March 14, 2010, 8:17 PM CT

Opium poppy's biggest secret

Scientists at the University of Calgary have discovered the unique genes that allow the opium poppy to make codeine and morphine, thus opening doors to alternate methods of producing these effective painkillers either by manufacturing them in a lab or controlling the production of these compounds in the plant.

"The enzymes encoded by these two genes have eluded plant biochemists for a half-century," says Peter Facchini, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, who has dedicated his career to studying the unique properties of the opium poppy. "In finding not only the enzymes but also the genes, we've made a major step forward. It's equivalent in finding a gene involved in cancer or other inherited disorders".

The researchers' findings will be published in a paper entitled Dioxygenases catalyze the O-demethylation steps of morphine biosynthesis in opium poppy, appearing in the on-line edition of Nature Chemical Biology (http://www.nature.com/nchembio/index.html) on Sun., Mar. 14 at 2 pm ET / 6 pm London time.

Codeine is by far the most widely used opiate in the world and one of the most usually used painkillers. Codeine can be extracted directly from the plant, most codeine is synthesized from the much more abundant morphine found in opium poppy. Codeine is converted by an enzyme in the liver to morphine, which is the active analgesic and a naturally occurring compound in humans. Canadians spend more than $100 million every year on codeine-containing pharmaceutical products and are among the world's top consumers of the drug per capita. Despite this, Canada imports all of its opiates from other countries......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

March 14, 2010, 8:13 PM CT

Sequencing Hydra genome

UC Irvine scientists have played a leading role in the genome sequencing of Hydra, a freshwater polyp that has been a staple of biological research for 300 years.

In the March 14 online version of Nature, UCI biologists Robert Steele and Hans Bode, along with nine other UCI researchers and an international team of researchers, describe the genome sequence of an organism that continues to advance research on regeneration, stem cells and patterning.

The team discovered Hydra to have about the same number of genes as humans, sharing a number of of the same ones. Surprisingly, they also found genes linked with Huntington's disease and with the beta-amyloid plaque formation seen in Alzheimer's disease two areas in which UCI has traditionally strong research programs suggesting the possible use of Hydra as a research model for these two diseases.

"Having the Hydra genome sequenced also enhances our ability to use it to learn more about the basic biology of stem cells, which are showing great promise for new therapys for a host of injuries and diseases," said Steele, associate professor and interim chair in biological chemistry.

Started in 2004, the Hydra project is the first genome sequencing effort in which UCI researchers have played a major role. The sequencing was carried out at the J. Craig Venter Institute and was funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

March 12, 2010, 7:41 AM CT

Why female moths are big and beautiful?

In most animal species, males and females show obvious differences in body size. But how can this be, given that both sexes share the same genes governing their growth? University of Arizona entomologists studied this conundrum in moths and found clues that had been overlooked by prior efforts to explain this mystery of nature.

Take a look around in the animal world and you will find that, in most organisms, individuals of one sex are larger than the other of the species.

Even though evolutionary biologists have long recognized this discrepancy, called sexual dimorphism, they have struggled for decades to solve a major paradox: How can males and females of one species be of different sizes, given that they share the same genetic blueprints dictating their development and growth?

Scientists from the University of Arizona have discovered that the key to unraveling this mystery lies in the early developmental stages during which the sexes begin to grow apart and that females can respond to selection on size almost twice as fast as can males.

Their findings are published online before print in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B

"In mammals, the males tend to be larger because there is an advantage in being bigger and stronger when it comes to fighting over who gets the female," explained Craig Stillwell, main author of the study and a UA Center for Insect Science postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Goggy Davidowitz, an assistant professor of entomology at the UA......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

March 12, 2010, 7:31 AM CT

600 million-year-old origins of vision

By studying the hydra, a member of an ancient group of sea creatures that is still flourishing, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have made a discovery in understanding the origins of human vision. The finding is published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a British journal of biology.

Hydra are simple animals that, along with jellyfish, belong to the phylum cnidaria. Cnidarians first emerged 600 million years ago.

"We determined which genetic 'gateway,' or ion channel, in the hydra is involved in light sensitivity," said senior author Todd H. Oakley, assistant professor in UCSB's Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology. "This is the same gateway that is used in human vision".

Oakley explained that there are a number of genes involved in vision, and that there is an ion channel gene responsible for starting the neural impulse of vision. This gene controls the entrance and exit of ions; i.e., it acts as a gateway.

The gene, called opsin, is present in vision among vertebrate animals, and is responsible for a different way of seeing than that of animals like flies. The vision of insects emerged later than the visual machinery found in hydra and vertebrate animals.

"This work picks up on earlier studies of the hydra in my lab, and continues to challenge the misunderstanding that evolution represents a ladder-like march of progress, with humans at the pinnacle," said Oakley. "Instead, it illustrates how all organisms humans included are a complex mix of ancient and new characteristics"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

March 12, 2010, 7:27 AM CT

Myths about Amazon rain forests

A new NASA-funded study has concluded that Amazon rain forests were remarkably unaffected in the face of once-in-a-century drought in 2005, neither dying nor thriving, contrary to a previously published report and claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"We found no big differences in the greenness level of these forests between drought and non-drought years, which suggests that these forests appears to be more tolerant of droughts than we previously thought," said Arindam Samanta, the study's main author from Boston University.

The comprehensive study reported in the current issue of the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters used the latest version of the NASA MODIS satellite data to measure the greenness of these vast pristine forests over the past decade.

A study reported in the journal Science in 2007 claimed that these forests actually thrive from drought because of more sunshine under cloud-less skies typical of drought conditions. The newly released study observed that those results were flawed and not reproducible.

"This newly released study brings some clarity to our muddled understanding of how these forests, with their rich source of biodiversity, would fare in the future in the face of twin pressures from logging and changing climate," said Boston University Prof. Ranga Myneni, senior author of the newly released study......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

March 11, 2010, 11:06 PM CT

Yellow fever strikes monkey populations

A group of Argentine scientists, including health experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society, have announced that yellow fever is the culprit in a 2007-2008 die-off of howler monkeys in northeastern Argentina, a finding that underscores the importance of paying attention to the health of wildlife and how the health of people and wild nature are so closely linked.

