ScienceDaily Environment Headlines
for Monday, October 20, 2008
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Finding Hidden Tomb Of Genghis Khan Using Non-Invasive Technologies (October 20, 2008) -- According to legend, Genghis Khan lies buried somewhere beneath the dusty steppe of Northeastern Mongolia, entombed in a spot so secretive that anyone who made the mistake of encountering his funeral procession was executed on the spot. Once he was below ground, his men brought in horses to trample evidence of his grave, and just to be absolutely sure he would never be found, they diverted a river to flow over their leader's final resting place. ... > full story
Genetic Switch Critical For Cell Survival In Hypoxia Identified (October 20, 2008) -- Researchers have identified a critical metabolic "switch" in fruit flies that helps oxygen-deprived cells survive. ... > full story
Mathematicians Put Forward Model For Studying Submarine Avalanches And Tsunamis (October 20, 2008) -- A team of Andalucian and French scientists has put forward a mathematical model that enables submarine avalanches and certain types of tsunamis to be studied using equations, according to a recent article in the Journal of Computational Physics. Mathematicians are already applying the model to analyse landslides on the island of Alborón (Almería). ... > full story
Estimate Soil Texture-by-feel (October 20, 2008) -- A new article details methods of determining a soil's texture by feel, an important skill for students of soil science. Soil texture strongly influences the nutrient holding ability of a soil, the amount of water the soil can store, as well as many other properties. ... > full story
'Water Footprint' Promotes Sustainable And Fair Use Of Water Resources (October 20, 2008) -- Researchers have proposed the concept of a 'water footprint,' which gives a detailed insight into the water consumption of individuals, companies and countries, in an international effort to promote sustainable, fair and efficient use of water on a global scale. ... > full story
Genetic-based Human Diseases Are An Ancient Evolutionary Legacy, Research Suggests (October 19, 2008) -- Evolutionary geneticists reveal that disease genes emerged very early in evolutionary history. They have systematically analyzed the time of emergence for a large number of genes -- genes which can also initiate diseases. ... > full story
Waste From Gut Bacteria Helps Host Control Weight, Researchers Report (October 19, 2008) -- A single molecule in the intestinal wall, activated by the waste products from gut bacteria, plays a large role in controlling whether the host animals are lean or fatty, a research team has found in a mouse study. ... > full story
Warming In Yosemite National Park Sends Small Mammals Packing To Higher, Cooler Elevations (October 19, 2008) -- UC Berkeley's resurvey of animal populations in California's eastern mountains kicked off in 2003 with a resurvey of Yosemite National Park, following the route of Joseph Grinnell in 1914-20. The first results show that small mammals have moved to higher elevations as a result of warming, some expanding their range upward, others moving upward and abandoning lower elevations entirely. Though biodiversity remains unchanged, the rapid rate of change sounds a cautionary note about global warming. ... > full story
Genes Hold Secret Of Survival Of Antarctic 'Antifreeze Fish' (October 19, 2008) -- A genetic study of a fish that lives in the icy waters off Antarctica sheds light on the adaptations that enable it to survive in one of the harshest environments on the planet. ... > full story
Opening A Can Of Worms: Serendipitous Discovery Reveals Earthworms More Diverse Than First Thought (October 19, 2008) -- Scientists have found that the UK's common or garden earthworms are far more diverse than previously thought, a discovery with important consequences for agriculture. Biologists have found that many of the common earthworm species found in gardens and on agricultural land are actually made up of a number of distinct species that may have different roles in food chains and soil structure and ecology. ... > full story
Migratory Moths May Hitch Their Rides, But They're Anything But Drifters (October 19, 2008) -- Night-traveling migratory moths may hitch a ride on the wind, but a new study in Current Biology confirms that they are anything but drifters. ... > full story
Turf Wars: Sand And Corals Don't Mix (October 18, 2008) -- When reef fish get a mouthful of sand, coral reefs can drown. "We've known for a while that having a lot of sediment in the water is bad for corals and can smother them. What we didn't realize is how permanent this state of affairs can become, to the point where it may prevent the corals ever re-establishing." ... > full story
