How monarch butterflies are wired for navigation
...utterflies are known to use the angle of polarized sunlight as a celestial guide to help them keep to a straight and true path southward. But details of their navigational machinery have remained a mystery. Now, researchers, led by Steven Reppert of University of Massachusetts Medical School, Ivo Sauman of th...As world warms, vegetation changes may influence extreme weather
... to the idea that interactions among land, air and sunlight are more complex than we might imagine. "Earth's climate is all about relationships, and this study shows that ground cover plays a significant part in determining changes in climate extremes," said Diffenbaugh, who is an assistant professor of earth...Season of birth influences age of menopause, say Italian researchers
...hat modifications of environmental temperature and sunlight may influence foetal growth and therefore future reproductive capabilities; seasonally linked diet modifications or exposure to infections were other possibilities. Before conception, seasonal environmental factors influencing ooctye maturation may c...Atmosphere may cleanse itself better than previously thought
...turally occurring atmospheric chemicals react with sunlight more effectively than previously thought to produc...oplets in clouds absorb them and rain them out, or sunlight strikes them and the energy breaks the molecules apart. "The third way is the one we are concerned w...News tips: NASA presentations at Annual 2005 Joint Assembly Meeting
... and details of these waves and others observed in sunlight reflected from the ocean surface off the eastern coast of Sri Lanka will be discussed.Time/Location: Friday, May 27 at 12:15 p.m. EDT (11:15 a.m. local CDT), Room 243 Presenters: Michael J. Garay, David J. Diner, Jeffrey R. Hall, Eric M. DeJong, NASA...New research provides evidence that Rh proteins act as CO2 gas channels
...onments with high concentrations of CO2. Algae use sunlight energy to capture CO2 by photosynthesis. Kustu and other researchers had previously shown that expression of the Rh gene in C. reinhardtii was high for cells grown in air supplemented with 3 percent CO2, about 100 times the concentration normally fou...Space measurements of carbon offer clearer view of Earth's climate future
...hich take the spectral 'fingerprints' of reflected sunlight to measure carbon dioxide concentrations down to a 1% accuracy around four parts per million molecules of air. On the ESA side, the Agency is considering proposals for science missions studying various aspects of the carbon cycle as part of the new...Exposure to sunlight may decrease risk of prostate cancer
...a research team from three cancer centers measured sunlight exposure in men and found that increased exposure to sunlight may decrease the risk of prostate cancer. Reporting in the June 15 issue of Cancer Research, the res...Insects develop resistance to engineered crops
...ile Bt toxin sprayed on leaves quickly degrades in sunlight and often does not reach the insect, genetically modified (GM) Bt plants express the bacterium in the plant tissue, which makes Bt plants especially effective against insects that bore into stems, such as the European corn borer, which causes more th...Researchers find evidence of photosynthesis deep within the ocean
...irst photosynthetic organism that doesn't live off sunlight but from the dim light coming from hydrothermal vents nearly 2,400 meters (7,875 feet) deep in the ocean. The discovery of the green sulfur bacteria living near hydrothermal vents off the coast of Mexico has significant implications for the resilien...Expanding forests darken the outlook for butterflies, study shows
...e two things that they can easily find in meadows: sunlight and stone crop. Butterflies need sunlight to elevate their body temperatures in order to fly, and forests are generally too shady for them to ...Light-sensing protein illuminates sun-loving ocean bacteria
...is uniquely suited to capturing the high-radiation sunlight that illuminates the sea. Through the use of meta-genomic analysis, the authors also observed great diversity among proteorhodopsin genes. Estimating the average size of the bacterial genome led Beja and colleagues to the conclusion that about 13...Don Quixote's home shows way to future Earth Observation missions
...hotosynthesis, the process by which plants convert sunlight into energy. When the chlorophyll in plants absorbs energy then some is re-emitted at longer wavelengths as fluorescence. This fluorescence is routinely measured in laboratories to study photosynthetic activity but the signal is very weak compared to......orris studies photosynthesis, in which energy from sunlight is converted into electrochemical energy, a process with many parallels to vision. To study the early steps, he uses a tool called electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR). EPR is similar to magnetic resonance imaging except that it measures the spin ...Earth from space: bloom in the Baltic
...ophyll for photosynthesis - the process of turning sunlight into chemical energy. While individually microscop... phytoplankton are sensitive not just to available sunlight but also to local environmental variations such as nutrient levels, temperature, currents and winds....Microbe has huge role in ocean life, carbon cycle
...tosynthesis is a process used by plants to convert sunlight energy into organic molecules, creating the foundation of the food chain and producing oxygen. About half of photosynthesis and the resulting oxygen on Earth are produced by algae in the ocean, and microbes like SAR11 recycle organic carbon - produci...New look at DNA hints at origin of ultraviolet damage
... State University have gained new insight into how sunlight affects DNA. And what they found overturns ideas a...suspect is happening during the UV energy wave: as sunlight warms our skin, UV photons are absorbed by the bases, causing their electrons to vibrate. These high...Climate model links higher temperatures to prehistoric extinction
...mical composition of the atmosphere, the amount of sunlight reflected by Earth's surface back into the atmosphere, and the movement of heat and salinity in the oceans at a time when all the continents were consolidated into the giant land mass known as Pangaea. "These results demonstrate the importance of tre...Scientists get first glimpse at how plants, most animals repair UV-damaged DNA
...nzyme harnesses energy from the visible portion of sunlight to repair UV damage in plants and animals with 90 percent efficiency. "Unfortunately, during evolution, mammals lost this enzyme," said Zhong. "So we humans have more of a chance of getting skin cancer than an insect or a frog." Scientists would like...Researcher: Toxic flood lifts lid on common urban pollution problem
...o support life. Particulates cloud water, reducing sunlight penetration and plant growth. Once they cross a certain threshold, organic chemicals and metals also can be harmful to people. New Orleans officials remain extremely concerned about bacterial contamination in the flood waters. Typically the result of...