The paperappearing in a recent edition of the American Journal of Primatologyfocuses on yellow fever outbreaks that were documented in several howler monkey populations of Misiones Province, Argentina. The epidemics, which caused the death of dozens of rare howler monkeys, signaled the need for a human vaccination program in the region to save lives.

The authors of the study include: Ingrid Holzmann and Mario S. Di Bitetti of the Argentine Council for Science and Technology (CONICET); Ilaria Agostini of the Universidad de Roma and CNR; Juan Ignacio Areta of Grupo FALCO; and Hebe Ferreyra and Pablo Beldomenico of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

"The outbreak has tragic conservation implications for the endangered brown howler monkey, one of the two species affected, which is highly threatened primarily by habitat destruction, hunting, and now disease," said Dr. Pablo Beldomenico. "The study also points out the importance of wildlife as a critically important indicator of health and disease processes which can help protect people too."........ Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

March 10, 2010, 8:20 AM CT

Hidden habits and movements of insect pests

For a high-resolution image of the Asota caricae moth referenced in the article, visit http://bit.ly/aB4PEb. The moth has a two-inch wingspan and a 2,500 mile distribution. Image is courtesy of Lauren Helgen, Smithsonian Institution. For a copy of the research paper, contact Jeff Falk at jfalk@umn.edu.

Contacts: Peggy Rinard, College of Biological Sciences, rinar001@umn.edu, (612) 624-0774.

Jeff Falk, University News Service, jfalk@umn.edu, (612) 626-1720.

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (03/09/2010) -University of Minnesota researcher George Weiblen and his colleagues have found a faster way to study the spread and diet of insect pests.

Using a technique called DNA barcoding, which involves the identification of species from a short DNA sequence, Weiblen and an international team of scientists studied populations of numerous moth and butterfly species across Papua New Guinea. DNA barcodes showed that migratory patterns and caterpillar diets are very dynamic. In one case, a tiny moth that is distributed from Taiwan to Australia, has recently crossed thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean.

The research, "Population genetics of ecological communities with DNA barcodes: An example from New Guinea Lepidoptera," was reported in the Early Online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on March 1......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

March 9, 2010, 8:30 AM CT

Musk Ox Population Decline Due to Climate

team of researchers has discovered that the drastic decline in Arctic musk ox populations that began roughly 12,000 years ago was due to a warming climate rather than to human hunting. "This is the first study to use ancient musk ox DNA collected from across the animal's former geographic range to test for human impacts on musk ox populations," said Beth Shapiro, the Shaffer Career Development assistant professor of biology at Penn State University and one of the team's leaders. "We observed that, eventhough human and musk ox populations overlapped in a number of regions across the globe, humans probably were not responsible for the decline and eventual extinction of musk oxen across much of their former range." The team's findings would be reported in the 8 March 2010 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Musk oxen once were plentiful across the entire Northern Hemisphere, but they now exist almost solely in Greenland and number only about 80,000 to 125,000. As per the researchers, musk oxen are not the only animals to suffer during the late Pleistocene Epoch. "The late Pleistocene was marked by rapid environmental change as well as the beginning of the spread of humans across the Northern Hemisphere," said Shapiro. "During that time several animals became extinct, including mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses, while others, including horses, caribou, and bison, survived into the present. The reasons for these drastically different survival patterns have been debated widely, with some researchers claiming that the extinctions were due largely to human hunting. Musk oxen provide a unique opportunity to study this question because they suffered from a decline in their population that coincided with the Pleistocene extinctions, yet they still exist today, which allows us to compare the genetic diversity of today's individuals with those individuals that lived up to 60,000 years ago"......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

March 8, 2010, 9:09 AM CT

Snake venom charms science world

The King Cobra continues to weave its charm with scientists identifying a protein in its venom with the potential for new drug discovery and to advance understanding of disease mechanisms.

The novel protein named haditoxin has been described in the prestigious Journal of Biological Chemistry (March 12, 2010).

The editorial board of the journal has selected this work as the "Paper of the Week" recognising it as being in the top one per cent of their published articles in terms of significance and overall importance.

Haditoxin was discovered in Professor Manjunatha Kini's laboratory at the National University of Singapore. Co-author of the paper Dr S. Niru Nirthanan, now at Griffith University on the Gold Coast, has characterised the pharmacological actions of haditoxin.

Dr Nirthanan said that haditoxin was structurally unique and therefore expected to have unique pharmacological properties.

"This toxin is like a conjoined twin. It is a relatively large complex made up of two identical protein molecules known as three-finger toxins associated withgether."

"We know that the family of three-finger toxins display diverse biological actions on the human nervous system, cardiovascular system and blood clotting. Some have directly led to the development of compounds with potent analgesic and blood pressure reducing properties so it is likely that haditoxin in its 'conjoined twin' state or as individual components will offer us more novel insights," he said......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

February 25, 2010, 2:52 AM CT

Tree-dwelling mammals climb to the heights of longevity

The squirrels littering your lawn with acorns as they bound overhead will live to plague your yard longer than the ones that aerate it with their burrows, as per a University of Illinois study.

Researchers know from prior studies that flying birds and bats live longer than earthbound animals of the same size. Milena Shattuck and Scott Williams, doctoral candidates in anthropology, decided to take a closer look at the relationship between habitat and lifespan in mammals, comparing terrestrial and treetop life. They published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The two hypothesized that, like flight, treetop or arboreal dwelling reduces a species' extrinsic mortality - death from predation, disease and environmental hazards; that is, causes other than age.

"One of the predictions of the evolutionary theory of aging is that if you can reduce sources of extrinsic mortality, you'll end up exposing some of the late-acting mutations to natural selection, and therefore evolve longer lifespans," Williams said.

Williams and Shattuck observed that for arboreality, the theory holds. Mammals who spend the majority of their time up a tree enjoy longevity over those who scurry along the ground. The pattern holds consistent both on the large scale among all mammals, and also in specific classes the pair studied, such as tree squirrels versus ground squirrels......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

February 18, 2010, 10:00 PM CT

Forage Plant Fights Parasites

common pasture plant could help foraging ruminants ward off damaging gastrointestinal nematodes that can cause illness and death, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) researchers report.

