water

UAB scientists discover the origin of a mysterious physical force

...ection the wind is blowing, at a microscopic level water molecules are gently attracted towards the directi...h an electric field is pointing. However, when the water is in contact with surfaces that create small electric fields, such as chemical compounds like those...

Yellowstone microbes fueled by hydrogen, according to U. of Colorado study

... is its fuel," Spear said. "We've seen evidence of water onMars, and we know that on Earth, hydrogen can be...synthesis and fermentation or non-biogeneticallyby water reacting with iron-bearing rock. It's possible thatnon-biogenic processes produce hydrogen on Mars a...

Growth in the sea comes down to a struggle for iron

...e Japanese team had already injected iron into the water and were monitoring the growing phytoplankton patc...o work lowering equipment over the side to collect water samples. They analyzed water chemistry, nutrients, and microorganism diversity. Working to assist th...

Anti-bacterial additive widespread in U.S. waterways

...an contamination is based inpart on an analysis of water samples collected from rivers in andaround Baltimore, Md., as well as from local water filtration andwastewater treatment plants. From the samples, Dr. Halden and hissummer research inter...

Tiny particles could solve billion-dollar problem

... TCE remediation has got to clean large volumes of water very quickly for a just a few pennies." Hughes, W... be placed down existing wells where it would pump water through continuously, breaking TCE into non-toxic components. Cost is the primary hurdle to cleanin...

The secret to longevity in tubeworms

... measurements of sulfide and sulfate fluxes in the water near the vents do not match the observed tubeworm colony size and individual longevity, leading Cordes et al. to propose that L. luymesi also uses its roots to release sulfate back to the microbial consortia from which it draws its sulfide. Without t...

Bacteria collection sheds light on urinary tract infections

...They tested E.coli samples from dogs, cows, sheep, water and turkeys. The researchers then compared the sam...ins isolated from cows, birds, pigs, humans, dogs, water and the environment. The center is located in the Department of Veterinary Science, Penn State’s Col...

The secret lives of whales

...eir bacterial garden may hold a key to better cold water washing detergents. But more importantly, study of whale worms and other whale-fall species help scientists understand how life has diversified in specialized habitats in the deep-sea. Deep-sea vent tube worms may have originated from shallow-water s...

Sea skate experiment sheds light on human cell transport

...how these skinny, graceful fish can swim from salt water to fresh water. For humans, such a drastic environ... activates the gates, which open to release excess water along with salts and other organic material. The researchers made their discovery by using a plant-...

Clam embryo study shows pollutant mixture adversely affects nerve cell development

...orm, chloroform, andtetrachloroethylene in Brick's water supply--it got her thinking. "Myhypothesis was this: While it had been proven that individually thechemicals don't impact nerve cell development, the combination of allthree might pose increased risks," she says.So Reinisch decided to test the chemic...

Study identifies predictors of HIV drug resistance in patients beginning triple therapy

...orm, chloroform, andtetrachloroethylene in Brick's water supply--it got her thinking. "Myhypothesis was this: While it had been proven that individually thechemicals don't impact nerve cell development, the combination of allthree might pose increased risks," she says.So Reinisch decided to test the chemic...

Spider Venom Could Yield Eco-Friendly Insecticides

...mical toxins that currently end up in the food and water supply pose a serious threat to animals, fish, and birds," says King, a research scientist at the University of Connecticut Health Center. Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, King and his colleagues have determined the three-dimensi...

New imaging method gives early indication if brain cancer therapy is effective, U-M study shows

...special type of MRI scan that measures the flow of water molecules through the brain can help doctors deter...ng scan that tracks the diffusion, or movement, of water through the brain and mapped the changes in diffusion from the start of therapy to three weeks later...

Scientists collaborate to assess health of global environment

...basic necessities such as food, clean air, potable water and fuel--are rapidly being degraded. "[The asses...asing food production will outweigh the effects on water quality and biodiversity by giving them the information they need to make tough decisions. A substa...

Essential mangrove forest threatened by cryptic ecological degradation

...ngrove assemblages in southern Sri Lanka, changing water runoff patterns, and archival material from the Dutch East-India company, the researchers show that over the past few decades contemporary irrigation projects have abused the long-standing Sri Lankan tradition of freshwater management that once susta...

Study: Soap And Water Work Best In Ridding Hands Of Disease Viruses

...ses from the hands, physical removal with soap and water was most effective since some viruses are hardy an... or require traditional hand washing with soap and water throughout each day. Researchers first had volunteers clean their hands and then contaminated their...

Open microfluidic and nanofluidic systems

...l geometry with the substrate wettability. Thus, a water filament in a narrow channel that has a width of 1... if the channel had a width of one millimeter, the water filament could only sustain a thousandth part of an atmosphere. One relatively simple application o...

Same mutation aided evolution in many fish species, Stanford study finds

...Almost every time the stickleback evolves in fresh water it loses the armor," said David Kingsley, PhD, professor of developmental biology and lead author of the study. "Although the trait evolved many times all over the world, nature uses the same gene each time." Sticklebacks evolved from a relatively u...

