May 2009
55 posts
I'm Moving Over the Next Few Days!!!
Sorry if I don’t publish much.
April 2009
81 posts
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Large Sponges May Be Reattached To Coral Reefs →
A new study describes a novel technique for reattaching large sponges that have been dislodged from coral reefs. The findings could be generally applied to the restoration of other large sponge species removed by human activities or storms…. (continues @ ScienceDaily)
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Israeli Official: Swine Flu Name Offensive →
I really don’t know what to say about this….apparently “Mexican Flu” is less offensive than “Swine Flu” according to the Israeli Health Minister
The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed “Mexican” influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.
Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said...
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Wimps Hear Dangerous Noises Differently →
Scrawnier people are more likely to perceive an approaching sound as closer than it actually is. This connection between physical fitness and the brain’s auditory system may have evolved to help the weak get out of the way of approaching danger…. (continues @ ScienceDaily)
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Fish That Live In The Dark Have The Best Ears →
All fish have ears buried inside their heads. But fish that live in the deepest, darkest waters of the ocean may have particularly sensitive ears says Xiaohong Deng of the University of Maryland. She will be presenting the first anatomical evidence suggesting that some deep-sea fish have specialized structures to heighten their hearing.
The types of fish that Deng studies live in layers of the...
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Identifying Hyenas By Their Giggle →
To human ears, the laughs of individual hyenas in a pack all sound the same: high-pitched and staccato, eerie and maniacal. But every hyena makes a different call that encodes information about its age and status in the pack, according to behavioral neurologists from the University of California, Berkeley and the Université de Saint-Etienne, France. They have developed a way to identify a hyena...
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How House-hunting Ants Choose The Best Home →
Dr Elva Robinson and colleagues in the University’s School of Biological Sciences fitted rock ants with tiny radio-frequency identification tags, each measuring 1 / 2,000 (one two-thousandth) the size of a postage stamp, then observed as they chose between a poor nest nearby and a good nest further away.
The ant colonies showed sophisticated nest-site choice, selecting the superior site...
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Pollution 'fights global warming' →
A very interesting viewpoint on pollution:
Air pollution may be helping the fight against global warming by enhancing the ability of plants to absorb carbon dioxide, scientists say.
Since the 1960s, increased levels of atmospheric pollution have enhanced plant productivity by as much as one quarter, research has found.
In terms of carbon dioxide, this means that an extra 10% has been stored in...
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World's major rivers 'drying up' →
Water levels in some of the world’s most important rivers have declined significantly over the past 50 years, US researchers say.
They say the reduced flows are linked to climate change and will have a major impact as the human population grows.
The only area with a significant increase in water flows was the Arctic due to a greater snow and ice melting…. (continues @ BBC News)
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Psychologists Dispute Effects Of CIA Torture... →
The White House this week released Bush-era memos describing “enhanced interrogation techniques” CIA personnel used. At the time, former Justice Department assistant attorney general Jay Bybee believed these techniques, such as waterboarding, not to be torture because apparently they do not cause long-term psychological distress (depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder).
...
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Turmeric: India's 'Holy Powder' Finally Reveals... →
Scientists in Michigan are reporting discovery of the secret behind the fabled healing power of the main ingredient in turmeric — a spice revered in India as “holy powder….”
Using a high-tech instrument termed solid-state NMR spectroscopy, the scientists discovered that molecules of curcumin act like a biochemical disciplinarian. They insert themselves into cell membranes and...
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Indigenous Peoples At World Summit To Share... →
With the first climate change-related relocation of an Inuit village already underway, some 400 Indigenous People and observers from 80 nations are convening in Alaska for a UN-affiliated conference April 20-24 to discuss ways in which traditional knowledge can be used to both mitigate and adapt to climate change….
The Summit takes place in Anchorage, about 800 km east of the Alaskan...
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Tasmania's Wombat Poo Paper A Hit →
This sounds like a good investment…why should this be limited to Wombat Poo?
Wombat droppings are helping an industrial city in Australia fight the effects of the global financial crisis. Burnie, in the north-west of the state of Tasmania, has been hit by repeated rounds of job cuts.
But despite the gloom, one local industry is thriving by producing handmade paper out of a material...