Animal scientist Joan Burke at the ARS Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center in Booneville, Ark., along with colleagues at several universities, has patented formulations of Sericea lespedeza, usually referred to as Chinese bush clover. The plant was introduced in the United States in the 1930s to minimize soil erosion.

Adding the patented dry hay and pelleted forms of this plant to animal feed thwarts the reproductive cycles of gastrointestinal nematodes that are in the digestive tracts of goats and sheep. It is especially effective in controlling the barber pole worm (Haemonchus contortus), a nematode that attaches to the animals' abomasal (true stomach) wall and feeds on their blood. Female worms can produce more than 5,000 eggs per day that are shed in the animal's manure.

After hatching outside the animal, H. contortus larvae molt several times, resulting in a more developed and infectious larval form on grass leaves that animals consume during grazing. Once the infectious larvae are inside the animal, they suck the animal's blood, potentially leading to anemia, weakness and even death......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

February 18, 2010, 9:19 PM CT

From Carnivorous Plants to the Medicine Cabinet?

In the tropics, carnivorous plants trap unsuspecting prey in a cavity filled with liquid known as a "pitcher".

The moment insects like flies, ants and beetles fall into a pitcher, the plant's enzymes are activated and begin dissolving their new meal, obtaining nutrients such as carbon and nitrogen which are difficult to extract from certain soils. Carnivorous plants also possess a highly developed set of compounds and secondary metabolites to aid in their survival.

These compounds could serve as a new class of anti-fungal drugs for use in human medicine, says Prof. Aviah Zilberstein of Tel Aviv University's Department of Plant Sciences. In a study conducted together with Dr. Haviva Eilenberg from her lab, Prof. Esther Segal from the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Prof. Shmuel Carmeli from the School of Chemistry, the unusual components from the plants' pitchers were found effective as anti-fungal drugs against human fungal infections widespread in hospitals. The primary results are encouraging.

"To avoid sharing precious food resources with other micro-organisms such as fungi, the carnivorous plant has developed a host of agents that act as natural anti-fungal agents," says Prof. Zilberstein. "In the natural habitat of the tropics, competition for food is fierce, and the hot, moist environment is perfect for fungi, which would also love to eat the plant's insect meal"......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

February 11, 2010, 8:17 AM CT

Big Cats in Serious Trouble Around the World

As a number of Asian countries prepare to celebrate Year of the Tiger beginning February 14, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reports that tigers are in crisis around the world, including here in the United States, where more tigers are kept in captivity than are alive in the wild throughout Asia. As few as 3,200 tigers exist in the wild in Asia where they are threatened by poaching, habitat loss, illegal trafficking and the conversion of forests for infrastructure and plantations.

WWF is releasing a new interactive map of the world's top 10 tiger trouble spots and the main threats against tigers. WWF is also launching a campaign: Tx2: Double or Nothing to support tiger range states in their goal of doubling wild tiger numbers by the next Year of the Tiger in 2022.

The issues highlighted in the trouble spots map (www.worldwildlife.org/troublespots) include:

• Pulp, paper, palm oil and rubber companies are devastating the forests of Indonesia and Malaysia, home to two endangered tiger sub-species;
• Hundreds of new or proposed dams and roads in the Mekong region will fragment tiger habitat;
• Illegal trafficking in tiger bones, skins and meat feeds a continued demand in East and Southeast Asia;
• More tigers are kept in captivity in the U.S. than are left in the wild -- and there are few regulations to keep these tigers from ending up on the black market. The largest numbers of captive tigers are in Texas (an estimated 3,000+), but they are also kept in other states;
........


Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

February 11, 2010, 8:13 AM CT

Genome sequence for advancement

A global initiative that includes key researchers from Oregon State University has successfully sequenced the genome of the wild grass Brachypodium distachyon, which will serve as a model to speed research on improved varieties of wheat, oats and barley, as well as switchgrass, a crop of major interest for biofuel production.

The advance was announced recently in the journal Nature.

The primary international repository for the Brachypodium genome sequence data, called "BrachyBase," is situated at OSU, and helps researchers around the world make important advances for human nutrition and new energy sources.

Brachypodium is actually a wild annual grass plant, native to the Mediterranean and Middle East, with little agricultural importance and is of no major economic value itself. But it allows scientists to obtain genetic information for grasses much more easily than some of its related, but larger and more complex counterparts with much larger genomes - plants which are hugely important in world nutrition.

"Some plants are a geneticist's nightmare," said Todd Mockler, a principal investigator on this project and assistant professor in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology. "Wheat, for instance, is an important crop, but it has an enormous and complex genome five times larger than a human......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

February 8, 2010, 8:08 AM CT

Sugar plays key role in cell division

Using an elaborate sleuthing system they developed to probe how cells manage their own division, Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that common but hard-to-see sugar switches are partly in control.

Because these previously unrecognized sugar switches are so abundant and potential targets of manipulation by drugs, the discovery of their role has implications for new therapys for many diseases, including cancer, the researchers say.

In the January 12 edition of Science Signaling, the team reported that it focused efforts on the apparatus that enables a human cell to split into two, a complicated biochemical machine involving hundreds of proteins. Conventional wisdom was that the job of turning these proteins on and off thus determining if, how and when a cell divides fell to phosphates, chemical compounds containing the element phosphorus, which fasten to and unfasten from proteins in a process called phosphorylation.

Instead, the Johns Hopkins researchers say, there is another layer of regulation by a process of sugar-based protein modification called O-GlcNAcylation (pronounced O-glick-NAC-alation). "This sugar-based system seems as influential and ubiquitous a cell-division signaling pathway as its phosphate counterpart and, indeed, even plays a role in regulating phosphorylation itself," says Chad Slawson, Ph.D., an author of the paper and research associate in the Department of Biological Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

February 5, 2010, 8:02 AM CT

Egyptian fruit bat finds a target

New research conducted at the University of Maryland's bat lab shows Egyptian fruit bats find a target by NOT aiming their guiding sonar directly at it. Instead, they alternately point the sound beam to either side of the target. The new findings by scientists from Maryland and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel suggest that this strategy optimizes the bats' ability to pinpoint the location of a target, but also makes it harder for them to detect a target in the first place.

