A paper in this week’s journal Nature, building on radically new ecological theory by University of Georgia professor Stephen Hubbell, challenges half-century-old ideas about how natural plant and animal communities are put together.
The paper in Nature includes research by physicists Jayanth Banavar and Igor Volkov of Penn State University and Amos Maritan of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, along with Hubbell.
Conventional ecological theory s
As scientists shrink materials down to the nanometer scale, creating nanodots, nanoparticles, nanorods and nanotubes a few tens of atoms across, they’ve found weird and puzzling behaviors that have fired their imaginations and promised many unforeseen applications.
Now University of California, Berkeley, scientists have found another unusual effect that could have both good and bad implications for semiconductor devices once they’ve been shrunk to the nanometer scale.
Th
Finding that an abnormally active Bcl10 gene drives B cells to become cancerous suggests blocking the gene would be an effective treatment for MALT lymphoma
A gene that is crucial to the development and function of an entire family of immune cells is also key to understanding why one member of that family can become cancerous. Investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Blood Research Institute at the Blood Center of Southeastern Wisconsin, Milwaukee, reported
Global warming isn’t what it used to be.
“Some people will tell you that the planet has warmed in the past and that species always managed to adapt, so there’s no cause for alarm. Unfortunately that’s not the case,” said Johannes Foufopoulos, assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment. Foufopoulos says new research illustrates major differences between global warming today and past natural climate fluctuations as they relate to spec
What caused the worst mass extinction in Earth’s history 251 million years ago? An asteroid or comet colliding with Earth? A greenhouse effect? Volcanic eruptions in Siberia? Or an entirely different culprit? A Northwestern University chemical engineer believes the culprit may be an enormous explosion of methane (natural gas) erupting from the ocean depths.
In an article published in the September issue of Geology, Gregory Ryskin, associate professor of chemical engineering, suggests t
Chemists and computer scientists are using a special facility at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to scale molecules up for people-sized interactions. Using chemical data, NIST software, special eyewear, and floor-to-ceiling display screens, they create giant three-dimensional molecules that move. Molecular behavior can be seen and understood in minutes instead of the weeks required using traditional techniques.
NIST scientists and collaborators used the 3D facility
The concentration of certain toxic organic chemicals in waterway sediments can be reduced by 83 percent using electron beams—the same technology already used to decontaminate mail—scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland will report in the Sept. 1 issue of Environmental Science & Technology. In an additional series of laboratory experiments, the team found that ultraviolet light also can substantially reduce the concentration of these ch
Get a whiff of this! A new research partnership at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is using beams of chilled neutrons to determine how aroma compounds are embedded into assortments of other chemicals that carry and release fragrances in perfumes, detergents and other scented products.
Securing the elusive structural details could lead to what might be termed an “odor of magnitude” improvement in models for predicting interactions between fragrances and their molecul
A gene present in nearly one in eight people is the most commonly inherited cancer susceptibility gene identified so far, increasing cancer risk in carriers by 26 percent, according to a study published by researchers at Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital in today’s Journal of Clinical Oncology. More common than the BRCA gene mutations, Transforming Growth Factor Beta Receptor 1*6A (TGFBR1*6A) may increase risk of breast cancer by 48 percent, ovarian cancer by 53 percent, and colon ca
Scientists are a step closer to understanding how the world’s oceans influence global warming – as well supply us with the oxygen we breathe.
A study led by Imperial College London has revealed how the most abundant ocean bound photosynthetic bacterium helps control levels of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.
Reporting in Nature the researchers provide new detail on how Prochlorococcus cyanobacteria traps atmospheric carbon dioxide and stores it in the deep sea.
Wo
Scientists have successfully produced the most efficient light bulb ever – but on the microscopic scale. Researchers at Trinity College, Dublin have discovered a technique which significantly improves the output of light from quantum dots, and also allows their light to be focussed and manipulated easily. Their findings are published today in the Institute of Physics journal Semiconductor Science and Technology.
Dr Yuri Rakovich and Dr John Donegan from Trinity College, Dublin working with
The Internet and the mail proved to be good aids in tracing chlamydia among young men. The results of an acclaimed project at Umeå University in Sweden are now being published in the September issue of the journal Eurosurveillance. With this method, 39 percent (396 of 1,016 interviewees), which is the highest published participation rate ever in a chlamydia screening of young men.
The project, being run by the researching general practitioner Daniel Novak together with his thesis director Ro
The Energy and Biodiversity Initiative (EBI), a partnership of four energy companies and five conservation organizations, release collaborative report, Energy and Biodiversity: Integrating Biodiversity Conservation into Oil and Gas Development
The Energy and Biodiversity Initiative (EBI), a partnership of four energy companies and five conservation organizations, released its collaborative report, “Energy and Biodiversity: Integrating Biodiversity Conservation into Oil and Gas Develop
Three Johns Hopkins researchers propose, for the first time, that HIV and other retroviruses can use a Trojan horse style of infection, taking advantage of a cloak of human proteins to sneak into cells.
The hypothesis explains 20 years of perplexing observations and suggests new ways to reduce HIV transmission and treat HIV infection, but it also implies that existing approaches to developing vaccines against HIV won’t work. A description of the hypothesis and its supporting evidence a
11.8T HP supercomputer with Intel Itanium2 processors running Linux reaches full operations.
The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is now home to the United States’ fastest operational unclassified supercomputer. The laboratory’s 11.8 teraflops industry-standard HP Integrity system came to full operating power this week, marking the next advance in high-performance computing designed to enable new insights in the environmental and molecular sciences, includ
Australian scientists have produced a new high-speed welding technology that slashes hours from traditional joining of corrosion-resistant metals.
The Keyhole Welding process has been developed jointly by the Cooperative Research Centre for Welded Structures and CSIRO Elaborately Transformed Metals at Woodville in Adelaide, South Australia.
CSIRO’s Dr Ted Summerville says, ’This is a breakthrough, high-quality solution to the limited penetration of conventional TIG welding’.
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