Is that plant a tortoise or a hare? Answer predicts its response to environmental change
...sive study of the physiology of natural vegetation ever done," said author Peter Reich, professor of forest resources at the University of Minnesota. "Leaves are little factories. As a factory, each can make money (energy) in a big hurry, but at the risk of running down its equipment fast. Or, a factory c...Dietary supplement shows promise for improving immune function in the elderly
...was a century ago. One half of all humans who have ever lived to age 65 are alive today and one out of every 26 Baby Boomers will live to be 100 years old. As the percentage of elderly Americans increases the impact on future health care costs also increases. Aging is associated with a decline in a large...A blueprint for US national ocean policy for the 21st Century
... It was the most comprehensive and thorough review ever conducted of our nation's oceans and coasts. After significant thought, careful deliberations and the consideration of a wide range of potential solutions, the Commission is releasing its Preliminary Report to be reviewed by the nation's Governors a...New research explores 'early bird' and 'night owl' sleep patterns
... you annoyed by cheerful "morning people?" Do you ever wonder how "night owls" can keep going? Most of us ask these questions because we are in between these two extremes, and take a while to get going early in the morning and tire long before midnight. This entire spectrum reflects the broad, normal v...ESA consults European science community on candidate Earth Explorer missions
...three magnetometry satellites to provide the best ever survey of the geomagnetic field and its temporal evolution. Swarm will offer new insights into the composition and processes in the interior and the surroundings of the Earth, thereby improving our knowledge of climate. The satellites will drift in n...Specifying alcohol-related brain-damage among heavy social drinkers
... in moderation! Heavy drinking damages your brain ever so slightly, reducing your cognitive functioning in ways that may not be readily noticeable. To be safe, don't overdue it.'" He added that for most adults, moderate alcohol use up to two drinks per day for men, and one drink per day for women and ...UF researcher: Animals think in their own way, but unlike humans
...dolphins have been fodder for fallacies. "Have you ever heard that dolphins are the only species apart from humans that engage in sex for pleasure and not for procreation?" Wynne asked. "I've heard this so many times I always ask, 'So you mean that other animal species know when they're having sex that th...Researchers find no safe place to sit in California tick-infested forest
...bly less than one in three people bitten by nymphs ever discovers the tick that bit them. But they become easier to detect once they start swelling up a bit after they've had a blood meal. "Animal studies suggest that it usually takes longer than one day after the tick becomes attached for the bacteria t...East Texas feral hog numbers skyrocketed in last decade
...ed. And even if they weren't backlogged, no one is ever likely to eradicate feral hogs. A conservative estimate puts their numbers statewide at 1.5 million. "We don't really know how many there are. In West Texas, aerial surveys and the like can be conducted to give a fair idea, but in East Texas they h...Invasive species: A few bucks and a click away
...rs to delve deeper and farther into the ocean than ever before. Deep sea corals, much like their better-known tropical cousins, are found throughout the world, living in darker and colder places, and with equal diversity and reef building capabilities. These corals also provide habitat for economically ...Scientists question reports of massive ant supercolonies in California and Europe
.... That would explain why California workers hardly ever fight with one another - even if they're from oppo...ose offspring have continued to work cooperatively ever since. "California's Argentine ants are very genetically similar, probably because they shar...Oil exploitation in Ecuador's Amazon basin produces a 'public health emergency'
...Alaska, one of the largest sea oil spills that has ever occurred. Analyses carried out in Ecuador in 1999 of rivers used by communities that are close to oil fields showed high levels of total petroleum hydrocarbons in the waters. In some streams, hydrocarbon concentrations were more than 100 times the ...'Knock out' rose receives Texas superstar and earthkind designation
...be one of the finest landscape roses that they had ever tested. During testing, no pesticides of any kind were ever applied. "It has proven to be almost resistant to black spot, the fungal disease that is the scourg...Comprehensive study: We know little about environmental effects on kids
... the most comprehensive, authoritative publication ever produced regarding ways that environmental factors affect children's health. Scheduled for an April 5 release, it is an exhaustive research effort involving contributions from more than 40 leading pediatric experts, each of whom wrote about how envir...K-State uses geographic tools to track plant pathogens
...id. He noted that, in fact, it's the only aphid to ever be responsible for cancellation of a sporting even...n't see because of the aphid swarms. "No aphid has ever built up to numbers quite like that," said Reese. He contacted K-State geographer and mappi...How DNA copying enzyme 'stops the presses' for repair synthesizing enzyme
...crystal -- to my knowledge the biggest such motion ever seen in a crystal," said Beese. Using this approach, the Duke biochemists engineered the polymerase to be error-prone, so that they could produce crystals with mispaired bases inserted in the active site. What's more, they were able to move the mism...Sickle cell sufferers living longer, dying less from their disease
...isease and contracting fewer fatal infections than ever before, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas report. Their study, which will appear in the June edition of the scientific journal Blood, is the first to evaluate survival rates of children receiving the most modern treatments fo...Building the whole cell from pieces
... network will increase exponentially, providing an ever more complete molecular anatomy of the cell."......del of human breast cancer in the mouse that we've ever had," says Charlotte Kuperwasser, lead author of the study and a former postdoctoral researcher in the Weinberg lab who now is an assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. The study appears online this week in the early edition of t....... Those ancestors also started living longer than ever before an unexpected evolutionary twist. The res...man ancestors was much higher than most of us have ever known," he said. "Whether humans today, with our sedentary lifestyle, remain highly tolerant to meat...