"We believe that this tradeoff between detecting a object and determining its location is fundamental to any process that involves tracking an object whether done by a bat, a dog or a human, and whether accomplished through hearing, smell or sight," said coauthor Cynthia Moss, a University of Maryland professor of psychology, who directs interdisciplinary bat echolocation research in the university's Auditory Neuroethology Lab, better known as the bat lab.

Moss, colleagues Nachum Ulanovsky and Yossi Yovel of the Weizmann Institute, and Ben Falk, a graduate student of Moss's in Maryland's Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, published their findings in this week's edition of the journal Science. Ulanovsky, the paper's corresponding author, was a Maryland postdoctoral student under Moss......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

February 4, 2010, 8:22 AM CT

Viagra enhances fetal growth in female sheep

A joke among two Texas AgriLife Research researchers later turned into a fully-funded study found Viagra can aid fetal development in female sheep. Female sheep (ewes) are an agriculturally important species, which can serve as an excellent animal model for studying the physiology of human pregnancy, the scientists said.

Viagra (sildenafil citrate), which is used to treat male erectile dysfunction, enhanced blood flow in pregnant female sheep, helping send vital amino acids and other nutrients needed in fetal development. The study's results not only will assist with solving fetal development problems in other livestock, but possibly in humans, said Dr. Guoyao Wu, AgriLife Research animal nutritionist and Senior Faculty Fellow in the Department of Animal Science at Texas A&M University.

"Because 5 percent to 10 percent of infants are born as low birth-weight babies worldwide, and because fetal-growth retardation is also a significant problem in livestock species, our findings have important implications for both human health and animal agriculture," Wu said.

The findings are published in a recent edition of The Journal of Nutrition (http://www.nutrition.org/).

The study originated in 2003 after a chat between Wu and fellow AgriLife Research scientist Dr. Tom Spencer when they were working with pregnant ewes......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

February 3, 2010, 7:41 AM CT

Ancient crocodile likely food source for Titanoboa

A 60-million-year-old relative of crocodiles described this week by University of Florida scientists in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology was likely a food source for Titanoboa, the largest snake the world has ever known.

Working with researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, paleontologists from the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus found fossils of the new species of ancient crocodile in the Cerrejon Formation in northern Colombia. The site, one of the world's largest open-pit coal mines, also yielded skeletons of the giant, boa constrictor-like Titanoboa, which measured up to 45 feet long. This is the first reported study of a fossil crocodyliform from the same site.

"We're starting to flesh out the fauna that we have from there," said main author Alex Hastings, a graduate student at the Florida Museum and UF's department of geological sciences.

Specimens used in the study show the new species, named Cerrejonisuchus improcerus, grew only 6 to 7 feet long, making it easy prey for Titanoboa. Its scientific name means small crocodile from Cerrejon.

The findings follow another study by scientists at UF and the Smithsonian providing the first reliable evidence of what Neotropical rainforests looked like 60 million years ago......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

February 1, 2010, 7:54 AM CT

New light on our earliest fossil ancestry

Decaying corpses are commonly the domain of forensic scientists, but palaeontologists have discovered that studying rotting fish sheds new light on our earliest ancestry.

The researchers, from the Department of Geology at the University of Leicester, devised a new method for extracting information from 500 million year old fossils -they studied the way fish decompose to gain a clearer picture of how our ancient fish-like ancestors would have looked. Their results indicate that some of the earliest fossils from our part of the tree of life may have been more complex than has previously been thought.

Their findings have been published recently, Sunday Jan 31, ahead of print in Advance Online Publication (AOP) of the science journal Nature on www.nature.com The work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Dr Rob Sansom, main author of the paper explains: "Interpreting fossils is in some ways similar to forensic analysis we gather all the available clues to put together a scientific reconstruction of something that happened in the past. Unlike forensics, however, we are dealing with life from millions of years ago, and we are less interested in understanding the cause or the time of death. What we want to get at is what an animal was like before it died and, as with forensic analysis, knowing how the decomposition that took place after death altered the body provides important clues to its original anatomy."........ Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

February 1, 2010, 7:43 AM CT

Guilt by association

Researchers have created a new computational model that can be used to predict gene function of uncharacterized plant genes with unprecedented speed and accuracy. The network, dubbed AraNet, has over 19,600 genes associated to each other by over 1 million links and can increase the discovery rate of new genes affiliated with a given trait tenfold. It is a huge boost to fundamental plant biology and agricultural research.

Despite immense progress in functional characterization of plant genomes, over 30% of the 30,000 Arabidopsis genes have not been functionally characterized yet. Another third has little evidence regarding their role in the plant.

"In essence, AraNet is based on the simple idea that genes that physically reside in the same neighborhood, or turn on in concert with one another are probably linked to similar traits," explained corresponding author Sue Rhee at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Plant Biology. "We call it guilt by association. Based on over 50 million scientific observations, AraNet contains over 1 million linkages of the 19,600 genes in the tiny, experimental mustard plant Arabidopsis thaliana We made a map of the associations and demonstrated that we can use the network to propose that uncharacterized genes are associated with specific traits based on the strength of their associations with genes already known to be associated with those characteristics."........ Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

January 29, 2010, 8:07 AM CT

Bees recognize human faces

Going about their day-to-day business, bees have no need to be able to recognise human faces. Yet in 2005, when Adrian Dyer from Monash University trained the fascinating insects to associate pictures of human faces with tasty sugar snacks, they seemed to be able to do just that. But Martin Giurfa from the Universit de Toulouse, France, suspected that that the bees weren't learning to recognise people. 'Because the insects were rewarded with a drop of sugar when they chose human photographs, what they really saw were strange flowers. The important question was what strategy do they use to discriminate between faces,' explains Giurfa. Wondering whether the insects might be learning the relative arrangement (configuration) of features on a face, Giurfa contacted Dyer and suggested that they go about systematically testing which features a bee learned to recognise to keep them returning to Dyer's face photos. The team publish their discovery that bees can learn to recognise the arrangement of human facial features on 29 January 2010 in the Journal of Experimental Biology at http://jeb.biologists.org.

