Directional in Biological News

Seals quickly respond to gain and loss of habitat under climate change

... between this and modern breeding sites. The team found clear signs of rapid expansion in the new colony 8,000 years ago. This was followed by directional migration away, coupled with a loss of diversity 1,000 years ago, when the sea ice is thought to have expanded. The data suggest that the new colony ...

Flight of the bumble (and honey) bee

... pollen flow showed a definite pattern of bee movement and gene migration in watermelon. "Although we detected pollinator movement that was strongly directional in both directions (east and west) down the row from the central block of donor plants, results also indicate that significant movement also occurred ...

Scientists create tough ceramic that mimics mother of pearl

... large porous ceramic scaffolds that much more closely mirrored the complex hierarchical microstructure of nacre. To do this, they first employed directional freezing to promote the formation of thin layers (lamellae) of ice that served as templates for the creation of the layered alumina scaffolds. After ...

Cell movements totally modular, Stanford study shows

... Vitorino said. The researchers found they could break down movement into four processes: single cell movements, coordination of neighboring cells, directional sensing and cell division. Vitorino went on to inactivate the more than 100 genes suspected of playing a role in controlling movement and watched ...

Uncovering secrets of life in the ocean

... to alter the direction of swimming, computer simulations of larval swimming show. The second eyespot cell, the pigment cell, confers the directional sensitivity to light. It absorbs light and casts a shadow over the photoreceptor. The shape of this shadow varies according to the position of the ...

Acoustical Meeting, Nov. 10-14, 2008 in Miami, Florida

... boat so that only manatees in the direct path of the boat are alerted and the marine environment in not disturbed. The talk, "Field tests of a directional parametric acoustic alarm designed to alert manatees of approaching boats" (4aAB6) by Edmund Gerstein, Laura Gerstein, Joseph Blue, Josiah ...

Study sheds new light on dolphin coordination during predation

... just prior to foraging. "Whistles are omni-directional, like turning on a light bulb in a room," Benoit-Bird said. "Clicks, on the other hand, are directional like a laser. We think it may be a strategy to communicate only within the group and not to other potential lanternfish predators. Tuna and billfish ...

Relearning process not always a 'free lunch'

... in the strength of synaptic connections, then free-lunch learning will be observed. However, the authors show here that if forgetting is induced by directional decay in synaptic connectivity, then negative free-lunch learning occurs. This suggests that evolution may have selected physiological mechanisms ...

Robot vehicle surveys deep sea off Pacific Northwest

... bottom currents. The vehicle has thrusters built into its foils, or wings. Like an airplane, the foils allow the vehicle to gain lift or drag or directional momentum, as needed. When necessary, the AUV also can hover over the bottom for close-up inspections, navigational decision-making, and for rising ...

New technology enhances therapeutic potential of cord blood stem cells

... in the Sections of Hematology and Stem Cell Transplantation at Rush, is researching a CD26 Inhibitor, a small molecule enzyme inhibitor that enhances directional homing of stem cells to the bone marrow by increasing the responsiveness of donor stem cells to a natural homing signal. Homing is the process by ...

OSU technologies funded for development

... Pagilla says give an indirect measurement of the web lateral position. The fiber optic sensor is based on light scattering from the web and the directional sensitivity of the optical fibers, which according to Pagilla will provide a true measurement of the web lateral position. Pagilla also intends to ...

When following the leader can lead into the jaws of death

... is a fundamental problem for grouping animals - leadership in an animal social group may be assumed by an individual (or individuals) which exhibit a directional preference according to the habitat information it holds. This may be information about, for example, the location of food or a predators ....

Female concave-eared frogs draw mates with ultrasonic calls

... take you to the creek! Feng said. These studies likely have implications for human health. Earlier research into the mechanics of frog hearing and directional hearing helped Feng and his colleagues at the U. of I.s Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology design an intelligent hearing aid that ...

Scientists find color vision system independent of motion detection

... such as red fruits in the green foliage of trees. However, our results in the fly demonstrate that color is strictly excluded from processing directional motion information, which suggests two separate functional pathways, he added. Whether, inversely, the motion detection system is involved in color ...

High-tech helmets reveal new information about the impact of hard hits to the head

... were able to measure in real time the amount of g-force players' heads experienced at impact, where on the head the players were hit and the directional force of the hits -- linear (straight) or rotational (twisted). The system is called HITS, or Head Impact Telemetry System. G-force, a measure of ...

Light guides flight of migratory birds

... Songbirds use multiple sources of directional cues to guide their seasonal migrations, ... how migratory birds integrate multiple sources of directional information into a coherent navigational system. ... Sun and stars, and the geomagnetic field are all directional cues for migration, but polarized light appears ...

