The emergence of mutant frogs with extra arms and legs may smack of a low-budget sci-fi script. But it is a reality, and a new study provides more evidence that ultraviolet radiation could be responsible. The findings are reported in three consecutive papers in the July 1 print issue of Environmental Science & Technology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
Concern has been mounting for years over the depletion of the ozone
’Little shavers’ could prove key in nanoelectronics
They’re cute little shavers, and they could play a key role in the “small” revolution about us.
They’re boron nanowhiskers, the world’s first such crystalline nanowires, made by chemists at Washington University in St. Louis.
Reporting in the May 1 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), graduate student Carolyn Jones Otten, her advisor William. E. Buhro, Ph.D., Washin
Our pedigree has been revised. Our closest relatives–gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, gibbon apes, and baboons–have been joined by an animal whose appearance hardly resembles that of humans: the Dermoptera or the flying lemur.
Flying lemurs live in Southeast Asia. The largest species can be 75 cm tall. This animal can glide between trees thanks to skin stretched between the front and back legs.
This discovery was made by a research team headed by Professor Ulfur Arnason at Lund
Were the first macromolecules created on a primitive beach?
In order for life to emerge both peptides and nucleic acids must have appeared under “prebiotic” conditions. Despite numerous efforts, the formation of these macromolecules without the help of modern synthetic reagents has not been achieved in a laboratory. Now for the first time researchers have proposed a mechanism by which the formation of peptides could have occurred under prebiotic conditions. Reporting their findings in
A WCS scientist working in southeastern Tanzania has rediscovered a carnivore that has remained undetected for the last 70 years. Photographed by a camera trap on the eastern side of Udzungwa Mountain National Park, the Lowe’s servaline genet – a three-foot-long relative of the mongoose family – was previously known only from a single skin collected in 1932.
“This is the first ever photograph of Lowe’s servaline genet and confirms the animal’s existence after seventy years,”
New Findings Reveal That The Regulation Of Gene Expression Is Much Less Strictly Controlled Than Was Previously Thought
The inaugural issue of Journal of Biology features groundbreaking research that challenges the traditional view of how genes are controlled. Our current understanding of gene expression, the fundamental process by which proteins are made from the instructions encoded in DNA, is that the process is tightly controlled so that the correct amount of each protein is prod
‘Golden approach’ human proteine classification
Proteomics on a chip
Knowledge of the human proteome may provide us with even more insight than knowledge of DNA. This ‘protein blueprint’ of a human contains valuable information about cell properties and disease causes. A single cell, however, already consists of several thousands of proteines. To be able to classify them, dr. Richard Schasfoort of the University of Twente is developing a special chip, able to make hundreds or tho
João Pedro Magalhães, researcher in the Biology of Aging, suggests, in work published in the June edition of the magazine “Experimental Gerontology” and entitled “The evolution of mammalian aging”, that the study of certain species of reptiles and amphibians that apparently do not age could lead to discoveries about aging.
For this Portuguese scientist the secret of eternal youth could be in the relationship, already scientifically shown, between the size and longevity of different species
Finding may help explain related conditions in people
Inactivating just one of more than two dozen similar genes can cause temporary but profound hair loss, known as alopecia, in mice, researchers from Johns Hopkins and the Pasteur Institute in France report in the June issue of Genes & Development.
Surprisingly, the impact of loss of this keratin 17 gene (K17) depended on an animal’s genetic make-up: its loss caused no effect in one strain of mice and complete alopecia in an
New research distinguishes between learning physical skills and brain activity associated with performing those skills
A new study from the Department of Veterans Affairs suggests that the brain’s coordination center is not active while we learn new motor skills – but it is active while we use them. The findings appear in the June 14 issue of Science.
Investigators concentrated on the cerebellum — a part of the brain closely linked to movement (motor skills) and coordinatio
Like the glitter and glare of Las Vegas beckoning tourists to the gambling tables, the orb-weaving spiny spider flashes its colorful back to lure unsuspecting quarry into its web. The discovery of this lethal use of color runs contrary to the long-held belief that in the animal kingdom color is used generally to attract mates rather than to entice prey, says a Cornell University animal behavior researcher
“Attraction is all casinos are about. They lure you; they want to get you there. They
Stem cells have enormous potential for repairing damage to the body caused by disease, injury, or aging. When introduced into an injured area of a patient, a stem cell could survive and repopulate the region with different types of cells, forming normal tissue.
Stem cells also offer the prospect of treating many inherited diseases caused by a single, defective gene. Though other treatments are available, such as gene therapy, the longevity of benefits from stem cell treatment provides a tant
A substance produced by tomatoes repels mosquitoes and other insects more effectively and is safer than DEET, the chemical most commonly used in insect repellents, a North Carolina State University scientist has discovered.
Indeed, work by Dr. Michael Roe, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Entomology at NC State, showed that the natural compound found in tomatoes is so effective at repelling insects that the university patented the substance. The patent describes how the subs
Finding has implications for future of biodiversity
A significant number of organisms that survived the five greatest mass extinctions in Earth’s history subsequently failed to achieve evolutionary success, according to a new study funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and conducted by University of Chicago scientist David Jablonski.
“It’s clear that there is a lot of evolutionary action in the aftermath of mass extinctions,” said Jablonski. “During the re
Along with Canadian colleagues, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientist has discovered fossils of plants dating back some 420 million years.
The discovery, made on Bathurst Island in the Northwest Territories about 800 miles from the North Pole, shows vascular plants were more complex at that time than paleontologists previously believed and is significant for that reason, the UNC researcher said.
“These are not the earliest vascular plants ever found, but they are
Consider the plight of the lonely nene goose: Fated to occupy just one island in all the world; reduced in numbers to fewer than 30 individuals by the middle of the last century; each bird as closely related to the others as human siblings.
What caused the narrowing of the nenes’ circumstances to the point of near-extinction? Was the isolation of island living to blame for draining their gene pool to a puddle, or was it caused by the 20th century population decline? How did they surviv
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