Teaming up with Aurore Avargues-Weber, the team first tested whether the bees could learn to distinguish between simple face-like images. Using faces that were made up of two dots for eyes, a short vertical dash for a nose and a longer horizontal line for a mouth, Avargues-Weber trained individual bees to distinguish between a face where the features were cramped together and another where the features were set apart. Having trained the bee to visit one of the two faces by rewarding it with a weak sugar solution, she tested whether it recognised the pattern by taking away the sugar reward and waiting to see if the bee returned to the correct face. It did......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 28, 2010, 8:07 AM CT

Figs and fig wasps

Figs and fig wasps have evolved to help each other out: Fig wasps lay their eggs inside the fruit where the wasp larvae can safely develop, and in return, the wasps pollinate the figs.

But what happens when a wasp lays its eggs but fails to pollinate the fig?

The trees get even by dropping those figs to the ground, killing the baby wasps inside, reports a Cornell University and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute study reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (published online Jan. 13).

The findings suggest that when one species in a mutually beneficial relationship fails to hold up its end of the bargain, sanctions appears to be a necessary part of maintaining the relationship.

"We want to know what forces maintain this 80 million-year-old mutualism between figs and their wasp pollinators," said main author Charlotte Jandr, a Cornell graduate student in neurobiology and behavior, who conducted the study as a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute predoctoral fellow. Edward Allen Herre, a staff scientist at the Smithsonian institute in Panama, co-authored the paper.

"What prevents the wasps from cheating and reaping the benefits of the relationship without paying the costs?" Jandr added.

More than 700 species each of fig trees and wasps have co-evolved in the tropics worldwide, with each fig tree species having its own species of pollinating wasp. Jandr worked on six fig tree-fig wasp pairs for the study. Some wasp species passively carry pollen that sticks to their bodies, while others actively collect pollen in special pouches......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 28, 2010, 8:02 AM CT

Deadly fish virus now found in all Great Lakes

A deadly fish virus that was first discovered in the Northeast in 2005 has been found for the first time in fish from Lake Superior, report Cornell researchers. That means that the virus has now been documented in all of the Great Lakes.

The viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV), which causes fatal anemia and hemorrhaging in a number of fish species, poses no threat to humans, said Paul Bowser, professor of aquatic animal medicine at Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine.

Bowser and his colleagues recently tested 874 fish from seven sites in Lake Superior in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Western Fisheries Research Center in Seattle. Fish from Paradise and Skanee in Michigan and St. Louis Bay and Superior Bay in Wisconsin tested positive. Some of the results have been corroborated by other laboratories; others have tests still under way.

The virus, which has been identified in 28 freshwater fish species in the Great Lakes watershed, has reached epidemic proportions in the Great Lakes and threatens New York's sport-fishing industry, said Bowser, estimated to contribute some $1.4 billion annually to New York's economy.

"People come from all over the eastern United States to fish the Great Lakes," said Bowser, noting that the virus has also been found in a few inland waters as well, including lakes, streams and a family-owned earthen pond. "The economy of a number of of these areas ebbs and flows with the season and perceived value of outdoor recreational opportunities. The value of these opportunities is dependent on how successful we are at managing the health of wild fish. On a worldwide basis, VHSV is considered one of the most serious pathogens of fish, because it kills so a number of fish, is not treatable and infects a broad range of fish species"......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 27, 2010, 8:19 AM CT

The Low Calorie Pet Foods

Dog and cat owners buying weight-control diets for their overweight pets are faced with a confusing two hundred percent variation in calorie density, recommended intake, and wide range cost of low-calorie pet foods, as per a research studyby the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.

The study, published this month in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, examined nearly 100 commercially available diets with weight management claims. Among their findings is that dry dog foods range in calorie density from 217 to 440 kilocalories per cup (kcal/cup) and a recommended intake that ranged from 0.73 to 1.47 times the dog's resting energy requirement. The diets also varied wildly in price-from 4 cents to more than $1.10 per kilocalorie.

Similar findings were made in wet dog food (189-398 kcal/can) and cat food (235-480 kcal/cup) marketed for weight control. The results appears to be significant for owners whose cats or dogs are overweight or obese, as per Lisa M. Freeman, DVM, PhD, DACVN, the study's co-author along with 2010 Cummings School graduate Deborah E. Linder, DVM. Nearly 50% of domesticated animals are overweight or obese.

"There is so much information-and misinformation-about pet foods, it's understandable that people are confused about what to feed their dogs and cats," said co-author Dr. Lisa Freeman, professor of nutrition at Tufts University's Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. "To counteract these myths, people are accustomed to turning to the labels on food-but, as this study shows, packaging might not always be a reliable source of information"......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 27, 2010, 8:14 AM CT

Environmental threats to blue crabs

The Atlantic blue crab, Callinectes sapidus, long prized as a savory meal at a summer party or seafood restaurant, is a multi-million dollar source of income for those who harvest, process and market the crustacean along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Unfortunately, the blue crab population has been declining in recent years under the assault of viruses, bacteria and man-made contaminants. The signs of the attack often are subtle, so scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the College of Charleston (CofC) are at work trying to identify the clues that will finger specific, yet elusive, culprits.

Pathogens and pollutants impair the blue crab's metabolic processes, the chemical reactions that produce energy for cells. These stresses should cause tell-tale changes in the levels of metabolites, small chemical compounds created during metabolism. Working at the Hollings Marine Laboratory (HML) in Charleston, S.C., the NIST/CofC research team is using a technology similar to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify and quantify the metabolites that increase in quantity under common environmental stresses to blue crabsmetabolites that could be used as biomarkers to identify the specific sources.