Viruses And 'Young Cuckoos' Lead The Way In The Brain (October 18, 2008) -- Harmless viruses and genetic 'young cuckoos' are going to reveal the answers as to how the brain establishes where we are. The understanding of our sense of locality will be the first higher brain function that we understand at a molecular level. ... > full story
Wildfires Cause Ozone Pollution To Violate Health Standards, New Study Shows (October 18, 2008) -- Wildfires can boost ozone pollution to levels that violate US health standards. A new study has found that California wildfires in 2007 tripled the number of ozone violations across a broad area. ... > full story
Stem Cell Breakthrough: Mass-Production Of 'Embryonic' Stem Cells From A Human Hair (October 18, 2008) -- Researchers have successfully reprogrammed adult human cells called keratinocytes -- attached to a single hair -- into induced pluripotent stem cells, which by all appearances looked and acted like embryonic stem cells. And, the researchers have boosted reprogramming efficiency more than 100-fold, while cutting the time it takes in half. ... > full story
Importance Of Sex-specific Testing Shown In Anxiety Study (October 18, 2008) -- An Australian study has flagged an important truth for the medical research community. Like their human counterparts, male and female mice are not only different, their respective genetic responses can often be the reverse of what you'd expect from pharmacological results. This has important ramifications for laboratory and clinical testing. ... > full story
Border Control: How Proteins Permit Entry To A Cell (October 17, 2008) -- The means by which proteins provide a 'border control' service, allowing cells to take up chemicals and substances from their surroundings, whilst keeping others out, is revealed in unprecedented molecular detail for the first time, in the journal Science. ... > full story
'Lost' Miller-Urey Experiment Created More Of Life's Building Blocks (October 17, 2008) -- A classic experiment proving amino acids are created when inorganic molecules are exposed to electricity isn't the whole story, it turns out. The 1953 Miller-Urey Synthesis had two sibling studies, neither of which was published. Vials containing the products from those experiments were recently recovered and reanalyzed using modern technology. The results are reported in this week's Science. ... > full story
Human Microbiome Consortium To Investigate Role Of Microbes In Human Health And Disease (October 17, 2008) -- Scientists from around the globe have formed the International Human Microbiome Consortium, an effort that will enable researchers to characterize the relationship of the human microbiome in the maintenance of health and in disease. ... > full story
New Solar Energy Material Captures Every Color Of The Rainbow (October 17, 2008) -- Researchers have created a new material that overcomes two of the major obstacles to solar power: it absorbs all the energy contained in sunlight, and generates electrons in a way that makes them easier to capture. Chemists combined electrically conductive plastic with metals including molybdenum and titanium to create the hybrid material. ... > full story
Better Beer: College Team Creating Anticancer Brew (October 17, 2008) -- College students often spend their free time thinking about beer, but a group of Rice University students are taking it to the next level. They're using genetic engineering to create beer that contains resveratrol, a chemical in wine that's been shown to reduce cancer and heart disease in lab animals. ... > full story
What Causes Cell Defences To Crumble? Proteins In Mussels Act As Barrier To Toxic Environmental Chemicals (October 17, 2008) -- German and American researchers have for the first time identified complete gene sequences and function of two proteins in mussels that play a key defensive role against environmental toxicants. These proteins form part of an active, physiological barrier in mussel gills that protects them against environmental toxicants. ... > full story
Scientists Use Light To Control Proteins (October 17, 2008) -- Scientists have discovered a way to use light to control certain proteins that catalyze biochemical reactions. This discovery is one of the first examples of someone successfully controlling the activity of a protein using light. The technology eventually could be expanded to have multiple uses, including the ability to turn off the activities of some disease-causing proteins in the cell. ... > full story
