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Impact of Climate Change on Oceans Little Known, Scientists Warn

Stefan Lovgren — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:36:57 -0800

WHY IT MATTERS: Elvira Poloczanska at the Australia-based Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization says oceans cover 70 percent of the planet, but studying them is often very expensive.

Wikipedia

Oceans cover 70 percent of the Earth's surface

Although many researchers agree that aquatic systems are extremely vulnerable to climate change, marine research is severely under-resourced when compared to research being done on land.

Scientists say this shortfall of aquatic research and documentation is due to many factors, including the distribution of global science funding, the difficulty of understanding poorly sampled aquatic systems, the way marine ecologists report research findings, and limitations in the existing Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) process.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Linked to Neurosignal Imbalance

Stefan Lovgren — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:09:07 -0800

WHY IT MATTERS: Cornelius Gross of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Monterotondo, Italy, and his colleagues have developed a mouse model of the so-called crib death, which remains the leading cause of death during the first year of life in developed countries.

Image courtesy of John Wood/Square Pixels

Image of an abnormal mouse brainstem with graphs of the mouse's body temperature and heart rate overlayed.

Too much activity from a brain receptor that regulates the hormone serotonin can cause sporadic death in developing mice with features reminiscent of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in humans, researchers say.

Scientists Identify Genes Involved in Autism

Stefan Lovgren — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:32:01 -0800

WHY IT MATTERS: Christopher Walsh, chief of genetics at Children's Hospital Boston, says the study represents the first use of a genetic technique that may ultimately help researchers identify risk factors for autism.

Wikipedia

Repetitively stacking or lining objects may indicate autism

Research involving large Middle Eastern families, sophisticated genetic analysis and groundbreaking neuroscience has implicated a half-dozen new genes in autism.

The study strongly supports the emerging idea that autism stems from disruptions in the brain's ability to form new connections in response to experience – consistent with autism's onset during the first year of life, when many of these connections are normally made.

New Space Mission Sheds Light on Mercury's Murky Past

Stefan Lovgren — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:20:25 -0800

WHY IT MATTERS: S.C. Solomon at Carnegie Institution of Washington says the new insights will help scientists link Mercury's surface evolution to its interior history and to compare the planet with the geologic histories of the Earth, Venus, the Moon, and Mars.

NASA/Johns Hopkins University/Carnegie

This kidney-shaped volcanic vent on Mercury is evidence that the planet's surface was formed by volcanic activity early in the planet's history.

Relatively little is known about Mercury, the innermost of the four terrestrial planets in our solar system. In 1975 the Mariner 10 spacecraft returned intriguing images that showed smooth plains covering large swaths of Mercury's surface. But scientists could not determine whether the plains had been created by volcanic activity or by material ejected from below the surface when objects had collided into it. Thus, they could not reach a consensus over Mercury's geologic past. The new MESSENGER space mission has found evidence of past volcanic activity.

Mystery of Star's Violent Destruction Solved

charlie — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:30:38 -0700

WHY IT MATTERS: Study author Oliver Krause of the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, says the findings may help astrophysicists reconstruct the history of events in our galaxy.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

This false-color picture shows the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A.

Scientists have analyzed a "light echo" from the original explosion of Cassiopeia A, the youngest known supernova in our own Milky Way galaxy.

The explosion occurred around 1680 -- just yesterday, in stellar terms.

The scientists observed an infrared spectrum of radiation that suggests Cassiopeia A was a type IIb supernova and was birthed from the collapse of a red supergiant star.

Monogamy Key to Evolution in Insects, Study Shows

Stefan Lovgren — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:02:48 -0700

WHY IT MATTERS: Bill Hughes of the University of Leeds in England says the findings help explain natural selection in insects.

Courtesy of FLW Ratnieks

A nest of Polistes wasps from Brazil, in which females are monogamous.

Many bees, ants and wasps live together in highly cooperative societies primarily because this lifestyle offers a good way of passing down the family genes, not because it makes their own lives easier, new research suggests.

Scientists compared the mating behavior of females in 267 species of bees, wasps, and ants. They found that in the older species, females were always monogamous.

This finding supports the idea that monogamy - and, by extension, a high level of relatedness -- was key to the evolution of eusociality (many animals live together as a group without necessarily being social).

Mice Research May Help Travelers Recover From Jet Lag

Stefan Lovgren — Wed, 28 May 2008 21:28:07 -0700

WHY IT MATTERS: Clifford Saper of the Harvard Medical School says adjusting meal times can help travelers recover from jet lag.

How to beat jet lag: don't eat, researchers suggest.

In addition to the light-driven circadian clock that regulates the body in response to changes in night and day, the mouse brain contains a second, separate clock that keeps track of mealtime, scientists say.

This clock, which resides in a different brain structure than the light-driven clock, probably takes over when food is scarce, changing the animals' behavior patterns so that they don't sleep through an opportunity to eat.

Pure Silica Discovered on Mars Suggests Ancient Life

Stefan Lovgren — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:41:16 -0700

WHY IT MATTERS: Cornell University's Steve Squyres, the principal investigator for NASA's Mars Rovers mission, says the silica finding turns a spotlight on an important site that may contain preserved traces of ancient Martian life.

NASA

A Martian sunset at Gusev Crater photographed by the Spirit rover

NASA's Spirit rover has detected silica-rich deposits on Mars, researchers reported in a study that provides the data and analysis underlying this discovery.

Extensive deposits of nearly pure silica – either as quartz or opal – are typically signs of geochemical processes that involve water.

The findings lend support to the idea that relatively large amounts of liquid water once existed on Mars.

Shorebirds Defy Gravity to Eat

Stefan Lovgren — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:02:03 -0700

MIT Professor John Bush says shorebirds relying on this method of feeding may be more vulnerable to oil spills.

A particular type of shorebird (Phalarope) exploits the physical properties of water to transport water droplets to its mouth and feed on the tiny creatures contained within, researchers say.

Because of the shape of its beak, the bird cannot suck the water all the way up to its mouth. What it does instead is quickly open and close its beak many times like a pair of tweezers, and the water actually moves up the long beak — against the pull of gravity — and all the way to the phalarope's mouth.

This action is made possible because of something called "surface tension." It is the first time that scientists have documented this particular way of eating.

Climbing as Easy as Walking for Smaller Primates

Stefan Lovgren — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:10:53 -0700

Biological anthropologist Jandy Hanna says the study may support theories that the earliest primates were small, arboreal animals that eventually enjoyed a suite of advantages by adapting to live in trees.

Small primates like squirrel monkeys and lemurs expend no more energy climbing than they do walking, according to a new study.

On the other hand, the energy required for a primate to walk in a straight line actually decreases as the primate's size increases, which implies that it makes more sense for larger primates to stay on the ground while, metabolically, it does not matter if smaller primates walk or climb.

The findings may explain the evolutionary edge that encouraged the tiny ancestors of modern humans, apes and monkeys to climb into the trees about 65 million years ago and stay there.

For their experiment, researchers designed and built a novel climbing treadmill -- essentially a loop of rope around two pulleys -- to measure the animals' efforts. As the animals moved at their highest sustainable speed, sensors measured oxygen level changes within a chamber to derive the primates' energy consumption.