— Hogchoker - the new Internet star — A small flatfish living along the coast of North America is the…
— Cancer deaths are projected to double by 2030 — Cancer deaths are projected to double in the next two decades.…
More Boiling point…
— Entangled diamonds vibrate together — Objects big enough for the eye to see have been placed in a weirdly…
— How animals predict earthquakes — Animals may sense chemical changes in groundwater that occur…
— New Icelandic volcano eruption could have global impact — Hundreds of metres under one of Iceland's largest glaciers there…
More Minuscule…
Or subscribe for our Newsletter, a free e-mail publication. It is published practically every day.
News | All (Page 3920)
A clearer view on biology
— 5 Mar 2007 18:12 | BiologyThe European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) has developed a new computational tool that makes images obtained with cutting-edge microscopes even sharper. The technological advance and its applications are published in this weeks online issue of the journal Nature Methods…
Why do birds migrate?
— 5 Mar 2007 07:00 | BiologyWhy do some birds fly thousands of miles back and forth between breeding and non-breeding areas every year whereas others never travel at all? One textbook explanation suggests either eating fruit or living in non-forested environments were the precursors needed to evolve migratory behaviour. Not so, report a pair of ecologists from The University of Arizona in Tucson. The pressure to migrate comes from seasonal food scarcity…
Lessons in wood formation from Arabidopsis
— 5 Mar 2007 07:00 | BiologyWood is formed from secondary xylem tissue consisting of cells with a heavily thickened secondary cell wall that is enriched in lignin and cellulose. In contrast, primary cell walls are composed mainly of polysaccharides (including cellulose), but contain very little lignin. Wood formation occurs through a complex series of steps involving cell division and expansion and the biosynthesis of lignin and cellulose. In addition, heartwood (darker wood at the centre of the trunk) forms in many tree species through a highly regulated process of programmed cell death…
New study rewrites evolutionary history of vespid wasps
— 5 Mar 2007 07:00 | BiologyScientists at the University of Illinois have conducted a genetic analysis of vespid wasps that revises the vespid family tree and challenges long-held views about how the wasps social behaviours evolved. In the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers found genetic evidence that eusociality (the reproductive specialisation seen in some insects and other animals) evolved independently in two groups of vespid wasps. These findings contradict an earlier model of vespid wasp evolution, which placed the groups together in a single lineage with a common ancestor…
Discovery of new cave millipedes in Arizona
— 5 Mar 2007 07:00 | BiologyA new genus of millipede was recently discovered by a Northern Arizona University doctoral student and a Bureau of Land Management researcher. J. Judson Wynne, with the Department of Biological Sciences at NAU and cave research scientist with the U.S. Geological Surveys Southwest Biological Centre, and Kyle Voyles, Arizona State Cave Coordinator for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), collected specimens leading to the discovery of two new millipede species in caves on opposite sides of the Grand Canyon…
Unusual call of rare Sumatran ground cuckoo recorded for first time
— 27 Feb 2007 22:42 | BiologyA team of biologists with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have recorded for the first time the call of the extremely rare Sumatran ground cuckoo, found only on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia…
Nectar is not a simple soft drink
— 27 Feb 2007 22:42 | BiologyThe sugar-containing nectar secreted by plants and consumed by pollinators shares a number of similarities to fitness drinks, including ingredients such as amino acids and vitamins. In addition to these components, nectar can also contain secondary metabolites such as the alkaloid nicotine and other toxic compounds…
How do marine turtles return to the same beach to lay their eggs?
— 26 Feb 2007 17:20 | BiologyMarine turtles almost always return to the same beach to lay their eggs. The egg-laying sites are often far from the feeding areas and the females cross several hundred kilometres of ocean with no visual landmarks. How do they manage to return to the same spot? A study by Simon Benhamou of the Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology at Montpellier, France, together with other groups, shows that the marine turtles use a relatively simple navigation system involving the earths magnetic field…
Antarctic marine explorers reveal biological changes
— 26 Feb 2007 01:35 | BiologyOnce roofed by ice for millennia, a 10.000 square km portion of the Antarctic seabed represents a true frontier, one of Earth most pristine marine ecosystems, made suddenly accessible to exploration by the collapse of the Larsen A and B ice shelves, 12 and five years ago respectively. Now it has yielded secrets to some 52 marine explorers who accomplished the seabeds first comprehensive biological survey during a 10-week expedition aboard the German research vessel Polarstern…
Lizards shout against a noisy background to get points across
— 23 Feb 2007 18:12 | BiologyMale Anole lizards signal ownership of their territory by sitting up on a tree trunk, bobbing their heads up and down and extending a colourful throat pouch. They can spot a rival lizard up to 25 meters away, says National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded biologist Terry Ord of the University of California at Davis…
SDSC urges academia to make cyberinfrastructure 'real'
Hidden Vincent van Gogh painting revealed