How did the prehistoric reptiles take first flight?
In the Mesozoic Era, 70 million years before birds first conquered the skies, pterosaurs dominated the air with sparrow- to Cessna-sized wingspans. Scientists suspected that these extinct reptiles sustained flight through flapping, based on fossil evidence from the wings, but had little understanding of how pterosaurs met the energetic demands of active flight. A newly released study published recently in the journal PLoS ONE by scientists........(Added on 2/27/2009 5:25:13 AM)
Building a Better Protein
Proteins are widely viewed as a promising alternative to synthetic chemicals in everything from medications to hand lotion. The naturally occurring molecules have been shown to be more efficient and effective than a number of of the most sophisticated chemical compounds on the market. But outside the controlled confines of the lab bench, proteins quickly change structure, causing irreversible damage to their functionality and often safety. ........ (Added on 2/26/2009 6:21:25 AM)
Alien Life May Exist Among Us
Never mind Mars, alien life may be thriving right here on Earth, according to Professor Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona State University. This "shadow life" may be hidden in toxic arsenic lakes or in boiling deep sea hydrothermal vents, he says.Weird life could even be living among us, in forms which we don"t yet recognise, he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago. We don"t have to go to other........ (Added on 2/25/2009 11:17:45 PM)
Viewing all the 15 million atoms in viral coat
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Rice University's precise new image of a virus' protective coat is seriously undervalued. More than three years in the making, the image contains some 5 million atoms -- each in precisely the right place -- and it could help researchers find better ways to both fight viral infections and design new gene therapies. The stunning image, which appears online this week in the Proceedings of the........ (Added on 2/24/2009 9:57:42 PM)
Stopping the spread of rice virus
Building on plant virus research started more than 20 years ago, a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis and his colleague at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis have discovered a technology that reduces infection by the virus that causes Rice Tungro Disease, a serious limiting factor for rice production in Asia. Roger N. Beachy, Ph.D., WUSTL professor of biology in Arts & Sciences and president of the Donald........(Added on 2/23/2009 6:03:58 AM)
Salamander decline in Central America
The decline of amphibian populations worldwide has been documented primarily in frogs, but salamander populations also appear to have plummeted, as per a newly released study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists. By comparing tropical salamander populations in Central America today with results of surveys conducted between 1969 and 1978, UC Berkeley scientists have observed that populations of a number of of the commonest........ (Added on 2/22/2009 6:23:58 AM)
How an Antarctic worm makes antifreeze
Two BYU scientists who just returned from Antarctica are reporting a hardy worm that withstands its cold climate by cranking out antifreeze. And when its notoriously dry home runs out of water, it just dries itself out and goes into suspended animation until liquid water brings it back to life. Identifying the genes the worm uses to kick in its antifreeze system can be useful information - similar genes found in other Antarctic organisms are........ (Added on 2/21/2009 6:11:10 AM)
Silencing of jumping genes in pollen
Researchers at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Cincia (IGC), in Portugal, are to date the only research group in the world capable of isolating the sperm cells in the pollen grain of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana This technique was crucial in a study to be reported in the latest issue of the journal Cell, which describes how mobile sequences of DNA (called transposable elements) are silenced in the sperm cells, thus ensuring suppression of........ (Added on 2/6/2009 6:07:02 AM)
Why Don't More Animals Change Their Sex
Most animals, like humans, have separate sexes - they are born, live out their lives and reproduce as one sex or the other. However, some animals live as one sex in part of their lifetime and then switch to the other sex, a phenomenon called sequential hermaphroditism. What remains a puzzle, as per Yale scientists, is why the phenomenon is so rare, since their analysis shows the biological "costs" of changing sexes rarely outweigh the........ (Added on 2/20/2009 11:09:20 PM)
Methyl bromide for North Carolina tomato production
Methyl bromide (MeBr) is a highly effective broad-spectrum fumigant used extensively in U.S. agriculture to control a wide variety of pests. Under the Montreal protocol of 1991, however, MeBr was defined as one of the chemicals that contributed to the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer, resulting in an incremental reduction in the amount of MeBr produced and imported in the U.S. In January 2005, a total phase out of MeBr (except for........ (Added on 2/19/2009 6:22:31 AM)
Does hotter mean healthier?
Phytophthora blight, caused by Phytophthora capsici, is a major plant disease that affects a number of crop species worldwide, including chile peppers in New Mexico. Farmers' observations suggested that Phytophthora capsici caused less damage in pepper crops of the hot pepper varieties than low-heat pepper varieties. A study reported in the October 2008 issue of HortScience by the research team of Mohammed B. Tahboub (postdoctoral........ (Added on 2/18/2009 6:20:23 AM)
Surprising lion stronghold in central Africa
Times are tough for wildlife living at the frontier between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Armies are reportedly encamped in a national park and wildlife preserve on the Congolese side, while displaced herders and their cattle have settled in an adjoining Ugandan park. And yet, the profusion of prey in the region could potentially support more than 900 individuals of the emblematic African lion, as per new research but........(Added on 2/17/2009 6:22:19 AM)
Fluorescent timers
While we’re waiting for the most exciting future biophysics tool to get built, there are all kinds of practical improvements to current-generation microscopy that would still be exciting and useful. We’ve talked a lot about increasing the spatial resolution of optical microscopy, but it would also be useful to have tools for temporal measurements of dynamics in a living cell. Many cellular processes occur on temporal scales of.. (Added on 2/17/2009 12:18:16 AM)
