By applying new mathematical techniques to river ecology, a University of Maryland biology professor has found that removing dams to reconnect rivers in a watershed like Oregon’s Willamette River could result in significant wildlife habitat restoration benefits at a comparatively small economic cost.
William Fagan, associate professor of biology at the University of Maryland, presented his findings at the Society for Conservation Biology’s Annual meeting, last week at Colum
Findings: UCLA researchers for the first time identified and then stopped a type of adult stem cell from migrating to the lung and contributing to pulmonary fibrosis in an animal model. Pulmonary fibrosis (i.e, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis) in humans is a devastating terminal disorder that causes an overabundance of scar tissue to form in the lung.
Impact: The new study may offer novel therapies to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis– currently there are no effective treatments and the m
Symposium 5: Fighting the Odds: The Challenge to Save the Sagebrush Biome will be held in Oregon Ballroom 203 on Tuesday, August 3, 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM at the Oregon Convention Center
The sagebrush biome covers forty million hectares of the American West. Shaped by climate, fire, floods and volcanic eruptions since the Pleistocene era, the sagebrush biome now faces the impacts of increased cultivation, urbanization, exotic plant species, and altered fire patterns. In a session to be
New in town and don’t know a soul! An evening free, but no idea where to go. What do you do? According to CATCH-2004, you consult one of their interactive systems for the information you need in your native language, and go straight to your preferred venue!
Working prototypes in Athens, Cologne and Helsinki
The CATCH 2004 IST project aimed to provide EU citizens with interactive, multilingual and multimode access to a wide range of information services and systems, offered
Nature can reset the clock in certain types of cancer and reverse many of the elements responsible for causing malignancy, reports a research team led by Whitehead Institute Member Rudolf Jaenisch, in collaboration with Lynda Chin from Dana Farber Cancer Institute. The team demonstrated this by successfully cloning mice from an advanced melanoma cell.
“This settles a principal biological question,” says Jaenisch, who also is a professor of biology at MIT. “The epigenetic elements of cancer
The weird behavior of electrons tunneling across an atomically flat interface within a cuprate superconductor has defied explanation by theories of high-temperature superconductivity.
As will be reported in the journal Physical Review Letters, a team of scientists led by physics professor James Eckstein at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has found a large particle-hole asymmetry in the density of states of excitations in high-temperature superconducting tunnel junctio
Scientists have developed a new screening technique to help them look for genes that change patients’ responses to cancer drugs and other medications.
Researchers looking for such connections confront an enormous hunting ground of approximately 33,000 human genes. Normally their only options for mounting a search in such a vast field are either to rely on anecdotal reports of dramatically altered patient reactions, or to conduct extensive surveys of the genes for all the proteins kn
Love them or hate them, pocket gophers have an important effect on the soil and plants where they live. They serve as small “ecosystem engineers” generating major impacts on the physical environment.
Jim Reichman, director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at UC Santa Barbara, will present findings on North American pocket gophers, entitled “Bioturbation by subterranean mammalian herbivores and its impact on ecosystems,” at the annual meeting of th
In a new study, NASA and United States Geological Survey (USGS) scientists found that retreating glaciers in southern Alaska may be opening the way for future earthquakes.
The study examined the likelihood of increased earthquake activity in southern Alaska as a result of rapidly melting glaciers. As glaciers melt they lighten the load on the Earth’s crust. Tectonic plates, that are mobile pieces of the Earth’s crust, can then move more freely. The study appears in the July issue
A nanocrystalline metal is one whose average grain size is measured in billionths of a meter, much smaller than in most ordinary metals. As the grain size of a metal shrinks, it can become many times stronger, but it also usually loses ductility. To take advantage of increasing strength with decreasing grain size, researchers must first understand a fundamental problem: by what processes do nanosized crystals of metal stretch, bend, or otherwise deform under strain?
A team of re
Findings point to possible therapy for chronic symptoms of diabetes
Cardiovascular ailments related to kidney diseases possibly can be avoided by blocking a newly identified enzyme that, in excess amounts, raises blood cholesterol levels and promotes arteriosclerosis, according to a UC Irvine College of Medicine study.
In a study on rats, Dr. Nick Vaziri found that controlling levels of ACAT, an enzyme that plays a critical role in cholesterol processing, improved both kid
Virginia Tech has a second Amorphophallus titanum, or “corpse plant,” ready to bloom and emit its intensely powerful stench. People are invited to tie bandanas over their noses and come see the rare and unusual plant.
The horticulture greenhouse containing the plant is open to visitors Monday through Friday, July 26-30, and August 2-6, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The likely date for the plant to bloom is Wednesday, Aug. 4, said Scott Rapier, greenhouse manager in the Department of Horticul
Metabolism is regulated by a host of tiny proteins in the hypothalamus, the small segment of the brain controlling hunger. But those peptides can’t perform their fat-fighting function without the aid of PC1 and PC2 enzymes, according to new Brown University research.
Led by Brown Medical School professor and Rhode Island Hospital investigator Eduardo Nillni, the team found that PC1 and PC2 chop up the precursor of thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH), a process that sets the mole
On the evidence to date, our solar system could be fundamentally different from the majority of planetary systems around stars because it formed in a different way. If that is the case, Earth-like planets will be very rare. After examining the properties of the 100 or so known extrasolar planetary systems and assessing two ways in which planets could form, Dr Martin Beer and Professor Andrew King of the University of Leicester, Dr Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute and Dr Jim Prin
Yesterday, August 2nd 2004, particle physicists from the UK and around the world working on the BABAR experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in the USA, announced exciting new results demonstrating a dramatic difference in the behaviour of matter and antimatter. Their discovery may help to explain why the Universe we live in is dominated by matter, rather than containing equal parts matter and anti-matter.
SLAC’s PEP-II accelerator collides electrons and their ant
Pregnant women may be volunteering to participate in HIV research without fully understanding the benefits or consequences, according to a study published today in BMC Medicine. Volunteers’ comprehension of studies or treatments should be tested to ensure that their consent is truly informed and voluntary, say the study’s authors.
International regulations for ethical conduct of research require that volunteers are presented with detailed scientific and legal information before consenting
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