Researchers unearth 4,300-year-old chimpanzee technology
...humans to use easily and they also have the starch residue from several nuts known to be staples in the chimpanzee diet, but not the human diet. Using so-called "percussive technology" to free the edible parts of nuts is more complicated than it sounds. "We know that modern chimpanzee behaviour regarding n...... types of starch grains on the stones; part of the residue derived from cracking local nuts. The tools are 4300 years old, which, in human terms, corresponds to the Later Stone Age (PNAS, February 2007). Before this study, chimpanzees were first observed using stone tools in the 19th century. Now, thanks ...Computer tool helps pinpoint risky gene mutations
...ral population. This mutation caused an amino acid residue change in the protein produced by the gene. "Some ...istory, looking at how long the changed amino acid residue position has been preserved in various organisms. The last category is important because harmful mut...Practice of farming reaches back farther than thought
...ch grain analysis, researchers are able to isolate residue from microcrevices in both ground stone and flaked stone tools and identify preserved starch grains under a microscope. "The ability of starch grain analysis to identify plant taxa in the unfavourable preservation environments of western and centra...Finding the white wine difference
...y new wines. While white wine has ancient origins residue of white wine was found in the tomb of the Egyptian king, Tutankhamun researchers know that the ancestors of modern grapes were all red. What they did not know was how the change from red to white berries came about. CSIRO researchers, working in th...Darwin's famous finches and Venter's marine microbes
...tion, Kannan was able to show that loss of one key residue could be compensated by changes around other conserved regions of the protein, and that some of these changes in bacterial kinases are also seen in specific human kinases. Says Manning, "By looking at all these very distant microbial relatives we c...Winner of Tyler Environmental Prize announced
... as fuel. In addition, the method yields much less residue than traditional wastewater treatment, while processing 10 to 20 times as much waste. If sewage and organic refuse in the Los Angeles basin were processed anaerobically (at present only some biosolids receive anaerobic treatment) and all methane ca...Spreading viruses as we breathe
...ponent of the droplet dries in the air and the dry residue travels large distances. "When a droplet dries in the air the residue is carried in the air, and therefore there is a risk that people can inhale that air and become infe...Wild weather forces farmers to adapt
...sequences on crop production, plant diseases, soil residue coverage, and soil water depletion. The crop by ...pping systems How to maintain an amount of crop residue under no-till to optimize agronomic benefits while minimizing negative effects How to most effect......jor benefit in a warming climate. By stirring crop residue into the soil surface, no-till farming can gradually increase organic matter in soil, as much as tripling its carbon content in less than 15 years. "Returning the organic matter to the soil stores carbon," Montgomery said. "If all farms on the pla...