New study shows parasitic flatworms take destiny by the tail

In the research article “Larval swimming overpowers turbulent mixing and facilitates transmission of a marine parasite,” appearing in the September issue of the Ecological Society of America’s journal Ecology, Jonathan Fingerut of the University of California-Los Angeles and colleagues describe the results of the first study to examine larval behavior versus passive-transport processes under natural and simulated water

As U.S. consumers seek reassurance that their hamburgers and steaks are free of deadly mad cow disease, researchers at the University of California-San Francisco say they may have found a promising solution. They’ve developed a faster, more reliable test for identifying the disease, possibly even in living cows. Current tests can only detect the disease after the cow dies.

The test was described today at the 226th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s larg

Scientists are examining which genetic characteristics of rice best control the growth of a common weed.

The growth of rice (Oryza sativa L.) is of great agricultural importance but it is affected by the common weed, barnyardgrass (Echinochloa crus-galli). Scientists from the Department of Crop Science at Konkuk University examined the use of rice allelopathic potential for weed control.

A laboratory bioassay using water extracts was conducted to determine the alleopathic p

Purdue University researchers have discovered a faster, less expensive method to test the quality and purity of dietary supplement oils, such as flax seed, borage seed and grape seed oil, often touted as cures for many human maladies.

The research results are published in the September issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry and on the journal’s Web site.

“This study brings analytical chemistry, food science, nutritional sciences and consumer interest together,” sai

To do their jobs, water resource managers in the Columbia River Basin have mostly relied on data from sparsely located ground stations among the Cascade Mountains in the Pacific Northwest. But now, NASA and partnering agencies are going to provide United States Bureau of Reclamation water resource managers with high resolution satellite data, allowing them to analyze up-to-date water-related information over large areas all at once.

The pilot program is now underway with the Rio Grande and

European scientists are formulating conclusions for mine-water management right now

Next to mine waste, water contamination by mines poses a problem to which far less attention is paid to. Today and tomorrow the group of European scientists of the ERMITE project are gathered at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW). On this very moment, they formulate their guidelines for new European legislation and sustainable water management in mines. In November, the official meeting

Populations of fungi blanketed by Colorado’s snows are more active and diverse than previously thought, and are likely responsible for the productivity of the tundra ecosystem they are a part of, according to findings by scientists funded through the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) and Microbial Observatories programs. The researchers have published their results in this week’s issue of the journal Science.

Christopher Schadt, now of t

NASA’s improved global climate computer model, which simulates and projects how the Earth’s climate may change, indicates that the oceans have been absorbing heat since 1951 and will continue to absorb more heat from the atmosphere over the next 50 years. This increasing ocean heat storage suggests that global surface temperatures may warm less than previous studies projected, while the ocean acts as a bigger heat sponge. Further, such additional ocean heating would likely change regional c

Crystal ball gazing has long been part of what scientists do, whether it’s forecasting the weather or predicting long term climate change, but now researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) will be able to present people with highly realistic visions of what the future might look like and then ask them to vote on which one they prefer.

In a set up unique in the UK academic world, a state-of-the-art, purpose built virtual reality theatre has been installed at UEA, coupled to a ‘decisi

The University of Bradford and the Bolton Institute have been given more than £150,000 for a joint project to consider ways to recycle carpet waste into novel underlays.

Part of the funding, given to the University’s School of Engineering, Design and Technology, will be used will help investigate and test the characteristics of different materials.

The two-year project will utilise industrial carpet process waste resulting from edge cuts, mismatches and rejects to produce underlay

The ultrafine particles will flow underground and destroy toxic compounds in place

An ultrafine, “nanoscale” powder made from iron, one of the most abundant metals on Earth, is turning out to be a remarkably effective tool for cleaning up contaminated soil and groundwater-a trillion-dollar problem that encompasses more than 1000 still-untreated Superfund sites in the United States, some 150,000 underground storage tank releases, and a staggering number of landfills, abandoned mines

The use of antibiotics in animal feeds may soon be banned in the European Union. Despite positive effects on pig health and growth, there are growing concerns about bacterial resistance to antibiotics. This includes the risk of cross-resistance, with bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics used in human medicine.

In response to these concerns EUREKA project ANTIBIOTICS IN FEED has developed safe and healthy piglet feeds which are free from antibiotics. Crucially the new feeds can be qu

New agricultural crops stand a better chance of helping to fill the world’s bread baskets, says a University of Maine economist, if plant breeders take farmers’ needs into account early in the crop development process. A new research report by Timothy J. Dalton, assistant professor in the Dept. of Resource Economics and Policy, is one of the first to demonstrate farmers’ preferences using a quantitative approach.

Dalton’s research could help agricultural research organiz

The oldest ecological experiment in the world, set up almost 150 years ago to see whether inorganic fertilisers could produce more grass than traditional animal manures, is becoming an important source of evidence on the impact of climate change on genetic variation in plants.

Speaking at the British Ecological Society’s Annual Meeting, being held at Manchester Metropolitan University on 9-11 September 2003, Professor Jonathan Silvertown of the Open University will explain what the Park Gra

Harry Green comments on a paper in Nature

In a commentary in the Aug. 21 issue of Nature, Harry Green, Distinguished Professor of Geology and Geophysics in the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics and the department of earth sciences at UC Riverside, explains that two large, deep earthquakes (depth > 300 km below the surface of the earth) that occurred in Aug. 2002 in the Tonga subduction zone were causally related.

The Tonga subduction zone is approximately beneath

The core of the earth doesn’t look the way it was expected to. Scientists at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden , KTH, can now show that iron, under extremely high pressure, such as that found in the inner earth, takes on unexpected properties, and this can be of importance in understanding the movements of the earth, such as, earthquakes. The results are being presented in the new issue of the British scientific journal Nature.

The core of the earth consists almost excl