In a recent paper in Metabolomics,* the HML research team describes how it used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to study challenges to one specific metabolic process in blue crabs: oxygen uptake. First, the scientists simulated an environmentally acquired bacterial infection by injecting crabs with the bacterium Vibrio campbellii. This pathogen impairs the crab's ability to incorporate oxygen during metabolism. Using NMR spectroscopy to observe the impact on metabolite levels, the scientists observed that the yield of glucose, considered a reliable indicator of mild oxygen starvation in crustaceans, was raised......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 25, 2010, 8:04 AM CT

Bat researchers no longer flying blind

Scientists at The University of Western Ontario (Western) led an international and multi-disciplinary study that sheds new light on the way that bats echolocate. With echolocation, animals emit sounds and then listen to the reflected echoes of those sounds to form images of their surroundings in their brains.

The team used state-of-the-art micro-computed tomography systems at the Robarts Research Institute in London, Ontario to collect detailed 3D scans of the internal anatomy of 26 different bats, representing 11 different evolutionary lineages. This non-destructive technique allowed scientists to identify a bone that connects the larynx to the bones that surround and support the eardrum in bats. Some bats use their larynx to generate echolocation (biosonar) signals, allowing them to operate at night; other bats use tongue clicks to achieve the same purpose.

The research team discovered that the correlation between the larynx and the ear via the stylohyal bone in the hyoid chain was unique to bats that used laryngeal echolocation. This observation makes it possible to distinguish bats that produce echolocation signals with their larynx from bats that do not echolocate and those that use tongue clicks. The results of the research will appear this week in the journal Nature, entitled "A Bony Connection Signals Laryngeal Echolocation in Bats"......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 25, 2010, 0:04 AM CT

Risky business for toads under threat from fungus

Midwife toads that live in the mountains are highly likely to die from a serious fungal infection, called chytridiomycosis, whereas their infected relatives in the lowlands are not, as per new research published recently in Ecology Letters

The authors of the study, from Imperial College London, the Zoological Society of London and the BiodivERsA project RACE, say their findings suggest conservationists appears to be able to limit the impact of the disease in the mountains by ensuring tourists do not transfer it between lakes.

During the five year study, the scientists observed that no midwife toads at low altitudes died as a result of fungal infection, whereas up to 100 per cent of those at high altitudes died. The mortality rate of toads at high altitudes fluctuated over the five years.

The fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), also known as chytrid fungus, grows in the skin of amphibians, causing a disease called chytridiomycosis. The fungus has caused a number of species of frog and toad to become extinct and human activity has spread the fungus across the world, affecting an estimated 50 per cent of amphibian species.

Eventhough infection commonly is invisible to the naked eye, it can cause skin discolouration and ulceration and lead to convulsions. Prior research shows that infection kills amphibians by causing heart failure. The fungus is especially prevalent in Australia and the Americas, where its spread is well studied. However, little was known about Bd in Europe before today's study......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 24, 2010, 10:12 AM CT

An overview of safe and effective colonic treatments

The colon is an important part of our internal organ system. It does the critical work of absorbing water and nutrients as well as eliminating waste matter. Regular adults can carry anywhere between 5 to 45 pounds of waste in their colon. This waste matter should be removed so that normal bowel processes can continue unhindered. If for any reason the colon is unable to eliminate waste matter then it can lead to a number of medical complications like hemorrhoids, constipation and ulceration colitis. This is one should get one's colon cleaned periodically.

There are many types of colonic treatments. These include colonic irrigation, enemas, oxygen-based cleansers, laxatives and herbal supplements. Not all of them are equally effective and different people react in different manner to the various types of aforementioned treatments. Hence what works very well for one, may not work as effectively for the other. A brief discussion of the treatments would help clarify matters.

In colonic irrigation a tube is inserted into the anus. Then water is flushed into the colon through this tube. This ensures removal of compacted matter from the large intestines. Enema is one of the oldest methods of cleaning the colon but it only cleans the lower part of the colon. Oxygen based cleansers use an oxidation reduction process to melt compacted waste matter. Laxatives are only a symptomatic treatment of constipation and there long term use is not recommended. Finally herbal supplements are like laxatives only but since they are composed of natural ingredients they do not have any side effects and are suitable for the elderly. ........ Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

January 22, 2010, 8:17 AM CT

Withstanding invasion

An international research team has studied the distribution of plant species in mountainous environments. The study shows that mountain plant communities are not especially resistant to invasion by exotic species. The researchers also warn that these appears to become more aggressive as global warming gets a grip.

In 2005, researchers from various science centres in Spain, Gera number of, Switzerland, Australia, the United States and Chile created the Mountain Invasion Research Unit (MIREN) in order to study the distribution of exotic species in high mountain species and to design experiments to confirm the invasive capacity of certain species in high mountain environments.

"These plant communities in Alpine environments have until now not been thought especially vulnerable to this kind of environmental disturbance", Jos Ramn Arvalo, one of the authors of the study and a researcher at the Department of Ecology of the University of La Laguna, tells SINC. However, the experiments show clearly "that the beliefs about this supposed protection and mountain species' resistance to invasive species is erroneous", he adds.

The study, published recently in Frontiers in Ecology and The Environment, and which is part of the work done by MIREN, has made it possible to identify the factors that make plants in these areas more vulnerable to invasion by other species......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

January 22, 2010, 8:05 AM CT

Sexual reproduction versus asexual reproduction

Living organisms have good reason for engaging in sexual, rather than asexual, reproduction as per Maurine Neiman, assistant professor of biology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and researcher in the Roy J. Carver Center for Genomics.

In an article published in a recent issue of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, she and her colleagues, including John M. Logsdon Jr., associate professor of biology, examined the theory that sexual reproduction, while requiring more time and energy than asexual reproduction, is also much more common among living organisms and, therefore, must be very beneficial.

The study looked at sexual, as well as asexual, varieties of a New Zealand freshwater snail (left), Potamopyrgus antipodarum, by sequencing mitochondrial genomes and observed that the sexually reproducing snails had accumulated harmful DNA mutations at about half the rate of the asexual snails.

"This is the first study to compare mutation accumulation in a species where sexual individuals and asexual individuals regularly coexist, and thus provides the most direct evidence to date that sex helps to counter the accumulation of harmful mutations," said Neiman.

