Whale carcass yields bone-devouring worms
.... In the July 30 issue of Science, the researchers describe these worms, whose bodies and feeding strategies d...l-saturated whale bones. The MBARI scientists will describe the unusual animal community at the Monterey Canyon whale fall in a paper to be published in the Oct...Hunt for a new plant hormone points to carotenoids
...of Current Biology, Ottoline Leyser and co-workers describe the identification of a gene that is essential for the synthesis of this novel hormone. The gene encodes a protein that they show can cleave carotenoids, such as the chemicals responsible for the orange pigment in carrots. This suggests that the new ...Scientists pinpoint molecules that generate synapses
... University and Washington University in St. Louis describe the findings in the July 23 issue of the journal Cell. "This is very basic work, far from any clinical applications at this point," says author Joshua R. Sanes, professor of molecular and cellular biology in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. "S...What are babies thinking before they start talking?
...on was differences between how different languages describe space. For example, the distinction between a tight fit versus a loose fit is marked in Korean but not in English. A cap on a pen would be a tight fit relationship, while a pen on a table would be a loose fit relationship. English does not mark this ...Scientists describe the world's smallest, lightest fish
...he whole envelope of life. Most of us systematists describe things that fill in the dots in the middle of the ... need to continue doing what we can to explore and describe the diversity before it's gone, in addition to focusing our efforts on protecting biodiversity." Oth...Mapping the evolution of a virus
...am of scientists from the United States and Europe describe their work quantifying and visualizing the antigenic and genetic evolution of the influenza A (H3N2) virus from its initial introduction into humans in 1968 up to 2003. The study resulted in a map that shows the virus evolved as a series of 11 close...Significant strides in small regulatory RNA research in plants
...ang Zhu at the University of California, Riverside describe a new library of small RNAs isolated from Arabidopsis seedlings exposed to dehydration, salinity, cold stress, or the plant stress hormone abscisic acid. They identify 15 new miRNA families which include 26 new miRNAs corresponding to 34 loci, and sh...Impact of Earth's rising atmospheric carbon dioxide found in world oceans
... five million years, he said. Feely and colleagues describe two major impacts of the oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO 2 : They demonstrate that a substantial amount of the calcium carbonate, found in shells of marine animals living in surface waters, dissolves in the upper ocean. They then summarize the av...Wildland fires: After the smoke clears
...on by providing reliable scientific information to describe and understand the Earth; minimize loss of life and property from natural disasters; manage water, biological, energy, and mineral resources; and enhance and protect our quality of life....New textbook introduces students to the foundations, applications of nanotechnology
...r, nanoscale modification of surfaces. The authors describe the top-down approach, or lithography, as "similar... called quantum dots. The remaining five sections describe applications. "A major goal of nanotechnology is to develop materials and devices that outperform ex......lleagues at New England Biolabs (Beverly, MA, USA) describe a way to copy mass amounts of DNA that overcomes some of the limitations of this earlier technique. The new technique is called HDA (helicase-dependent amplification). HDA is as simple as PCR, but has significant advantages. PCR requires thermocycli...Scientists discover key step in the development of nerve cells controlling autonomic functions
...art rate, and electrolyte balance. These results describe a new function for Runx1, which has a well documented role in the development of blood cells. In humans, Runx1 is called AML1. AML1 is the most frequent target of chromosomal translocations that cause acute myeloid leukemia. "This is a significant...University of Chicago scientists pinpoint cellular cause of SIDS
...2004, issue of the journal Neuron, the researchers describe the specific group of neurons that are responsible for gasping and what happens to these cells when they are deprived of oxygen. Since gasping resets the normal breathing pattern for babies, the scientists suspect that a malfunction in these respirat...Spanish scientists develop powerful tool for exploration and integration of biological information
...Genetics 36, 664, 01 Jul 2004), the two scientists describe how iHOP, which was developed as part of the EU-funded ORIEL and TEMBLOR projects, converts the 14 million abstracts in the PubMed (National Library of Medicine) bibliographic database into a network of interlinked references to genes, proteins, muta......, or assembly, of embryonic tissue the researchers describe in the second paper some "totally unexpected" mutants from one-day-old embryos, explains Mullins. One was a morphogenesis mutant called pollywog. This gene is involved in orchestrating the ultimately three-dimensional character of the head. "We end u...APS Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Translational Research Conference, Sept. 8-11
...ona, Spain, and University of Bologna, Italy, will describe new therapeutic strategies in the treatment of IBD. In addition to evening sessions involving research poster presentations, the meeting will feature symposia led by noted researchers on the following subjects: Genetics of IBD Role of the immun...New multidisciplinary research tops chemists' meeting Aug. 22-26
...rom Tuesday Thursday, Aug. 24-26, scientists will describe emerging techniques for studying chemical reactions at the frigid temperatures found in space. With helium nano-droplets and altered electric fields and other technical tricks, researchers are plunging chemistry to extreme lows - and discovering chem...Molecule that 'blocks' key bacterial enzyme may lead to new antibiotics
...s, and Severinov and members of his research team, describe in separate reports how each team used different experimental methods to reach the same conclusions. "It was only last year that we solved the structure of this molecule, just 21 amino acids long, remarkable both in its size and its structu...UK researchers develop way of predicting a woman's 'reproductive' age
...r models/analysis[2] in such a way that they could describe the follicle population decline for women entering the menopause early or late. "We already know from published data using transvaginal ultrasound to measure the volume of ovaries, that they shrink as a woman ages," said Dr Wallace. "What we have don...... issue of Neuron, Andrew Davies and his colleagues describe their findings that subtle differences between worm strains in the gene for a brain protein called NPR-1 explains differences in the worms' alcohol sensitivity. The researchers chose the worm as their subject because there is evidence that alco...