Climate change isolates Rocky Mountain butterflies
...extinction of the colourful insects in some areas, says a new study from the University of Alberta. A rising tree line in the Rockies due to global warming, and a policy not to initiate "prescribed burns" (intentionally started, controlled fires) in order to manage forest growth, has created the tenuou...Unravelling new complexity in the genome
...ystem tissues compared to other mammalian tissues, says lead investigator Professor Benjamin Blencowe of t...re extensive than appreciated in previous studies, says Blencowe. These findings also have implications for understanding human diseases such as cancers, si...Interaction of just 2 genes governs coloration patterns in mice
...genes can greatly alter an organism's appearance," says Hopi E. Hoekstra, John L. Loeb Associate Professor... to zebra stripes, that help individuals survive," says Steiner, a postdoctoral researcher in UCSD's Division of Biological Sciences. "However, we know surp...Bursts of waves drive immune system 'soldiers' toward invaders
...and illuminating finding in my scientific career," says Orion Weiner, PhD, of the University of California... interaction can generate very complex behaviors," says Weiner. "Evolution has found the same solution to generating waves again and again even with complet...Protein 'chatter' linked to cancer activation
...that chromosome ends are maintained and protected, says Xu-Dong Zhu, assistant professor of biology and th...s and may restrict their potential to grow. Zhu says that the discovery will help researchers understand the onset and progression of these diseases as w...Features of replication suggest viruses have common themes, vulnerabilities
...sly thought of as distinct share common features," says Paul Ahlquist, an HHMI investigator and virologist... The virus has developed a very elegant strategy," says Ahlquist. "It creates for itself a new compartment for RNA synthesis, where it can collect its (cons...Newly created cancer stem cells could aid breast cancer research
...n some ways, certain tumors resemble bee colonies, says pathologist Tan Ince. Each cancer cell in the tumor plays a specific role, and just a fraction of the cells serve as queens, possessing the unique ability to maintain themselves in an unspecialized state and seed new tumors. These cells can also divi...New, more direct pathways from outside the cell-to-cell nuclei discovered
... by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Gavin says that these newly discovered direct pathways mean t...elled protozoan Tetrahymena thermophila. But Gavin says that "other discoveries that were based on this protozoan were later shown to be almost global in th...Abnormal fat metabolism underlies heart problems in diabetic patients
... because glucose isn't readily available to them," says Richard Gross, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Divisi...se way to measure changes in heart lipid content," says first author Xianlin Han, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine. "We found a dramatic depletion of ...Scientists show that mitochondrial DNA variants are linked to risk factors for type 2 diabetes
...hondrial DNA variation in common genetic diseases, says Dr. Theodore Kurtz, the lead investigator on the project. In addition, the animal models developed in this study will open the door for future studies in which the effects of mitochondrial genome variation can be investigated on fixed nuclear geneti...Climate change and permafrost thaw alter greenhouse gas emissions in northern wetlands
...ting rates of permafrost thaw in northern regions, says MSU researcher Merritt Turetsky. In the report, The Disappearance of Relict Permafrost in Boreal North America: Effects on Peatland Carbon Storage and Fluxes, in this weeks online edition of Global Change Biology, Turetsky and others explore whethe...1 of deep ocean's most turbulent areas has big impact on climate
...erstanding of the mechanisms of mixing is crucial, says St. Laurent, an assistant professor of physical oceanography at FSU and the studys co-principal investigator, because mixing produces the overall balance of water temperatures that helps control the strength of the Gulf Stream -- the strong, warm oce...A unique arrangement for egg cell division
...ed spindle-forming organelles, called centrosomes, says Jan Ellenberg, Coordinator of the Gene Expression ... involves a lot of coordination in space and time, says Melina Schuh, who carried out the research in Ellenbergs lab, if the spindle fails to accurately seg...Proteaceae spread by continental drift and transoceanic dispersal
...ot are much younger, and have Australian relatives says Nigel Barker of Rhodes University, South Africa. ...spersal, as unlikely as it sounds for these plants says Peter Weston, a researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Australia. While this is not the fi...... will be an impediment to their commercialization, says ISU graduate student Mark Wright, one of the papers authors....Ecologists work to link kids with nature
...l health, climate change, and land-use management, says Lowman. Kids need to touch flowers and know why some plants cant survive without pollinators such as bees. It also doesnt hurt to know the difference between a harmless king snake and a venomous coral snake! Richard Louv notes in his book that ch......cultural management and basic ecological research, says Dennis Ojima (Colorado State University). Our fi...he community now uses to analyze space-based data, says Schimel....Preclinical study links gene to brain aneurysm formation
...sk for intracranial aneurysm formation. Abruzzo says this study supports the idea that the NOS-3 gene is just one step in a complex molecular pathway that links flow-dependent vascular remodeling to intracranial aneurysm formation. Our findings suggest that if something goes wrong in the vascular re...Penn researchers discover how key protein stops inflammation
... expression has a profound effect on inflammation, says Ruaidhri Carmody, PhD, Senior Research Investigato...e to infection, explains Chen. Without Bcl-3, Chen says p50 cannot stop the inflammation response, but instead will become degraded very fast, through ubiqu...AAAS analysis finds Congress would add billions to FY 2008 R&D investment
... to develop new craft for human space exploration, says Kei Koizumi, the programs director, in a report posted online on 6 August. The report, updating congressional action on R&D budgets as Congress began its August recess, is available at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/upd807.htm . Where the White Hou...