Portable Imaging System Will Help Maximize Public Health Response To Natural Disasters (October 17, 2008) -- Researchers have developed a low-cost, high-resolution imaging system that can be attached to a helicopter to create a complete and detailed picture of an area devastated by a hurricane or other natural disaster. The resulting visual information can be used to estimate the number of storm refugees and assess the need for health and humanitarian services. ... > full story
Brazilian Acai Berry Antioxidants Absorbed By Human Body, Research Shows (October 17, 2008) -- A Brazilian palm berry, popular health food though little research has been done on it, now may have its purported benefits better understood. In the first research involving people, the acai berry has proven its ability to be absorbed in the human body when consumed both as juice and pulp. ... > full story
Gorilla Study Gives Clues To Human Language Development (October 17, 2008) -- A new study provides evidence that gorilla communication is linked to the left hemisphere of the brain - just as it is in humans. ... > full story
Lichens Function As Indicators Of Nitrogen Pollution In Forests (October 17, 2008) -- Scientists have found lichens can give insight into nitrogen air pollution effects on Sierra Nevada and San Bernardino mountain ecosystems, and protecting them provides safeguards for less sensitive species. ... > full story
Global Warming Threatens Australia's Iconic Kangaroos (October 16, 2008) -- An increase in average temperature of only two degrees Celsius could have a devastating effect on populations of Australia's iconic kangaroos. ... > full story
Computer Model Reveals Cells' Inner Workings: Could Help Tailor Chemotherapy Treatments (October 16, 2008) -- After spending years developing a computational model to help illuminate cell signaling pathways, a team of MIT researchers decided to see what would happen if they "broke" the model. The results reveal new ways in which cells process chemical information and could indicate how to maximize the effectiveness of disease treatments such as chemotherapy. ... > full story
Scientists Propose Creation Of New Type Of Seed Bank (October 16, 2008) -- While an international seed bank in a Norwegian island has been gathering news about its agricultural collection, a group of US scientists has just published an article outlining a different kind of seed bank, one that proposes the gathering of wild species -- at intervals in the future -- effectively capturing evolution in action. ... > full story
Substantial Loss Of Carbon, Nitrogen From Burned Soils -- And Connections To Warming Climate (October 16, 2008) -- A new study led by the Pacific Northwest Research Station represents the first direct evidence of the toll wildfire can take on forest soil layers. It draws on data from the 2002 Biscuit Fire, which scorched some 500,000 acres in southwest Oregon. ... > full story
High-altitude Climbing Causes Subtle Loss Of Brain Cells And Motor Function, Says Everest And K2 Study (October 16, 2008) -- A study of professional mountain climbers has shown that high-altitude exposure can cause subtle white and grey matter changes to the area of the brain involved in motor activity. ... > full story
Microbes Useful For For Environmental Cleanup And Oil Recovery (October 16, 2008) -- A unique, patent-pending microbial consortium can be used both for cleaning up the environment and addressing our energy needs. The Savannah River National Laboratory's BioTiger was originally developed for cleaning up oil-contaminated soils, but has also shown itself useful for increasing oil recovery from oil sands. ... > full story
Volcanoes May Have Provided Sparks Of First Life (October 16, 2008) -- New research suggests that lightening and volcanoes may have sparked early life on Earth. Researchers have reanalyzed Stanley Miller's classic origin of life experiment, offering a new analysis on how the essential building blocks of life may have arisen from volcanic eruptions. ... > full story
New Recipe For Self-healing Plastic Includes Dash Of Food Additive (October 16, 2008) -- Adding a food additive to damaged polymers can help restore them to full strength, say scientists at the University of Illinois who cooked up the novel, self-healing system. ... > full story
Brain Structure Provides Key To Unraveling Function Of Bizarre Dinosaur Crests (October 16, 2008) -- Paleontologists have long debated the function of the strange, bony crests on the heads of the duck-billed dinosaurs known as lambeosaurs. The structures contain incredibly long, convoluted nasal passages that loop up over the tops of their skulls. Scientists have now used CT-scanning to look inside these mysterious crests and reconstruct the brains and nasal cavities of four different lambeosaur species. ... > full story
