Gene therapy may be a tool to prevent blindness
...hat causes abnormal blood vessels to grow from the middle or choroid layer of the eye into the retina, the light-sensitive tissue in back of the eye responsible for vision. The same type of blood vessel growth occurs with macular degeneration. The virus carrier entered liver and other cells in the body. ...Large river once flowed in south Florida
... of the reefs and other limestone that make up the middle and upper Florida Keys," said Cunningham. "The thickness and extent of this buried delta suggests that a river system significantly larger than any found in present-day Florida, once flowed in that state," Cunningham explains. The South Florida Wa...Clean water for Nepal is focus of MIT research
...e such system, for example, is already used by the middle class. In a unit encased by stainless steel, water flows through a "candle" of fine white clay eight inches long by two in diameter. Particles are caught in the candle, and the remaining water drains out via a spigot. Rural women, however, cant affo...January media highlights: GEOLOGY and GSA TODAY
...al conditions in the Levantine Basin. Widespread middle Holocene dune formation in the eastern upper peninsula of Michigan and the relationship to climate and outlet-controlled lake level. Alan F. Arbogast, et al., Department of Geography, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824-1115, US...New report documents dramatic decline in beluga sturgeon in the Caspian Sea
...shows no evidence of mature beluga sturgeon in the middle and southern Caspian, said Dr. Ellen Pikitch, Director of Marine Programs for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). This new survey presents significant evidence of the beluga sturgeons accelerating decline toward extinction. Lisa Speer, Senior P......ent known range.The big cats are doing best in the middle of their range, in and aroundthe Amazon Basin. But that's not enough. Conserving wide-ranging species means protectingthem in a wide variety of habitats. "Presumably, the ecology of jaguarsin tropical moist lowland forest is significantly different f...... these chronic heath conditions do not begin until middle age, the biochemical or cardiovascular risk factors can be found in 60 percent of obese children. Aging Americans who settle for a life of bed rest may be signing on to an early death warrant. A recent study found that three weeks of continuous bed...AAAS speakers report worldwide 'epidemic' of obesity
...osed by famine and infectious disease to lower and middle income countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. But now, the developing world faces rapid shifts in urbanization, technology, food processing, and even leisure time, and all these factors contribute to the rise of obesity in the...Muscle gene influences fat storage in mice; may be target to prevent or treat obesity and diabetes
... fat at all," says Lee. By the time they reached middle age at 10 months, mice lacking myostatin had 70 percent less fat (by weight) than regular mice. Among "agouti" mice, myostatin-free animals had about half the fat as others, while the "obese" mice without myostatin had roughly two-thirds the fat of ...Lizards and salamanders may use lungs to hear, study says
...y, particularly ones that lack middle ears." Hetherington examined ...ing. Although salamanders lack middle and external ears, both groups of animals have inner ears th...Resumption of caspian caviar trade could mean extinction
...shows no evidence of mature beluga sturgeon in the middle and southern Caspian. (For more on the findings of this research, see attachment following this press release.) The beluga sturgeon has been called the most valuable fish in the world because of its coveted caviar, said Vikki Spruill, Executive Direc...Wolves decline, moose increase
...e study for the last 32 years. As an island in the middle of Lake Superior, Isle Royale presents a unique op...mbers, the Chippewa Harbor pack with five, and the middle pack with four. There are also two single wolves unattached to a pack. Researchers confirmed a confr...Markers that can predict cancer spread could save women from unnecessary chemotherapy
...etastasis and a high probability, there is still a middle group of women in whom further work needs to be done....New material to patch injured knee ligaments
...in Indiana. To make his patches, Badylak takes the middle layer of pig intestine, removes all the cellular material and sterilises what is left. The result is a thin and strong biological mesh. Intestinal tissue contains an abundance of healing factors that promote cell growth, and the mesh retains many of...Fisheries forecasting in the Niger inner delta
...e the beginning of the XXth century: Mopti, in the middle zone of the delta, and Koulikoro, upstream of it. Both these stations supply the necessary data, but Koulikoros site further upstream is more convenient. The Nigers bed there is narrower and discharges are greater, rendering small changes easier to d...Rock climbing harms cliff ecosystems
...ation onthree parts -- the top edge (plateau), the middle (cliff face) and thebase (talus) -- of climbed and unclimbed cliffs. The researchers found that rock climbing greatly decreases the diversityof vegetation on cliffs. Notably, climbed faces had only 4% as manyvascular plant species as those that were...Greatest threat to Asia's wildlife is hunting, scientists say
...g as a luxury food item for that city's burgeoning middle class. The international trade in birds is astonishing in its scale, with over 350,000 sold in a Jakarta, Indonesia market annually, and 276 species sold annually in Bangkok's Weekend Market. For those people in Asia who still rely on wildlife for ...Sea level rise threatens marshes in Chesapeake and Delaware Bays
...reatest degradation of marshes has occurred in the middle portion of its eastern shore at Blackwater Wildlif...peake and Delaware Bays are less degraded than the middle and lower reaches. This, the researchers say, is due to the smaller amount of river sediment, which ...Max-Planck doctoral student discovers 'living fossils'
... a predatory diet. Rows of spines on the front and middle legs indicate that the animal held on to its prey with its legs, as some insect-eating locusts (Orthoptera) do. A more detailed description of the new insect order "Mantophasmatodea" will appear in the autumn in the journal "Zoologischer Anzeiger". A......symmetrical spots have been found in a pond in the middle of an Ithaca golf course. Cornell University biologists, who have compared the amphibians with symmetrically spotted specimens gathered from the same pond six decades earlier, believe they are seeing indications that changes in a salamander's spots ...