native

W.M. Keck Foundation funds study of friendly microbes

...l metabolic products that they synthesize in their native gut habitats. The W.M. Keck Foundation, established in 1954 by the late W.M. Keck, founder of the Superior Oil Company, focuses its grants on pioneering efforts in the areas of medical research, science and engineering. The grant supports a project...

Color-blind method opens new doors in DNA sequencing

...ntually do direct detection of a DNA sequence from native DNA" without manipulation now performed in the laboratory, said Dr. Michael L. Metzker, assistant professor in the BCM Human Genome Sequencing Center and adjunct assistant professor of chemistry at Rice. "We could make sequencing portable and do it f...

Introduced foxes transformed vegetation on Aleutian Islands from lush grasslands to tundra

...ions are there for a successful restoration of the native biodiversity." ...

Vampire bats keep out of trouble by running

...ntroduction of large herds of livestock into their native environments of Central and South America, these b...urnal visitor. It remains unclear exactly what the native prey were before the introduction of cattle, he adds. The Cornell zoologists plan to go a step furt...

Aggressive aquatic species invading Great Lakes

...ish species, their ability to wrest territory from native fish plays a key role in their dominance of the Gr... report that gobies win territory disputes against native logperch regardless of whether or not they were the original resident of the territory "A territory...

Undesirable expatriates: Preventing the spread of invasive animals

... that have established and spread outside of their native range, many invasive species become economic and e...ological burdens. Successful invaders can displace native animals through resource competition, predation or disease-- ushering in biodiversity loss. Globally...

Advancements In Genomics Foster Deep Sea Discoveries

...tures of high-pressure-adapted microbes from their native environments. This work was funded at Scripps Institution by the National Science Foundation. ...

One gene links newborn neurons with those that die in diseases such as Alzheimer's

...the brains of 19 zebra finches, a kind of songbird native to Australia that has long been used in studies of birdsong. Since replaceable neurons sit side-by-side with neurons that are not replaced, the first step was to label the two kinds of cells in order to tell them apart. The replaceable neurons send ...

Putting ecology back into river restoration

...annel modification project should minimise loss of native vegetation during river reconstruction, and should avoid the fish spawning season for construction work," Palmer explains. The final criteria is ecological assessment. According to Palmer: "It is critical that the broad restoration community, includi...

Finding hidden invaders in a Hawaiian rain forest

...a on the ground. The fingerprints showed where the native dominant tree 'ohia' (Metrosideros polymorpha) has... monitoring capabilities. On Kilauea Volcano, the native Metrosideros tree typically has a low concentration of nitrogen in its leaves ( .6% to .8%), while t...

Stealth Worms May Improve Insect Pest Control

...ee how they interact with the local insects. Using native biological control alternatives is more environmen...nematodes. In Arizona, Stock's team is collecting native species of EPN for pest control trials in citrus and iceberg lettuce, with funding from the Arizona ...

Bee mites suppress bee immunity, open door for viruses and bacteria

... complete hive collapses in about two weeks. "The native Chinese bees do not have the same problems," says Dr. Xiaolong Yang, post doctoral researcher in entomology and plant pathology, who raised bees in China. "I do not recall seeing deformed wing bees in the Chinese bee. Chinese honey bees have grooming...

Internet viruses help ecologists control invasive species

...ork theory to predict how the spiny water flea - a native of Russia - will spread through the Canadian lake system. Ecologists Jim Muirhead and Professor Hugh MacIsaac of the University of Windsor, Ontario have been studying the spread of the spiny water flea, Bythotrephes longimanus, through Canadian lake...

Beneficial Beetles Battle Pesky Saltcedar

...tcedar had become an out-of-control pest, crowding native plants, such as cottonwoods and willows, along str...ides disrupting the natural surroundings needed by native plants, birds, fish and other forms of life, saltcedar plays havoc with farm roads and fields. For e...

Alien woodwasp, threat to US pine trees, found in N.Y.

...te or in packing material. The woodwasp, which is native to Europe, Asia and northern Africa, where it rarely is a pest, kills pines, and sometimes several other types of conifers, by introducing a toxic mucus and spores of a toxic fungus when the female lays her eggs through the bark and into the sapwood ...

Scientists map the world for nature conservation

... Republic of Germany contains some 2,700 different native plants. "However, we have found out for the first time where, within each of the different vegetation zones, plant biodiversity is highest," says Professor Wilhelm Barthlott, founder of the working group and Director of the Nees Institute. It has eme...

