Study shows prions stick around in certain soils
...environment, Pedersen and his colleagues turned to sand and clay - common components found in soils. Becau...urface area and mineral composition, Pedersen says sand and clay represent different ends of the spectrum in the ability to absorb proteins. From the study'...Young sea animals clone themselvescentury-old debate halted
...ait in three new echinoderm groups--sea cucumbers, sand dollars, and sea urchins--offering surprising new insight about chordate evolution. Larval cloning represents an intriguing new dimension to invertebrate life histories including the suggestion that clones may subsequently clone. The research is publ...Leishmania mutant provides insight into disease and may lead to a vaccine
...infection. They tested the engineered parasites in sand flies, which are responsible for transmitting the ...the mutants showed a 10-fold lower survival in the sand flies after three days, after which point they were completely eliminated. They also were unable to ...Army awards up to $50 million to establish Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies
... but is normally present in rocks as silica (i.e., sand in one form, glass in another). The rocks are melted and milled to extract the silicon that is then made into computer chips or incorporated into silicon-based polymers analogous to the more familiar carbon-based polymers. Silicon--the prime consti...Duke ecologist finds devastation, hope in Iraqi marshes
...ide down. It looks like you let a child loose in a sand box with hand grenades." Of the three remnant marsh areas, he found the Central Marsh to be in the worst shape. "It's just a complete dust bowl," he said. Locals had broken a Hussein-built drainage dike in one area in an effort to return some water,...Worm farmers wriggle into US market
... the traditional industry of digging them from the sand struggles to keep pace with demand. Seabait (Maine...ste' hot water from a nearby power station to keep sand beds at the perfect breeding temperature. Several commercially important steps have been protected ...Cross-species mating may be evolutionarily important and lead to rapid change, say IUB researchers
...arkable in being adapted to very extreme habitats: sand dunes, dry desert floor and salt marshes, respectively. The researchers also created their own hybrids of H. annuus and H. petiolaris. The researchers found that their synthetic hybrids quickly acquired the traits necessary to colonize the extreme ha...Study of leishmania parasite may lead to vaccine, new treatments
...de. The parasite is spread by the bite of infected sand flies and can cause leishmaniasis, a sometimes fatal and disfiguring disease. Cutaneous leishmaniasis causes open, slow-healing and sometimes disfiguring skin sores. Visceral leishmaniasis spreads to several organs and is usually fatal if left untre...Waiter, there's a shark in my soup
...k City. Locally, WCS is monitoring populations of sand tiger sharks and other coastal shark species that have fallen prey to overfishing in recent decades.......storms pick up at least 150,000 tonnes of salt and sand from the dried-up lakebed and transport it across hundreds of kilometres. The sandstorms are tainted with pesticide residue and have been linked to high regional rates of respiratory illnesses and certain types of cancer. The salty dust does harm to...The signal is an arched wall of sand called a hood which courting males of the fiddler ... musica build at the entrances to their burrows on sand flats in Panama. Males have one very large claw that they wave to attract females to their burrows a...UT Southwestern researchers define regions of human genes highly prone to mutation
...a protein is written in stone, with ink, or in wet sand at low tide." An important application of this research is that with enhanced knowledge of where mutations are most likely to occur, medical geneticists can take more aggressive approaches to discover the genetic basis of many human diseases. "We kn...Warming temperatures put tufted puffin at risk
...ish and mainly a small anchovy-like species called sand lance. "It appears that these fish leave areas with warm water," said St. Clair. "When this warm water surrounds the breeding colonies, the puffins can't catch fish. The adults then appear to abandon their chicks under these conditions, perhaps so t...Dodging elephants, scorpions, mudslidesUF researcher tracks tigers
... are harmless compared to bees, scorpions, snakes, sand flies, fire ants and elephants." The researchers sampled each of the three sites for 11 months. Each trip was unique, with the team alternatively spending hours wading through python-inhabited rivers and streams, avoiding mud slides and dodging other...Mutant gene found to cause early ovarian failure in mice
... hourglass: "There is a finite number of grains of sand that are released in a metered way. Similarly, a w... lifespan. Menopause occurs when all the grains of sand have fallen. In mice lacking the FOXO3a gene, all of the grains of sand fall out very quickly, resu...Troubling news about sea otter deaths
...nthocephalans when their diet is unusually high in sand crabs, which carry the worms. In the otters, the worms migrate from the intestine to the abdominal cavity, causing fatal infections. "Because we did not see these two causes of death distributed evenly along the coast, we know that otters are at hig...Science Picks--Leads, Feeds and Story Seeds (April 2003)
...formation. During the study, scientists found that sand in the swash zone, the part of the beach that is washed by waves or tides where young children are likely to play, contained significantly higher levels of E. coli than sediments in deeper water. See http://oh.water.usgs.gov/beaches/photo.html . (A...Hitchhiking bacteria could compromise the detection of life on Mars
...nvironment. Martian soil was created by mixing dry sand containing endospores with ferrate. The soil was then left at 20 oC and exposed to high levels of UV light for six weeks. These conditions were designed to simulate the dry, cold, oxidizing environment found on Mars. Subsequent analysis of the soil ...Natural Science and Public Health: Prescription for a Better Environment
...rmation. During the study, scientists found that sand in the swash zone, the part of the beach that is washed by waves or tides where young children are likely to play, contained significantly higher levels of E. coli than sediments in deeper water. Dust from the Towers : In the days following the Sep......e in Orlando, Fla., tested how well catnip-treated sand repelled termites. The researchers treated sand with catnip oil, and to test vertical tunneling, put a two-inch barrier of treated sand in the middl...