Ancient diets of Australian birds point to big ecosystem changes
...izers in Australia are believed to have arrived by sea from Indonesia about 50,000 years ago, using fire as a tool to hunt, clear paths, signal each other and promote the growth of certain plants, Miller said. More than 85 percent of Australia's large mammals, birds and reptiles weighing more than 100 p...Study in Royal Society journal on world's only horned rodent
...ect polarized reflections to avoid flying over the sea by Dr. N Shashar, Mr S Sabbah and Ms N Aharoni Lo...s that reflect strong linear polarization. Indeed, sea surfaces can serve as such polarization reflectors and therefore deter locust swarms from crossing t...Industrial contaminants spread by seabirds in High Arctic, new Canadian study shows
...cting terrestrial ecosystems. Our study shows that sea birds, which feed in the ocean but then come back to land, are returning not only with food for their young but with contaminants as well. The contaminants accumulate in their bodies and are released on land." The study took place at Cape Vera on nor...Ferry-linked water monitoring system becomes new model for United States
...d to a water intake line in each ferry's protected sea chest below deck and amidships. Some of the water, needed to cool the ships' air conditioning machinery, is first diverted to devices that record temperature, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll and geographic position once a minute. A teleme...Plankton can run, but can't hide from basking sharks
...g sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) - two in the shallow sea off Plymouth and two in the deep water off the she... largest fish and feeds by filtering plankton from sea water through its enormous mouth. It is able to filter up to 2,000 tons of water per hour - the equi...Deep thinking: Scientists sequence a cold-loving marine microbe
...pen ocean, and nestled inside Arctic and Antarctic sea ice. To explain C. psychrerythraea' s unique cold-adapted chemistry, TIGR researchers and collaborators first sequenced the bacterium's genome and analyzed its gene content for telltale proteins that might be cold-adaptive. Next, they predicted C....North Atlantic right whales headed toward extinction
...s from buoys on the surface to lobster pots on the sea floor by consolidating many pots on one line....Researchers explore ecological issues at annual meeting
...fruit trees during flood season. Fungi that attack sea fans get even nastier when the tropical waters warm by just a few degrees, and although sea fans counterattack with upgraded defenses, the fungi win out. A moth that attacks pine trees has exp...Measurement challenges in detecting cancer biomarkers
...found only in relatively low concentrations amid a sea of other biomolecules, so both biomarker research and possible diagnostic tests depend critically on the ability to make highly sensitive and accurate biochemical measurements. A special August workshop at the National Institute of Standards and Tec...How do you spell recognition? C-O-R-E-C-E-P-T-O-R
...guish a very few antigenic proteins within a great sea of [molecules]," says Gascoigne. Antigen Recognition and the Immune System Over millions of years of evolution, the immune system has built up myriad ways of countering potentially lethal infections. In many organisms, including humans and other ...Scientists discover global pattern of big fish diversity in open oceans
...those for tiny zooplankton, and both are linked to sea surface temperature. "This is the great joy of sci...ey catch many other species too, including sharks, sea turtles and seabirds. To see whether findings based on the Japanese longline data could be applied ...Earth from space: bloom in the Baltic
...phorous nutrients. This phosphorous comes from the sea floor, having been released for surface layer phytoplankton to consume when autumn and winter storms mix the water mass at the start of 2005 a severe storm caused mixing in a deep column of water. The bloom seen here stretches around 200 kilometres...Census of Marine Life explorers surprised by diversity, density of Arctic creatures
... species distribution in the shelf, slope and deep sea regions (the deep sea is generally agreed to begin at 1,000 meters). Investigations of the seawater's physical and chemic...A bug's life: Exceptional genomic stability yet rapid protein evolution in a carpenter ant mutualist
...arine worms, in echinoderms such as starfishes and sea urchins, and in specialized cells of insects such as aphids and tsetse flies. Many symbiotic relationships are obligate; neither the bacterium nor its host can live without the other. Wernegreen's group focused on the bacterium Blochmannia , which ...Researchers find Amchitka seafood safe for now
...s found clear evidence that the likely path to the sea of any nuclear material that leaves the cavities created by the nuclear test shots will travel more slowly than previously thought. Challenge for the Future Vanderbilt's David Kosson drew an implication from the geophysical work he coordinated fo...A giant sucking sound for sea turtles
...ot take this relentless pounding by the Nicaraguan sea turtle fishing industry," said WCS researcher Cath...e in Endangered Species, an estimated 11,000 green sea turtles are still harvested annually in Nicaragua for local consumption. WCS says that an annual qu...America's public forests landlocked by sea of development
...n wilderness, increasingly trapped by an expanding sea of new houses, a forestry researcher will report today at the 90th annual Ecological Society of America (ESA) meeting in Montreal, Canada. The widening circle of development around forests such as the Cleveland National Forest in Southern California ...Nitrogen in the air feeds the oceans
...t there was some nitrogen fixation occurring inthe sea with Trichodesmium," Capone said. "I don't think many people believed him at the time."...Environmental lessons from tsunami as world's coastal population doubles
... coastal disaster than man-made structures such as sea walls or artificial reefs. Globally 23 per cent of the world's population (1.2 billion people) live within 100 km of the coast and this figure is likely to increase to 50 per cent in the next twenty five years as people flock to coastal cities many......xtremely aggressive and could pose a great risk to sea animals, as disease is often caused by enzymes produced by bacteria." It is not yet clear to what extent these new vibrios affect marine animals in the wild. The next thrust of the work by Professor Austin and his team is to devise methods to minimiz...