New method shows it is possible to grow bone for grafts within a patient's body

...s comparable strength and mechanical properties to native bone," says Molly Stevens, currently a reader at Imperial College in the United Kingdom who did most of the research as a post-doctoral fellow at MIT, "and since the harvested bone is fresh it integrates really well at a recipient site." Long bones ...

Genetic links could unlock clues to leading cause of blindness

...near 1,500, but because the rhesus monkeys are not native to the area, they could mate only with each other. This inbreeding has predisposed the monkeys to various genetic diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration. Unlike most other animals, a rhesus monkey's eyes have the same complex structure a...

Discovery of an American salamander where it shouldn't be: Korea

...nders in a wooded Korean upland as he would in his native Illinois - by turning over rocks. The plethodontids were probably overlooked, Wake said, because the newly discovered salamanders are fully terrestrial, whereas all other Asian salamanders breed in water. Korean biologists, though actively studying o...

New tool reveals secrets of migrating cells

...'s an imaging revolution to be able to go into the native environment while keeping the intact organ alive and make movies of migrating cells." With two-photon imaging, Witt and Robey identified thymus cells they dubbed beeliners moving nearly two centimeters - almost an inch - per hour, which is fast in t...

Beetle-inspired switch uses water for bonding

...gist Tom Eisner lecture on palm beetles, which are native to the southeastern United States. Like the beetle, which clings to a palm leaf at adhesive strengths equal to a hundred times its own body weight -- the human equivalent of carrying seven cars -- the switch in its most basic form uses surface te...

Hybrid grass may prove to be valuable fuel source

...em-like organ called a rhizome. Miscanthus, a crop native to Asia and a relative of sugarcane, drops its sle... are twice as high as switchgrass, a prairie grass native to Illinois. Grown side by side, Miscanthus produces over twice as much biomass as switchgrass, Heat...

Mayan stingless bee keeping: Going, going, gone?

...rvested honey from the log nests of stingless bees native to tropical forests. Now, colleagues from the Cole...In our initial surveys of bee keepers working with native bees in the eighties, we estimated that they maintained more than a thousand active hives. In 1990, ...

Rodent social behavior encoded in junk DNA

...report on their findings in the mouse-like animals native to the American Midwest in the June 10, 2005 Science. The discovery is the latest in a two decades-old scientific quest for the neural basis of familial behavior begun at the NIMH Intramural Research Program in the mid l980s by now NIMH director Tho...

Research suggests fitness of Florida panthers improved by limited breeding with Texas animals

...bred ones," the authors wrote. According to Pimm, native Florida panthers were "becoming famous" for an array of genetic abnormalities, including low sperm counts and heart defects. "It turns out that purebred kittens don't survive very well," he said. "They die in very high numbers. Once you get new blood...

From a Few Wild Ancestors, a Citrus Cornucopia

...can be explained by the fact that citrus, which is native to Southeast Asia, hybridizes readily. “Citrus has been domesticated and selected for millennia,?says Krueger, “so it’s possible that no early ancestors have escaped modification by humankind. But it’s worth investing in the plant exploration needed...

New technique could alter field of mouse genetics

... many mobile genetic units that work only in their native hosts, piggyBac can flit around the genomes of other insects. For that reason, it has been used experimentally as a tool to control pest insects from moths to flies and mosquitoes. The transposon has also seen heavy use in the genetic workhorse, Dros...

Aquatic plants may hold key to advancing plant disease management

...ontrol highly invasive freshwater plants that harm native aquatic plants. Studies of marine plant diseases continue to provide insight as to how climatic change influences disease development. "Emerging marine diseases, such as coral diseases, are creating a major shift in the marine flora," Schmale said. "...

Controlling wildlife trade key to preventing health crises, study says

...-borne pathogens also affects domestic animals and native species that have no resistance to exotic diseases. Dr. Robert Cook, Vice President of Health Sciences at WCS said, "A fungal disease called chytridiomycosis, a pathogen that has been spread by the international trade in African clawed frogs, is now...

Birds and bats sow tropical seeds

...ts of tropical rainforest gets a helping hand from native birds and bats. Just how big a role these winged gardeners play is a question ecologists from the University of Illinois at Chicago and several Latin American universities are about to find out by setting up essentially a living laboratory in Mexico'...