Vital step in cellular migration described by UCSD medical researchers

... receptor with a protein called paxillin creates directional movement of a cell by inhibiting a protein called ... "Understanding how this protein contributes to directional movement of a cell provides a new insight into ... Rac activity in the back of the cell, to maintain directional movement. In laboratory experiments with human ...

New research shows sharks use their noses and bodies to locate smells

... species to locate food, mates, and home sites. However, odor itself has no directional properties, so animals must use a variety of senses to get the directional information for a smell," said Jelle Atema, professor of biology at Boston ...

Parasitic plants sniff out hosts

... dirt, and vials of green or red water. None of these objects elicited any directional growth. Then, to narrow down the possible cues being used, they tested ... by host plants. Of seven compounds tested from tomato, three caused a directional growth response in dodder. One of these chemicals is also released by ...

Surprising origin of cell's internal highways

... originating at the Golgi are directed toward the cell "front," or the leading edge, of motile cells. Since such an orientation is needed for directional migration, Kaverina hypothesizes that this subset of microtubules may influence cell motility by facilitating the transport of proteins needed for ...

How to steer a moving cell

... "The ability to spatially organize specific groups of signaling proteins to the front or back of the cell is what drives cell polarization and directional movement," said Klemke. "It is the steering wheel of the cell." Now the researchers want to determine how the large numbers of signaling molecules ...

Baumann Lab defines proteins that distinguish chromosome ends from DNA double-strand breaks

... Bae. "Instead, a short tandem array of telomeric repeats bound by a Rap1/Trf2 complex is sufficient to impede non-homologous end joining in a highly directional manner." It has long been understood that chromosome ends are distinct from DNA double-strand breaks and that the cellular machinery that ...

University of Alberta researchers unravel intricate animal patterns

... the researchers looked at the direction from which animals can receive signals from their neighbors. "For example, some species of birds use directional communication, and therefore, we may assume that in this case the behaviour of an individual will be influenced by the signals received from those ...

New dyslexia theory blames 'noise'

... of dyslexia. Many still think that to have dyslexia means to mix up your letters (one of many possible symptoms having to do with word recognition, directional ability and decoding of symbols). What is known is that dyslexia affects millions of children, with estimates of its incidence ranging from 5 ...

First surveys of Tanzanian mountains reveal 160+ animal species, including new & endemic

... phototraps captured mammals like a Mountain dwarf galago (Galagoides orinus) and a red duiker (Cephalophus natalensis). Using a tape recorder and directional microphone, researchers recorded the calls of two species of galagos. Galagos are small, nocturnal primates with large, round eyes commonly known as ...

ANU scientists crack DNA replication mystery

... it can work this way has been a long standing puzzle. The ANU team finally solved the important question of how TUS stops the replisome in this directional manner. "When the replisome comes along from one direction, separation of the two DNA strands simply knocks the TUS off as you'd expect. But when it ...

Mute swan population helps explain longstanding evolutionary question

... switched to an evolutionary point of view with a second, related question: Why is clutch size not evolving despite significant heritability and directional selection?" Many long-term studies of avian clutch size have looked for--but not seen-- an increase in the number of eggs laid. However, this ...

Lethal needle blight epidemic may be related to climate change

... had no clear link to a known climatic oscillation that might have explained it, and the authors conclude that it is most likely related to a directional climate trend. The report of Woods et al. appears to represent one of a growing number of examples of an indirect effect of climate change, because ...

Researchers learn how blood vessel cells cope with their pressure-packed job

... assistant Phu Nguyen, found that unstretched cells or cells that were stretched only 1 percent of their length contained actin fibers with no directional orientation. However, as they increased the rhythmic stretching from 3 percent of a cell's length to 10 percent, stretch fibers became increasingly ...

Displaced songbirds navigate in the high Arctic

... route to nine sites on the tundra, among them the magnetic North Pole (located on Ellef Ringnes Island). The researchers then recorded the birds' directional orientation in cage experiments. The scientists found that both adult and juvenile birds abruptly shifted their orientation from the migratory ...

Out of sight, out of mind? Not necessarily

... a red or a green dot had flashed on the screen, they gave the correct answer with 81 percent accuracy. "This high degree of accuracy for both the directional orientation and color tasks was significantly above chance," said Tony Ro, associate professor of psychology and principal investigator for the ....

Taking a flying jump

... involving stretching of the legs and depression of the wings that can move the fly in a specific direction. Previous studies did not detect directional jumping1, but observations were made in conjunction with non-directional stimuli such as switching lights on and off. Card's results imply that there ...

Overbearing colored light may reveal a second mechanism by which birds interpret magnetic signals

... Frankfurt, Germany. It has been known for many years that birds possess a magnetic "inclination compass," which essentially allows birds to obtain directional information from the magnetic field by interpreting the angle of magnetic-field lines with regard to the horizon rather than by interpreting the ...