Latest science news in Biology & Nature
Dark ocean depths home to exotic, unknown life
OSLO (Reuters) - The permanent darkness of the ocean depths is home to a far greater range of animals, from luminous jellyfish to tubeworms that live off oil seeping from...
Rare Darwin drafts go online
Darwin is going digital. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," the manuscripts detailing the theory of natural selection are being...
App Monitors App Power Use on Android Smartphone
A new smartphone app can help you find out which apps are battery hogs.
Beyond sunlight: Explorers census 17,650 ocean species between edge of darkness and black abyss
Census of Marine Life scientists have inventoried an astonishing abundance, diversity and distribution of deep sea species that have never known sunlight - creatures that somehow manage a living in...
Clearer view of how eye lens proteins are sorted
New research reveals how proteins that are critical for the transparency of the eye lens are properly sorted and localized in membrane bilayers. The study analyzes how interactions between lipid...
Sweet as can be: How E. coli gets ahead
Scientists have discovered how certain bacteria such as Escherichia coli have evolved to capture rare sugars from their environment giving them an evolutionary advantage in naturally competitive environments like the...
Termites create sustainable monoculture fungus farming
Food production of modern human societies is mostly based on large-scale monoculture crops, but it now appears that advanced insect societies have the same practice. Our societies took just ten...
Tree-eating bugs threaten Monarch butterfly in Mexico
The mysterious Monarch butterfly, which migrates en masse annually between Canada and Mexico, is now facing a new peril: another insect thriving in Western Mexican forests.
Fish 'at risk' in acidified ocean
Fish reared in water acidified by CO2 may become "fatally attracted" to the smell of their predators, say scientists.
Uruguay to set up its first science academy
The Uruguayan government has approved the establishment of a National Academy of Sciences, and the first 15 members will be selected by other academies in the region.
Dogs to sniff out the state of Vietnam's critically endangered rhinos
Highly trained detection dogs are being used help to determine the population status of the Javan rhino in Vietnam, in an attempt to save one of the world's rarest mammals...
U. of Nebraska Defeats Tighter Limits on Stem Cell Research
The effort had been seen by opponents as a possible new front in the national debate over the matter.
It's a gas: New discovery may lead to heartier, high-yielding plants
In a research report published in the November 2009 issue of the journal GENETICS (http://www.genetics.org), scientists show how a family of genes (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase, or ACS genes) are responsible...
The march of the cyclamen | Noel Kingsbury
Shady, wintry spots will soon be full of these diminutive flowers, from deepest purple to pristine whiteHardy cyclamen used to be the preserve of enthusiasts who swapped plants and seed with elaborate collectors' numbers...
Where humans go, pepper virus follows
Plant pathogen could help track waters polluted with human waste
Low-tech approach stifles high-risk Nipah virus
Shielding palm-tree sap from fruit bats may limit spread of deadly disease
Atomic-level Snapshot Catches Protein Motor in Action (w/ Video)
(PhysOrg.com) -- The atomic-level action of a remarkable class of ring-shaped protein motors has been uncovered by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory using a state-of-the-art protein crystallography beamline...
Asian carp close to Great Lakes
U.S. officials say the despised Asian carp may have breached an electronic barrier designed to prevent it from invading the Great Lakes.
Sponges against cancer
Deep under the sea, there's a battle of life and death going on, with no holds barred. Sponges and other marine animals which cannot move around might seem to be...
Just like old times: Generating RNA molecules in water
A key question in the origin of biological molecules like RNA and DNA is how they first came together billions of years ago from simple precursors. Now, in a study...
Genetic analysis helps dissect molecular basis of cardiovascular disease
Using highly precise measurements of plasma lipoprotein concentrations determined by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), researchers led by Daniel Chasman at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in...
Potential Down Syndrome Therapy Works In Mice
A norepinephrine precursor helps reverse learning and memory difficulties in lab studies.
Biologists discover bacterial defense mechanism against aggressive oxygen
Bacteria possess an ingenious mechanism for preventing oxygen from harming the building blocks of the cell. This is the new finding of a team of biologists that includes Joris Messens...
Controversial Stem Cell Experiment Could Treat the Blind
New and controversial transplant operation uses stem cells derived from spare human embryos.
Adding one single gene to yeast dramatically improves bioethanol production from agricultural waste
With the introduction of a single bacterial gene into yeast, researchers have achieved three improvements in bioethanol production from agricultural waste material: 'More ethanol, less acetate and elimination of the...
Flax and yellow flowers can produce bioethanol
Surplus biomass from the production of flax sheaves, and generated from Brassica carinata, a yellow-flowered plant related to those which engulf fields in spring, can be used to produce bioethanol.
Vaccine being developed to help smokers quit
(PhysOrg.com) -- Glaxo-SmithKline has joined forces with Nabi Pharmaceuticals to produce a vaccine to help smokers give up their addiction permanently.
The Worm That Turned Evolutionary Key
(PhysOrg.com) -- The Keelworm, widespread in the seas and tide-pools around Scotland and the rest of the UK, is unwittingly helping scientists at the University of St Andrews to understand...