Neiman plans to continue her evolutionary biology research such that a clearer understanding of the advantages of sex will offer a better understanding of the value of preserving genetic diversity within and among populations, species, and ecological communities......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 22, 2010, 8:03 AM CT

Zebrafish helps drug development

By combining the tools of medicinal chemistry and zebrafish biology, a team of Vanderbilt researchers has identified compounds that may offer therapeutic leads for bone-related diseases and cancer.

The findings, reported in ACS Chemical Biology, support using zebrafish as a novel platform for drug development.

In 2007, Charles Hong, M.D., Ph.D., and his colleagues described using fish embryos to screen for compounds that interfere with signaling pathways involved in early development pathways known to play roles in a variety of disease processes. They discovered the compound "dorsomorphin" and demonstrated that it blocked BMP (bone morphogenetic protein) signaling, which has been implicated in anemia, inflammatory responses and bone-related disorders.

But in examining dorsomorphin further, the researchers observed that it had other "off-target" effects it also blocked the VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) receptor and disrupted zebrafish blood vessel development, a process called angiogenesis.

"Off-target effects contribute to side effects and limit the therapeutic potential of small molecule signaling inhibitors," said Hong, assistant professor of Medicine and Pharmacology.

To find compounds that were more selective BMP inhibitors (didn't have the off-target effects), Hong and his colleagues opted to use their zebrafish drug discovery screen as a drug development/optimization tool......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 15, 2010, 8:09 AM CT

Plant-pollinator relationship

Figs and the wasps that pollinate them present one of biologists' favorite examples of a beneficial relationship between two different species. In exchange for the pollination service provided by the wasp, the fig fruit provides room and board for the wasp's developing young. However, wasps do not always pollinate the fig. Fig trees "punish" these "cheaters" by dropping unpollinated fruit, killing the wasp's offspring inside, report scientists working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Their results, reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, show that sanctions against cheaters appears to be critical to maintain the relationship.

"Relationships require give and take. We want to know what forces maintain this 80-million-year-old arrangement between figs and their wasp pollinators." said main author, Charlotte Jandr, graduate student in Cornell University's Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, who conducted the study as a Smithsonian pre-doctoral fellow. "What prevents the wasps from reaping the benefits of the relationship without paying the costs?".

Some wasp species passively carry pollen that sticks to their bodies. Others actively collect pollen in special pouches. Jandr reviewed the ability of six different fig tree-fig wasp species pairs to regulate cheating. She introduced either a single pollen-free wasp, or a wasp carrying pollen, into a mesh bag containing an unpollinated fig. The wasps entered the figs to lay their eggs. Jandr observed that trees often dropped unpollinated figs before young wasps could mature......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 15, 2010, 8:04 AM CT

Impact of eucalyptus plantations on the ecology of rivers

A team from the Department of Plant Biology and Ecology at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) are focusing their research on the study of the ecology of rivers. The person in charge is Mr Jesús Pozo. For more than twenty years this team has been trying to identify links between the ecology and functioning of rivers and the surrounding terrestrial environment because, when all is said and done, rivers are like the excretory apparatus of the continents, just like the kidney is to the human body. River water often reflect the state of health of the external environment.

Within this line of research, the UPV/EHU team is focusing on studying the possible impact of the afforestation of exotic species on the functioning of rivers, both on the chemistry of the water as well as on the communities of organisms therein. An exotic species is a species introduced outside its normal area of distribution, for example, the eucalyptus - the case in hand.

Rivers of any specific geographical environment have a natural riverside type of vegetation and the community of organisms in the river is accustomed to consuming the dead leaves and foliage that enter the water from this surrounding vegetation. When this natural vegetation (in this case deciduous woods) are substituted by exotic plantations the quality of this plant material changes and the community of river organisms have to deal with the use or otherwise of this non-autochthonous organic material. This use or not by the aquatic organisms of the new material entering the river system can have certain repercussions, both on the organisms themselves and on processes occurring in the river......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

January 14, 2010, 8:11 AM CT

Why leopards can't change their spots

The leopard cannot change its spots, nor can the tiger change its stripes, but a new research report reported in the January 2009 issue of the journal GENETICS tells us something about how cats end up with their spots and stripes. It demonstrates for the first time that at least three different genes are involved in the emergence of stripes, spots, and other markings on domestic cats. Scientists have also determined the genomic location of two of these genes, which will allow for further studies that could shine scientific light on various human skin disorders.

"We hope that the study opens up the possibility of directly investigating the genes involved in pattern formation (i.e., the establishment of stripes, spots, and other markings) on the skin of mammals, including their structure, function, and regulation," said Eduardo Eizirik, a researcher involved in the work from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. "From these studies, we hope to understand how the different coat patterns have evolved in different mammalian groups, and to be able to investigate their roles in adaptation to different environments, such as their importance for camouflage in wild cat species."

Researchers crossed domestic cats with different coat patterns, such as stripes and blotches, and tracked the inheritance of these patterns among their offspring. Genetic samples were collected and used to type various molecular markers. Results showed that specific markers were inherited by a kitten every time a given coat pattern appeared, suggesting that the marker and the gene causing the coat pattern were located in the same region of the genome. Using statistical procedures called linkage mapping, researchers determined the genomic location of two genes involved in these traits. By clarifying the inheritance of markings in one mammalian species, scientists hope to identify and characterize the implicated genes and then determine if they apply to other mammals, such as humans. The hope is that this discovery will shed new light on human skin diseases that appear to follow standardized patterns......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 14, 2010, 8:10 AM CT

Tracking paw prints of selective breeding

From the Dachshund's stubby legs to the Shar-Pei's wrinkly skin, breeding for certain characteristics has left its mark on the dog genome. Scientists have identified 155 regions on the canine genome that appear to have been influenced by selective breeding.

With more than 400 distinct breeds, dogs come in a wide range of shapes, sizes, fur-styles, and temperaments. The curly-haired toy poodle, small enough to sit in a teacup, barely looks or acts like the smooth-coated Great Dane tall enough to peer like a periscope out of a car's sunroof. Not so apparent are breed differences in how the dogs' bodies function and their susceptibility to various diseases.