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African Aid 'Needs Science Focus' →
Neil Turok, chair of mathematical physics at Cambridge University, says governments are following the wrong policy when it comes to African aid. Focusing on basic healthcare and primary education is stopping Africa developing, Professor Turok suggests.
The founder of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) says investment in higher education is key. He says Africa needs its own...
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Medical Micro-robots Made As Small As Bacteria →
For the first time, ETH Zurich researchers have built micro-robots as small as bacteria. Their purpose is to help cure human beings.
They look like spirals with tiny heads, and screw through the liquid like miniature corkscrews. When moving, they resemble rather ungainly bacteria with long whip-like tails. They can only be observed under a microscope because, at a total length of 25 to...
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Scorpion Biodiversity Seen In 'Evolution Canyon' →
Scorpions possess resistance to high temperatures and the ability to conserve water for long periods of time, and as a result thrive in hot and arid parts of the world. But is this global distribution also seen at a more local level….?
Shmuel Raz and colleagues studied the communities of scorpions in a valley near Mount Carmel in Israel which has been dubbed “Evolution...
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New limits to Antarctic tourism →
Countries with ties to Antarctica have adopted US proposals to limit tourism in the region, in a bid to protect the fragile ecosystem of the continent.
Parties to the Antarctic Treaty agreed to limit the size of cruise ships and the number of tourists taken ashore at a meeting in the US city of Baltimore. Limiting tourism has taken on urgency due to a surge in visits and a number of cruise...
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Alligators Hint At What Life May Have Been Like... →
During the last 540 million years, the earth’s oxygen levels have fluctuated wildly. Knowing that the dinosaurs appeared around the time when oxygen levels were at their lowest at 12%, Tomasz Owerkowicz, Ruth Elsey and James Hicks wondered how these monsters coped at such low oxygen levels. But without a ready supply of dinosaurs to test their ideas on, Owerkowicz and Hicks turned to a...
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Newly Discovered Iron-breathing Species Have Lived... →
A reservoir of briny liquid buried deep beneath an Antarctic glacier supports hardy microbes that have lived in isolation for millions of years, researchers report April 17 in the journal Science.
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Energy Drinks Work -- In Mysterious Ways →
Rinsing your mouth with an energy drink, such as Gatorade, is all that is needed to enhance sports performace…Thus, ingestion of the calories is unnecessary…But why?
The researchers prepared drinks that contained either glucose (a sugar), maltodextrin (a tasteless carbohydrate) or neither, then carefully laced them with artificial sweeteners until they tasted identical. They asked...
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Three Distinct Neanderthal Genetic Sub-Groups →
The Neanderthals inhabited a vast geographical area extending from Europe to western Asia and the Middle East 30,000 to 100,000 years ago. Now, a group of researchers are questioning whether or not the Neanderthals constituted a homogenous group or separate sub-groups (between which slight differences could be observed).
Paleoanthropological studies based on morphological skeletal evidence...
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Coral Fossils Suggest That Sea Level Can Rise... →
Evidence from fossil coral reefs in Mexico underlines the potential for a sudden jump in sea levels because of global warming, scientists report in a new study.
The study, published in the journal Nature, suggests that a sudden rise of 6.5 feet to 10 feet occurred within a span of 50 to 100 years about 121,000 years ago, at the end of the last warm interval between ice ages. “The potential...
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The evolution of sex chromosomes →
Sex is an odd business. In some animals, like us, sex is determined by which combination of a pair of chromosomes the individual carries. Males are XY, females are XX. In birds (and butterflies, for some reason) things are the other way round – males are ZZ, females are ZW.
Sex determination by specific chromosomes is not the rule, not was it the ancestral state - in both plants and mammals it...
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Ancient Alcoholic Medicines →
The earliest sample of human-made medicine was discovered in Egypt:
A team of researchers in the US has discovered traces of a medicinal alcoholic drink in bottles that are more than 5,000 years old. The scientists extracted wine compounds and plant-derived ingredients from a jar taken from the tomb of one of the first pharaohs of Egypt, Scorpion I.
How did they do it?
The team used...