Genetically modified maize not found in southern Mexico

...netically modified (GM) corn has not yet spread to native maize crops in southern Mexico. After analyzing t...ed report to survey the frequency of transgenes in native varieties of maize. Four years ago, researchers reported finding four cobs of GM maize in Oaxaca , ...

New book expands biological classifications to account for 'alien' life

...t least one amino acid beyond the 20 in the DNA of native Earth life, or organisms that have been genetically modified, Ward said. It also includes some life forms that have been modified to be much simpler than what is normally found on Earth. "We may never find other life away from Earth, but we have alr...

Stolen gene allows insect virus to enter cells

... migrate to the surface of a host cell, F proteins native to the cell appear to stay on the inside. "Membrane fusion goes on all over the place inside the cell," Blissard says. "But fusion in cells is regulated by fairly large complexes of proteins. Viruses can accomplish membrane fusion with a one-protein ...

Scientists and engineers apply nature's design to human problems

...actical solutions adapted from natural systems and native cultures and then applies these solutions to fundamental environmental, economic and social challenges. Its long-term goal is to engage leaders in various fields in a conversation and learning process to help them understand the root causes of the re...

Emerald Spectre haunts Ontario's ash forests

... and southwestern Ontario in the summer of 2002. A native of southeast Asia, the insect is capable of rapidly spreading with a little human help. Adult beetles lay eggs under tree bark and the feeding larvae kill trees by disrupting the flow of nutrients in the soft tissues under the bark. The new study fu...

Study shows big game hunters, not climate change, killed off sloths

...lar to the one that involved restoring bison, once native to Florida, to Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park near Gainesville, Steadman said. "With the work we're doing, especially on islands, to reconstruct which kinds of plants and animals -- particularly birds and mammals -- used to live there, we can ope...

Modifications render carbon nanotubes nontoxic

...ble forms of the hollow carbon molecules. In their native state, carbon nanotubes are insoluble, meaning they are incompatible with the water-based environment of living systems. Solubility is a key issue for medical applications, and researchers at Rice and elsewhere have developed processing methods that ...

Scientists closer to new cancer detection method

..., if you wait 10 nanoseconds, the signals from the native fluorescence go away. What's left is the signal from the probe, which is engineered to be more long-lived at about 50 nanoseconds." The result is a clear indication of the presence of PDGF. "The problem of background signals is a major obstacle in ...

NC State researchers redesign life for Mars and beyond

...enzyme has the same function and properties of the native P. furiosus enzyme," Boss said. "The fact that the plant cells would produce a protein with all the properties of the P. furiosus protein opens new avenues for research in designing plants to survive and thrive in extreme conditions." But people liv...

Biotechnology's newest chemical tool

...iopolymers. "Our approach allows labeling of large native DNA molecules at specific internal or terminal loci," Klimasauskas explained. While potential applications are many, the researchers next plan to synthesize new AdoMet analogs to expand the collection of chemical groups that can be transferred to D...

Tropical dry forests receive international recognition

...milar threat, taking with it such resources as its native mahogany and rosewood trees, which are in danger of going extinct, says Sanchez-Azofeifa. In Mexico, the main threat is deforestation by local communities but the dry forest is also targeted for its natural beauty. Hotel resorts and golf courses ar...

Oysters: The natural way to protect our shores

..., and are additionally attractive because they use native materials, have the potential for long-term growth, and contribute to overall ecosystem stability and quality. Oyster larvae move in groups and water-borne chemicals stimulate the oysters' settlement; reefs are therefore able to maintain themselves ...

Zooming in on the protein-conducting channel

...y non-crystalline form of ice, thus preserving its native structure. Using an electron microscope with a low...ot represent the arrangements of proteins in their native functional state. Thus, he and his colleagues applied a computational analytical method called “nor...

PET imaging reveals the immune system at work

...ses, where the immune system mistakenly identifies native cells or tissues as foreign and mounts an attack. The techniques they've developed should now enable scientists -- and one day clinicians -- to observe the ebb and flow of the immune system over the course of an episode of disease or autoimmune resp...

Jefferson biologist coaxing human embryonic stem cells to make dopamine with simpler, faster method

...ses, where the immune system mistakenly identifies native cells or tissues as foreign and mounts an attack. The techniques they've developed should now enable scientists -- and one day clinicians -- to observe the ebb and flow of the immune system over the course of an episode of disease or autoimmune resp...