Baby Formula Contamination May Be Linked To Pet Food Contamination (October 16, 2008) -- A new study in Toxicological Sciences describes the kidney toxicity of melamine and cyanuric acid based on research that was done to characterize the toxicity of the compounds that contaminated pet food in North America in 2007. This research points to a possible link between the pet food contamination that occurred in North America in 2007 and the recent adulteration of milk protein and resultant intoxication of thousands of babies from Asia. ... > full story
Body's Anti-HIV Drug Explained (October 16, 2008) -- Humans have a built-in weapon against HIV, but until recently no one knew how to unlock its potential. A new study in the journal Nature reveals the atomic structure of an enzyme capable of repelling the virus HIV, suggesting new approach for drug development. ... > full story
Coastal Dead Zones May Benefit Some Species, Scientist Finds (October 16, 2008) -- A Brown ecologist has found that coastal "dead zones" may not be so dead after all. In a paper published this month in the journal Ecology, Andrew Altieri has found that the commercially valuable quahog clam thrives in hypoxic waters in Narragansett Bay -- partly because the clam's predators flee the low-oxygen areas. ... > full story
Virus As Nano-building Block: Extreme Nature Helps Scientists Design Nano Materials (October 16, 2008) -- Scientists are using designs in nature from extreme environments to overcome the challenges of producing materials on the nanometre scale. They have now identified a stable, modifiable virus that could be used as a nanobuilding block. ... > full story
'Two In One' Enzyme: Unusually Flexible (October 16, 2008) -- Scientists have solved the structure of an unusually flexible enzyme in a virus that infects marine bacteria. ... > full story
Decline In Alaskan Sea Otters Affects Bald Eagles' Diet (October 16, 2008) -- Sea otters are known as a keystone species, filling such an important niche in ocean communities that without them, entire ecosystems can collapse. Scientists are finding, however, that sea otters can have even farther-reaching effects that extend to terrestrial communities and alter the behavior of another top predator: the bald eagle. ... > full story
Details Of Evolutionary Transition From Fish To Land Animals Revealed (October 15, 2008) -- New research has provided the first detailed look at the internal head skeleton of Tiktaalik roseae, the 375-million-year-old fossil animal that represents an important intermediate step in the evolutionary transition from fish to animals that walked on land. A predator, up to nine feet long, with sharp teeth, a crocodile-like head and a flattened body, Tiktaalik's anatomy and way of life straddle the divide between fish and land-living animals. ... > full story
Did Pirates Create The Credit Crunch? (October 15, 2008) -- As the world’s money markets do their best to combat the Credit Crunch, a politics lecturer has discovered that the root of modern democracy’s money woes may lay with the first corporations – pirates. ... > full story
In A Last 'Stronghold' For Endangered Chimpanzees, Survey Finds Drastic Decline (October 15, 2008) -- In a population survey of West African chimpanzees living in Côte d'Ivoire, researchers estimate that this endangered subspecies has dropped in numbers by a whopping 90 percent since the last survey was conducted 18 years ago. The few remaining chimpanzees are now highly fragmented, with only one viable population living in Taï National Park, according to a report in Current Biology. ... > full story
Why Do Women Get More Cavities Than Men? (October 15, 2008) -- Reproduction pressures and rising fertility explain why women suffered a more rapid decline in dental health than did men as humans transitioned from hunter-and-gatherers to farmers and more sedentary pursuits, says an anthropologist. ... > full story
Earliest Known Human TB Found In 9,000 Year-old Skeletons (October 15, 2008) -- The discovery of the earliest known cases of human tuberculosis in bones found submerged off the coast of Israel shows that the disease is 3000 years older than previously thought. Direct examination of this ancient DNA confirms the latest theory that bovine TB evolved later than human TB. ... > full story
High Mortality Of Endangered Loggerhead Sea Turtles In Baja California (October 15, 2008) -- Along the southern coast of Baja California, Mexico, scientists have been counting the carcasses of endangered sea turtles for a decade as part of an effort to assess and eliminate threats to loggerhead sea turtle populations. Their findings, published this week, are shocking: almost 3,000 sea turtles were found dead along a 27-mile stretch of coast during a five-year period from 2003 to 2007. ... > full story
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