Eventhough domestication of dogs began over 14,000 years ago, as per Dr. Joshua Akey, University of Washington (UW) assistant professor of genome sciences, the spectacular diversity among breeds is thought to have originated during the past few centuries through intense artificial selection of and strict breeding for desired characteristics. Akey is the main author of the effort to map canine genome regions that show signs of recent selection and that contain genes that are prime candidates for further investigation. Those genes are being examined for their possible roles in the most conspicuous variations among dog breeds: size, coat color and texture, behavior, physiology, and skeleton structure......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 14, 2010, 8:00 AM CT

Sequencing of soybean genome

Soybean, one of the most important global sources of protein and oil, is now the first major crop legume species with a published complete draft genome sequence. This sequence, which essentially provides a parts list of the soybean genome, will help researchers use the plant's genes to improve its characteristics. The soybean sequencing study appears as the cover story of the January 13 edition of Nature



Value of the new soybean sequence

Researchers will use the new sequence to identify which genes are responsible for particular plant characteristics, and then target specific genes to produce desired characteristics. These desired characteristics may include increases in the plant's oil content to promote the use of soybean oil as a biofuel; bigger crops; improved resistance to pests and diseases that currently claim large percentages of soybean crops; improvements in the digestibility of soybeans by animals and humans; and reductions in contaminants present in the manure of soybean-fed swine and poultry that may pollute farm runoff.

The research team plans to identify which soybean genes warrant targeting by:

• Comparing the genomes of different varieties of soybean plants to one another.
• Resequencing 20,000 soybean lines that are currently stored in the National Plant Germplasm System to identify desired variances of genes that are not currently captured by domesticated soybean lines.

........ Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

January 13, 2010, 8:16 AM CT

Tilapia feed on Fiji's native fish

The poster child for sustainable fish farmingthe tilapiais actually a problematic invasive species for the native fish of the islands of Fiji, as per a newly released study by the Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups.

Researchers suspect that tilapia introduced to the waterways of the Fiji Islands appears to be gobbling up the larvae and juvenile fish of several native species of goby, fish that live in both fresh and salt water and begin their lives in island streams.

The recently published paper appears in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems The authors include: Stacy Jupiter and Ingrid Qauqau of the Wildlife Conservation Society; Aaron P. Jenkins of Wetlands International-Oceania; and James Atherton of Conservation International.

"A number of of the unique freshwater fishes of the Fiji Islands are being threatened by introduced tilapia and other forms of development in key water catchment basins," said Dr. Jupiter, a co-author of the study and one of the researchers examining the effects of human activities on the native fauna. "Conserving the native fishes of the islands will require a multi-faceted collaboration that protects not only the waterways of the islands, but the ecosystems that contain them." .

The most surprising finding of the study centers on the tilapia, a member of the cichlid family of fishes from Africa that has become one of the most important kinds of fish for aquaculture, due in large part to its rapid rate of growth and palatability. Aside from its value as a source of protein, the tilapia is sometimes problematic to native fish species in tropical locations......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 12, 2010, 8:47 AM CT

Impacts of Climate and Development

California butterflies are reeling from a one-two punch of climate change and land development, says an unprecedented analysis led by UC Davis butterfly expert Arthur Shapiro.

The new analysis, scheduled to be published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gives insights on how a major and much-studied group of organisms is reacting to the Earth's warming climate.

"Butterflies are not only charismatic to the public, but also widely used as indicators of the health of the environment worldwide," said Shapiro, a professor of evolution and ecology. "We found a number of lowland species are being hit hard by the combination of warmer temperatures and habitat loss".

The results are drawn from Shapiro's 35-year database of butterfly observations made twice monthly at 10 sites in north-central California from sea level to tree line. The Shapiro butterfly database is unique in science for its combination of attributes: one observer (which reduces errors), very long-term, multiple sites surveyed often, a large number of species (more than 150), and attendant climatological data.

Shapiro's co-authors include three other UC Davis scientists and two former Shapiro graduate students, including lead analyst Matthew Forister, now an assistant professor of biology at the University of Nevada, Reno......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 12, 2010, 8:43 AM CT

Cricket as an orchid pollinator

An orchid researcher based on the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean and collaborating with scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew) has used motion sensitive night cameras to capture the first known occurrence of a cricket functioning as a pollinator of flowering plants. Not only is this the first time this behaviour has been documented in a member of the Orthoptera order of insects who are better known for eating plants but the 'raspy cricket' is also entirely new to science. The discovery is revealed in a paper published recently (12 January 2010) in Annals of Botany

In 2008 Claire Micheneau, a RBG Kew-associated PhD student studying how the epiphytic orchid genus Angraecum has adapted to different pollinators on Reunion Island, and Jacques Fournel, her collaborator, shot the remarkable footage. It shows a raspy cricket (Glomeremus sp) carrying pollen on its head as it retreats from the greenish-white flowers of Angraecum cadetii

The genus Angraecum is best known for Darwin's study of the comet orchid, Angraecum sesquipedale of Madagascar, and his hypothesis that it was pollinated by a bizarre, long-tongued moth pollinator a theory that was later proved to be true a number of years after his death......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

January 11, 2010, 8:05 AM CT

About salmon migration

A new acoustic telemetry system tracks the migration of juvenile salmon using one-tenth as a number of fish as comparable methods, suggests a paper reported in the January edition of the American Fisheries Society journal Fisheries The paper also explains how the system is best suited for deep, fast-moving rivers and can detect fish movement in more places than other tracking methods.

The Juvenile Salmon Acoustic Telemetry System (JSATS) estimated the survival of young, ocean-bound salmon more precisely than the widely used Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tags during a 2008 study on the Columbia and Snake rivers, as per the results of a case study discussed in the paper. The paper also concludes that fish behavior is affected least by light-weight JSATS tags in comparison to larger acoustic tags.

"Fisheries managers and scientists have a number of technologies to choose from when they study fish migration and survival," said main author Geoff McMichael of the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

"JSATS was specifically designed to understand juvenile salmon passage and survival through the swift currents and noisy hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River," McMichael continued. "But other systems might work better in different circumstances. This paper demonstrates JSATS' strengths and helps scientists weigh the pros and cons of the different fish tracking methods available today"......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source