Researchers to study why dead zone returned to Lake Erie
...d by bacteria, which consumes oxygen. The second theory is that the zebra mussels may shunt the oxygen-consuming organic matter from the near shore to the bottom waters. In the third scenario, global warming has caused the layer of bottom water to become thinner, with less oxygen. The dead zone materiali...Towards predicting late-stage radiation toxicity
... patients develop late radiation toxicity, but one theory is that some patients have a genetic predisposition. Giphart-Gassler and colleagues tested this by comparing radiation-induced changes in the gene expression profiles in blood cells from 21 patients who had late radiation toxicity after radiotherapy ...Modeling alien invasions: Plasticity may hold the key to prevention
... Peacor, Mercedes Pascual, and colleagues derive a theory to probe the factors underlying a successful invasion, and help to explain how some exotic species become invasive and others don't. The authors hypothesized that when a flexible, adaptive response to environmental variation (called phenotypic plas...New study warns against linking ethnic identity to breast cancer genes
...eticists interpreted Jewish history to support the theory of Ashkenazi genetic uniqueness. This interpretation views the historic Ashkenazi Jewish population as isolated, and as having undergone extreme expansions and contractions. It attributes Ashkenazi Jewish genetic uniqueness to "founder effects," th...Research discovers oldest bee, evolutionary link
...e features of both bees and wasps. It supports the theory that pollen-dependent bees evolved from their meat-eating predecessors, the wasps. "This is the oldest known bee we've ever been able to identify, and it shares some of the features of wasps," said George Poinar, a professor of zoology at OSU and in...Sweet yet sophisticated: Honey bee genome lends insight into sociality, sensation and sex
... chromosomes and, instead, propose an evolutionary theory to account for their findings. "The honey bee has a small breeding population because the queen is the only reproductive female in the colony," explains Beye. "The increased recombination rate boosts the genetic diversity in the honey bee populatio...Naturally occurring enzyme can break down key part of Alzheimer's plaques
...him to formulate a provocative but as yet unproven theory about an old mystery of Alzheimer's disease: why plaques continue to increase in number over time but only grow to a certain size. "Even though everything we know about the fibrils suggests they should constantly grow, plaques reach a mature size an...Study suggests evolutionary link between diet, brain size in orangutans
...dded. "This brings us closer to a good ecological theory of variation in brain size, and thus of the condit...ns steering cognitive evolution," he said. "Such a theory is vital for understanding what happened during human evolution, where, relative to our ancestors, o...A little of what you fancy does you no good
...y antagonistic pattern challenges sexual selection theory predictions that female costs of reproduction are offset by the indirect benefits of passing on good genes or generating sexy sons with high reproductive success. Many genes shaping sexual characteristics are likely affected by the conditions that...Carnegie Mellon uses new imaging technique to discover differences in brains of people with autism
...indings also provide supporting evidence for a new theory of autism that attributes the disorder to undercon... and his colleagues proposed the underconnectivity theory based on a groundbreaking study in which they discovered abnormalities in the white matter that sugg...Mass extinction's cause: 'Sick Earth'
...udent in Bottjer's lab, has been testing a leading theory for the P-T extinction: that a warming of the earth and a slowdown in ocean circulation made it harder to replace the oxygen sucked out of the water by marine organisms. According to the theory, microbes would have saturated the water with hydrogen s...West Australian fossil find rewrites land mammal evolution
...e in vertebrate evolution, rewriting a century-old theory on how the first land animals evolved. Monash University PhD students Mr Erich Fitzgerald and Mr Tim Holland were part of the research team, led by Museum Victoria's Head of Science Dr John Long, that made the spectacular discovery by studying a 38...Changing length of days reverses how estrogen affects aggressiveness in mice
...ggressive in summer. To investigate whether this theory was true, Nelson and Trainor conducted an experiment in which they injected mice with an estrogen-like drug which attaches almost exclusively to estrogen receptor alpha, to see how it would affect aggression. The results showed that the alpha recep...Harvesting machine driving mesquite-to-ethanol potential
...d collect the mesquite all in onemachine. "Our theory is that is too much for one machine to do," he said....16 outstanding researchers receive Singapore's highest honor in science and technology
...nals, such as Physical Review Letters, and the QIT theory group has become known as one of the strongest in the field. One highlight is the introduction of a new class of protocols for quantum key distribution for which the security analysis is based on the full knowledge of the properties of the quantum c...Giant insects might reign if only there was more oxygen in the air
...new study concludes. The study adds support to the theory that some insects were much larger during the late Paleozoic period because they had a much richer oxygen supply, said the study's lead author Alexander Kaiser. The study, "No giants today: tracheal oxygen supply to the legs limits beetle size,'' w...Children's Hospital Boston presents at the 2006 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference
...hildren's Hospital Boston, reviews the history and theory of acupuncture, reviews the mechanisms of and scientific evidence for its efficacy, and discusses its uses, such as reducing the need for narcotics after surgery, managing nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy, treating acute pain (such as sickle-cel...Longer-lived rodents have lower levels of thyroid hormone
...udy has found. The study further strengthens the theory that the faster an animal's metabolism, the shorter its life, and vice versa, said Mario Pinto, the study's lead author. The thyroid releases hormones that regulate metabolic rate. "Thyroid hormones are key regulators of metabolism and have been wi...Everybody dance: The energy you use won't shorten your life
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA (October 9, 2006) The theory that animals die when they've expended their lifet...longitudinal study leaves open a newer form of the theory -- that antioxidants help prolong life by limiting the damage that oxidative stress can cause to cel......e, findings that could change the oxidative stress theory of aging. The new study comparing the naked mole...he results fly in the face of the oxidative stress theory of aging, which holds that damage caused by oxidative stress is a significant contributor to the agi...