Complex mystery of amphibian decline calls for a new kind of science
...tist who finds the cause, eliminates it, kills the giant carnivorous worms and generally cleans up the whole mess with something like baking soda -- a simple cause-and-effect problem that can be solved with a simple solution. Real-life ecological disasters can be as dramatic as science fiction, but under...Researchers find volcanoes are bad for your health...long after they finish erupting
...ontserrat one as the pyroclastic flows can produce giant plumes (up to several kilometres in height) of fine ash. Ash falls from such a volcano can persist for months or even years. The Soufriere Hills volcano began erupting on 18th July 1995 but airborne ash concentrations in the area have been continuall......omets and asteroids. A stable orbit unperturbed by giant planets. A large moon at the right distance to stabilize tilt, thus ensuring seasonal climate fluctuations that are not too severe. Enough carbon to support development of life but not so much to allow for runaway greenhouse conditions. In addition,...'Frozen pictures' allow far-reaching glimpse into the cells protein factory
...ons. However, the ribosome, a notoriously unstable giant nucleoprotein complex, represents a daunting crystallographic challenge. To further complicate matters, it also lacks the internal symmetry and repetitions that eased the way to understanding the structure of other biological entities, such as viruse...Key progress by Weizmann scientists in the race to unravel ribosomal structure
...aphy. However, the ribosome, anotoriously unstable giant protein complex, represents a daunting crystallographic challenge. Tofurther complicate matters, it also lacks the internal symmetry and repetitions that eased the way tounderstanding the structure of other biological entities, such as viruses. Neve...Fall Meeting: updated press conferences and special events
...of how the visible aurora and its companion form a giant electrical circuit. Another FAST result is the best explanation yet on how auroras turn Earth into a powerful low frequency radio transmitter, which also provides insight into the generation of natural radio transmissions throughout the cosmos. ...1999 Fall Meeting: Press conferences and special events
...g behaviors on the frozen continent. These include giant ice streams, some dynamic and some placid, and snow dunes that stay in place despite fierce winds. It all affects global climate. Solar Moss Discovered Tuesday morning. Moss discovered on the Sun! Well, not exactly, but scientists using the TRACE s...Were the last dinosaurs roasted alive?
...rican oceanographers. They believe the impact of a giant asteroid or comet in the Gulf of Mexico unleashed vast quantities of methane that set the air ablaze. At the end of the Cretaceous period, about 65 million years ago, huge amounts of methane generated by rotting vegetation lay trapped in sediments m...Monsanto's modified soya beans don't agree with the heat
...hout another piece of bad news for the agribiotech giant Monsanto. Now researchers in the US have found that hot climates don't agree with Monsanto's herbicide-resistant soya beans, causing stems to split open and crop losses of up to 40 per cent. This could be a serious blow to the St Louis-based compan...Yale researchers may have solved mystery about why 'Lonesome George' refuses to mate
...e," the only remaining male of a subspecies of the giant Galapagos tortoise, may be turning up his nose at ...ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." The giant tortoises are renowned both for their size -- up to five feet in length and a hefty 650 pounds -- an...Wolf response to climate change can impact ecosystem
...el ecosystem involving gray wolves, moose, and the giant herbivores primary winter forage--balsam fir. Peterson said that the mean size of wolf packs on Isle Royale ranged from approximately 4.5 animals during least snowy winters to 12 animals during the most snowy winters. The increase was due primarily ...Argonne biochips may halt tuberculosis epidemic
...esearch effort into the clinical settingis another giant leap. "We're using DNA for the research study, not actual fluidfrom patients," said Drucker. "But it does give us a good idea of the directionwe want to go." If successful, Drucker says, they would move to a larger scale study with morepatients, usin...UNC-CH marine scientist says hurricane could be catastrophic for Pamlico Sound
... withtheopen ocean, he said. The sound acts like a giant bathtub trapping pollutedfresh water. "We need to carefully and thoroughly monitor the situation immediatelynotjust for North Carolina's sake but also because the Pamlico Sound systemprovides a nursery and refuge for the entire southeast coa...Clay M. Armstrong, MD, wins 1999 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award
...Hodgkin and Huxley, Armstrong's studies used squid giant axons, which are40 times larger in diameter than the corresponding nerve fibers of anyvertebrate species, including humans. He described the channels as pores in thecell membrane which control the movement of ions - electrically charged atoms -into o...USGS studies wildfire ecology in the western United States
...bled from fire scars in the annual growth rings of giant sequoias, extend back over 2,000 years, and show that fire typically burned on the floor of sequoia groves every 3 to 8 years. USGS ecologist Dr. Nate Stephenson, from the Western Ecological Research Center, says the record shows how sequoias ha...Jurassic period mammal teeth found; prevailing theories challenged
...y don't grab the popular imagination the way their giant Mesozoiccontemporaries do," said Wyss. "Second, apart from very late in the Mesozoic, the fossil record ofmammals has been extremely sparse," he said. These fossils are unlikely to bespotted in the field by the naked eye, one reason for the d...Trouble for the world's turtles
...hwater Turtle and Tortoise Specialist Group. "Many giant tortoises on oceanic islands have already been driven to extinctionover the last three centuries because of human exploitation. So far, freshwaterturtles have come through this century with the documented extinction of justone subspecies -- a small m...Cincinnati chemists develop microsensors for nuclear waste cleanup, medical applications
...itor the radioactive and hazardouswastes insidethe giant tanks at the Hanford nuclear weapons facility in Washington hasresulted in a novel idea andprototype for remote sensing. The results will be presented in a series of talksand poster presentationsduring the annual meeting of the American Chemical Soci...... a basic science level, these findings represent a giant stepon the road to understanding how living organisms make proteins. On a morepractical level, many bacterial infections are stopped by antibiotics, whichwork by inhibiting the production of ribosomes in bacterial cells. Betterstructural knowledge o......identified a newspecies of barking deer called the giant muntjac, and rediscovered theVietnamese warty hog, thought to be extinct. "It's not coincidental that the Annamites have produced several newspecies of large mammals, none of which is closely related to anything outsideof this remote mountain...