ACS News Service Weekly PressPac -- August 23, 2006
...ter startup, until the engine and other components warm and become more efficient. The system would add about five pounds to a car's weight and less than $100 to its cost when in full production, the researchers estimate. The new tests show that OBDS reduced cranking fuel requirements by 70 percent, incre...Insect predation sheds light on food web recovery after the dinosaur extinction
...nstable. At Castle Rock, plants flourished in the warm wet climate and without insect predatory pressure -- possibly because their rainforest-type leaves were already thick, tough, and hard to eat -- plant species proliferated and thrived for a short time. At Mexican Hat, 16 species of mostly thin-leaved...Why piglets shudder to keep warm
...in the evolution of pigs, in which they lived in a warm climate, says Leif Andersson, who directs the research team. The ancestor of the domesticated pig, the wild boar, is the only pig that lives in cold climates. All other species inhabit tropical or subtropical climates. The wild boar has compensated...Breaks in hibernation help fight bugs
...d supplies are low and the need for energy to stay warm is high. The immune system is in sleep mode as wel... temperature. Most bacteria grow faster when it is warm and much slower when it is cold. For animals exposed to Salmonella, which multiplies rapidly in warm...When the going gets tough, slime molds start synthesizing
...ar slug-like creature that locomotes en masse to a warm spot. There, in response to the DIF-1 signal, slugs literally stand up and their cells metamorphose into either a column of stalk cells or next-generation spore cells, which perch atop the column waiting for food supplies to be restored. Noel and M...Ancient Arctic water cycles are red flags to future global warming
... familiar with the rain and storms that occur when warm air masses meet cool northern fronts. During the P... not too difficult to push the climate system to a warm state. If you work out the numbers, it's almost identical to what we are expected to do over the nex...Genetic snooze button governs timing of spring flowers
...mber of days of cold to ensure that any subsequent warm weather actually indicates that spring has arrived," Amasino says. The Wisconsin team led by Amasino has worked out much of the process of vernalization, and their hope is to add to knowledge of other cold-regulated processes such as the regulation o...Snakes' virtual glasses, leopard spots and all-optical transistors
...are sensitive to the infrared radiation emitted by warm prey such as rats, rabbits, and Samuel L. Jackson. An optical analysis of pit organs suggests that snakes shouldn't be able to use the organ to track prey very well because the pit aperture is large and the organ is not very deep. However, studies ha...Current technology for brain cooling unlikely to help trauma patients
...e shielding effect, created by large quantities of warm blood that continually perfuse brain tissue, prevents a drop in temperatures around the head from penetrating beyond a certain depth in the brain. Many ongoing clinical trials try to reduce brain temperatures through cooling units incorporated into...Thieves promote stable coexistence among desert rodents
The warm deserts of North America are hopping with multiple species of kangaroo rats and pocket mice despite limited seed resources. Why doesn't one species win out in the rat race? Ecologist Mary Price (University of California, Riverside and University of A...Deadly cone snails liven up Philadelphia Shell Show, Oct. 7-8
...han 500 species of cone snails, which are found in warm seas worldwide. Each species produces many different venoms, most of which are not harmful to humans....Large dinosaurs were extremely hot in their day, UF study finds
...lude that many of the larger dinosaurs were indeed warm reptiles," said Frank Seebacher, Ph.D., of the Sch...olic heat to keep warm; in other words, if we were warm reptile-like ectotherms, we would save a lot of money on the grocery bill." In the meantime, the r...Math and fossils resolve a debate on dinosaur metabolism
...dinosaurs, like mammals and birds, might have been warm blooded (endotherms). Still others argued that while most dinosaurs had a metabolism similar to contemporary reptiles, the large dinosaurs managed a higher, more-constant body temperature through thermal inertia, which is how modern alligators, Galap...More large forest fires linked to climate change
...he fire season is the temperature. When you have a warm spring and early summer, you get rapid snowmelt," ...heric CO2. Additional carbon dioxide could further warm the climate and exacerbate the fire problem. Swetnam was initially skeptical that climate was dri...Report warns about carbon dioxide threats to marine life
...Langdon says. Mass bleaching occurs when unusually warm temperatures cause the coral to expel the colorful microscopic algae that provide the coral polyps with food. Many calcifying organisms--including marine plankton such as pteropods, a planktonic marine snail--are affected by the chemistry changes. ...Personality and parents' alcoholism interact to influence a person's risk of becoming an alcoholic
...ring, whereas others decrease this risk, such as warm parent-child relationships and certain forms of the alcohol dehydrogenase gene. This study suggests that an individual's personality influences how he or she responds to familial liability to alcoholism." Researchers analyzed data gathered as part o...Slow-frozen people? Latest research supports possibility of cryopreservation
...could, by slow cooling/warming, supercool and then warm the cells without the crystallization of water then the cells would be undamaged."...Primates take weather into account when searching for fruits
...ich they had found fruit before) after a period of warm and sunny days than after a period of cold and cloudy days. Temperature and solar radiation are known to accelerate maturation of fruits and insect larvae inside them. The researchers were able to show that past weather conditions--as opposed to sens...Biological diversity and human health; Rapid autopsy program; Snake bites and more
...e University of Pittsburgh, say they established a warm autopsy program (also called a rapid autopsy) afte...e to be useful for research, and so setting up the warm autopsy program involved some logistical hurdles. Warm autopsy programs have been around for over...Patient's generosity after death leads to possible clues for lung disease
... recovered shortly after death in a process called warm autopsy, is described by University of Pittsburgh ..., some may not get a biopsy at all." But thanks to warm autopsy donors, tissue studied soon after death can be compared to tissue collected at biopsy usual...