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Owls' Dawn And Dusk Concerts Promote Visual... →
…Vincenzo Penteriani and Maria Delgado of the Estacion Biologica de Doñana, Spain, describe the evolution of white throat badges in association with dawn and dusk vocal signals in certain species of nocturnal bird, which maximise the potential for these species to communicate during hours when light is low.
Previous research has suggested that visual communication is important only for...
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Cure For Honey Bee Colony Collapse? →
A little while back I posted a Chicago Public Radio special podcast on the recent decline honeybee popultions. Now, it seems like the cause and its cure have been discovered (from ScienceDaily)….
For the first time, scientists have isolated the parasite Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) from professional apiaries suffering from honey bee colony depopulation syndrome. They then went on to...
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Reserves Found To Be 'Effective Tool' For Reducing... →
Rainforest reserves – even those disturbed by roads – provide an important buffer against fires that are devastating parts of the Brazilian Amazon, according to a new study by a trio of researchers at Duke University….
Fire is one of the chief causes of deforestation in tropical rainforests. Fires in humid tropical forests are always caused by people, Adeney says – they typically start...
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The True Cost of Console Ownership in 2009 →
I now have no desire to buy a Wii. Unfortunately, these prices only include 2 games…(via Gizmodo)
Playstation 3 Cost of console: $400 (80GB) Cost of 3 extra controllers: $43 x 3 = $129 Cost of charging station: $25 Cost of 2 games: $120 Cost of HDMI cable: $3
Total: $677
Wii Cost of console: $250 Cost of 3 extra controllers: $36 x 3 = $108 Cost of 3 Nunchuks: $18 x 3 = $54 ...
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Magazine Sold By Homeless May Fold →
What will Chicago be like without StreetWise?
StreetWise, the weekly Chicago magazine for the homeless, has fallen victim to a hobbled economy and could be forced to close its doors by June if it cannot replace hemorrhaging foundation support, its managers say. A shutdown would end 16 years of publication and put at risk a non-profit publication that employed homeless Chicagoans as writers and...
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Astronauts’ Muscles Age Quickly in Space →
A young and healthy astronaut who spends six months in the International Space Station is likely to arrive back on earth with the muscles of an 80-year-old, according to a new analysis.
The study, paid for by NASA and published in the April issue of The Journal of Applied Physiology, examined nine American and Russian astronauts who had each spent about six months in the station. They had...
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Botox - "Medicine's Duct Tape" - NY Times →
In the hunt to discover the next blockbuster medical use for Botox, doctors have injected it experimentally into muscles and glands all over the body, making it medicine’s answer to duct tape. According to recent medical journals, physicians have used it to treat chewing problems, swallowing problems, pelvic muscle spasms, drooling, hair loss, anal fissures and pain from missing limbs…....
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If You Publicly Proclaim You're Going to Pirate a... →
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Phasic Firing Of Dopamine Neurons Is Key To... →
Although I don’t have much time to write about this now, this is closely related to my research interests. Here is a good micro-review of the field:
Researchers are one step closer to understanding the neurobiology that allows people to successfully learn motivated behaviors by associating environmental cues with rewarding outcomes, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the...
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New rare orangutan find in Borneo →
Borneo is the new Galapagos
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Goat's head found outside Wrigley Field →
A new Cubs season, a new attempt to lift the curse.
A goat’s head was found on the Harry Caray statue outside Wrigley Field early this morning. Police said they were treating the whole thing as a prank and didn’t intend to pursue an investigation. The same thing happened two years ago, they said.
Presumably the goat’s head was a reference to the Billy Goat curse, put on the...
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Attenborough Warns On Population →
The broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has become a patron of a group seeking to cut the growth in human population. On joining the Optimum Population Trust, Sir David said growth in human numbers was “frightening”. Sir David has been increasingly vocal about the need to reduce the number of people on Earth to protect wildlife.
Sir David, one of the BBC’s longest-standing...
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Prehistoric Bears Ate Everything And Anything,... →
….The team of palaeontologists have reconstructed the trophic ecology, or eating habits, of two extinct bear species that lived during the Pleistocene (between 2.59 million and 12,000 years ago): the short-faced bear (Arctodus simus) of North America and the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) of Europe. The morphometric analysis carried out on the eight bear species in existence today has...