Leading lampreys to slaughter: Pheromone for scourge of Great Lakes identified

...essor Thomas Hoye. "Also, lamprey are important to native peoples on the West Coast, who value it for food. This pheromone could help restore lamprey runs by attracting lamprey to suitable spawning beds." When they stop feeding, lamprey seek out streams for spawning by following the pheromone trails. Aft...

Jefferson scientists identify gene defect leading to abnormal skin development and cancer

...essor Thomas Hoye. "Also, lamprey are important to native peoples on the West Coast, who value it for food. This pheromone could help restore lamprey runs by attracting lamprey to suitable spawning beds." When they stop feeding, lamprey seek out streams for spawning by following the pheromone trails. Aft...

Ancient humans brought bottle gourds to the Americas from Asia

...explaining how a domesticated variant of a species native to Africa ended up millennia ago in places as far ...trait after being transported by humans from their native Africa to far northeastern Asia. "This finding paints a new picture of the founding of the Americas...

Plants, too, have ways to manage freeloaders

...n wild lupines had to be leached out. In addition, native Californians used strong thin lupine roots to make snares and fishing nets. In a preliminary study, she, Taylor and Povich used molecular markers to identify the different strains of the bacteria Bradyrhizobia that interact with roots of the six spe...

'Computer-chemistry' yields new insight into a puzzle of cell division

...l information about how Cdc25s interact with their native protein substrates," the authors wrote in their Biochemistry paper. With the study's results in hand, scientists can now search for potential inhibiting drug molecules shaped so they can overlap -- and thus interfere -- with the active sites as well...

New peptide antibiotic isolated from American oyster

...cteria in Crassostrea virginica, a species that is native to North Carolina and important economically to Atlantic and Gulf Coast fisheries. "This peptide may be helpful in selecting disease-resistant oysters for aquaculture and fisheries and may also allow for the development of a test to monitor oyster h...

Marsupial genome reveals insights into mammalian evolution

...upials and monotremes will help us to conserve our native species," Belov says. ...

Primates harvest bee nests in Ugandan reserve

In the first study of native African honeybees and honey-making stingless bees ...llifera, the most commonly cultivated honeybee, is native to Europe and Africa. Apis mellifera subspecies scutellata, the very defensive tropical African hon...

Carnegie Mellon develops non-invasive technique to detect transplant rejection at cellular level

...eart, which is grafted into its abdomen. The rat's native heart functions normally. In this way, the researchers can study how a transplanted heart changes through sequential stages of rejection while the rat stays healthy. This aspect of the research was conducted primarily by Qing Ye, a research biologist...

Three new species of lemurs identified

...ew species of lemurs, the small, big-eyed primates native to the island of Madagascar. In a study published today in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, a team of researchers from Madagascar and Europe identified new species of lemurs based on differences in a specific gene sequence. The new...

Rice bioengineers pioneer techniques for knee repair

... of cartilage with properties approaching those of native tissue. In a follow-up study due for publication s...s to produce disks that are virtually identical to native tissue in terms of both mechanical and biochemical makeup. In a third, and perhaps most impressive ...

Invasive species harms native hardwoods by killing soil fungus

...weed that has spread across much of the U.S. harms native maples, ashes, and other hardwood trees by releasi... disruption of long-established interactions among native organisms -- have been proposed to explain the success of invasive species, this new work is the fir...

CU, USDA team to curb two invasive, poisonous vines

... southwestern Europe are kept in check, though, by native natural enemies. Natural enemies to plants often include moth caterpillars, beetles, flies and diseases. "They've been here more than 100 years but have exploded in the last 10 to 15 years, and it will still be a minimum of 10 years before we can ev...

The Amazon in 2050: Implementing the law could save a million square kilometers of rainforest

...e effects of emerging markets for carbon retain in native forests. Under this scenario, 73 percent of the original forest would remain in 2050. The future expansion of deforestation will not affect all forests and watersheds equally. The dry forest formation of Mato Grosso will virtually disappear by the y...

Sea coral's trick helps scientists tag proteins

...the dark like fireflies and jellyfish. The corals' native green and red fluorescent proteins give off light only when stimulated by higher intensity light. Lukyanov's findings resulted in the discovery of many new GFP-like proteins in non-bioluminescent and sometimes even non-fluorescent marine organisms, Z...