Growth Of Colorectal Tumors In Mice:
Chemicals found in grape seeds significantly…
j7uy5 | October 29, 2006Art Z over at
href="http://cheerfulcurmudgeon.com/2006/10/22/bacteria-use-radioactive-uranium-instead-of-energy-from-the-sun/">Cheerful
Curmudgeon links to an interesting story about subterranean
href="http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/4229.html">bacteria
that derive energy from radioactive uranium.
"What really gets my juices flowing is the possibility of
life
below
the surface of Mars," said Tullis Onstott, a Princeton University
geoscientist and leader of the research team. "These bacteria have been
cut off from the surface of the Earth for many millions of years, but…
clock | October 28, 2006Insights Into Honey Bee Sex Gene Could Bring Sweet Success In Breeding:
What makes a bee a he or a she? Three years ago, scientists pinpointed a gene called csd that determines gender in honey bees, and now a research team led by University of Michigan evolutionary biologist Jianzhi "George" Zhang has unraveled details of how the gene evolved. The new insights could prove useful in designing strategies for breeding honey bees, which are major pollinators of economically important crops--and notoriously tricky to breed.
Key Gene Controlling Eye Lens Development Identified:
Investigators at St…
clock | October 27, 2006Cougar Predation Key To Ecosystem Health:
The general disappearance of cougars from a portion of Zion National Park in the past 70 years has allowed deer populations to dramatically increase, leading to severe ecological damage, loss of cottonwood trees, eroding streambanks and declining biodiversity. Researchers are calling it a "trophic cascade" of environmental degradation.
Professor Analyzes Nuclear Receptors In Bee Genome:
Susan Fahrbach, a Wake Forest University biologist, is among the more than 170 researchers who helped decode the honey bee genome. She contributed to the article on…
clock | October 26, 2006Researchers Give Name To Ancient Mystery Creature:
For the first time, researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, have been able to put a name and a description to an ancient mammal that still defies classification.
Protein Important In Blood Clotting May Also Play A Role In Fertility:
A protein known to play a role in blood clotting and other cell functions is also critical for proper sperm formation in mice, according to researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.
Computer Scientists Go Badger Spotting:
Although an unlikely subject…