Researchers trace evolution to relatively simple genetic changes

...acks -- live both in the seas and in coastal fresh water habitats all around the northern hemisphere. Sticklebacks are enormously varied, so much so that in the 19th century naturalists had counted about 50 different species. But since then, biologists have realized most populations are recent descendants...

Octopuses occasionally stroll around on two arms, UC Berkeley biologists report

...acks -- live both in the seas and in coastal fresh water habitats all around the northern hemisphere. Sticklebacks are enormously varied, so much so that in the 19th century naturalists had counted about 50 different species. But since then, biologists have realized most populations are recent descendants...

Why do insects stop 'breathing'? To avoid damage from too much oxygen, say researchers

...osure are (1) such discontinuous breathing reduces water loss and (2) it enables insects to rid their bodies of carbon dioxide, respiration's byproduct, when the insects are underground. As is true for miners, insects, while underground, are faced with high-carbon-dioxide and low-oxygen amounts, necessitat...

Scientists discover unique microbe in California's largest lake

... hasfocused on the fate of the now highly polluted water body. Aftermassive fish kills and avian mortality ...atives who got to the Salton Sea as hitchhikers in water containingsport fish that were introduced from the ocean many years ago," Woodexplains.She says the ...

New studies suggest airborne SARS transmission is possible

... not just through direct contact with contaminated water droplets as previous research had shown. SARS coronavirus was detected in the air in a patient's room during the 2003 outbreak in Toronto, according to a new study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. Another study, from Hong Kong, shows...

Ice core 'dipstick' indicates West Antarctic ice has thinned less than believed

... a UW professor of Earth and space sciences. Like water on a hillside, Siple Dome ice flows down into adjacent ice streams, where it continues to the nearby Ross Ice Shelf, a part of a bay on the Ross Sea that is covered with floating glacier ice. "Then the whole thing spreads out like oil on water," Wad...

Estrogen-like Component of Plastic Stimulates Growth of Certain Prostate Cancer Cells

...ilk container linings, food storage containers and water supplypipes. About 2.5 billion pounds of the chemical are produced each year. Inparticular, the study showed that the affected class of prostate cancercell, characterized by mutated receptors for androgens, the malehormone, can proliferate in respon...

The very unexpected life and death of a leukemic cell

...sing "heavy water" to track cell production. Heavy water is made using a form of hydrogen that has twice its normal mass, making the water molecule "heavier" than normal. The special hydrogen serves as a tag that enables researchers to tra...

South America's vast pantanal wetland may become next everglades, UNU experts warn

...sure from economic development, alterations of its water courses and conversion to other land uses." "More...ng population growth. "The resultant pollution of water and soil from farm chemicals, as well as increasing industrial pollution from urban centres, has bec...

Falling ants glide back to trunk to avoid dangers of forest floor

... much as half the year, so an ant falling into the water will most likely end up as fish food. "That's what I think is the major evolutionary driving mechanism behind the behavior," he said. "In Amazon forests, you really don't want to fall out of your tree and in the water, because then you're definitely...

World's largest rainforest drying experiment completes first phase

...epleted in the dry plot, the trees simply absorbed water from deeper in the soil with their extensive root ...xclusion, many trees in the forest were drawing in water from more than 40 feet deep in the soil. Second, it was anticipated that when the trees ran out of ...

Carnegie Mellon scientists develop tool that uses MRI to visualize gene expression in living animals

... analyzes signals given off by hydrogen protons in water molecules after they are exposed to a magnetic field and radiofrequency pulses. These signals are then converted into an image. Ahrens' new MRI reporter alters the magnetic field in its proximity, causing nearby protons to give off a distinctly diffe...

Family trees of ancient bacteria reveal evolutionary moves

...tinents and gradually evolved to exist in brackish water environments, then higher salt ones, marine and hy... finding that Cyanobacteria emerged first in fresh water lakes or streams is counterintuitive. "Most people have the assumption that Cyanobacteria came out ...

Scientists discover how fish evolved to float at different sea depths

... 400 million years to stay motionless at different water depths. A research team led by Dr Michael Berenbr...d cod, have developed a way of floating at certain water levels using a gas-filled swimbladder. Dr Berenbrink investigated the mechanism that allows fishes ...

Scientists find fossil proof of Egypt's ancient climate

...thward migration through Africa following reliable water resources, since it seems to be the strongest humi...ild their shells in a classic spiral with whatever water is available that day. The snails were preserved in calcium carbonate deposits throughout the lake. ...

Unprecedented water level rise in Somalia

... rise in Somalia's Shabelle River and that a major water surge may be headed into the centre of the country...n recent times and indicated that a major surge of water was now passing into Central Somalia. Heavy rain was also expected to continue into next week. In J...

Children's taste sensitivity and food choices influenced by taste gene

...verage. They also were less likely to name milk or water as one of their two favorite beverages. Favorite cereals and beverages of PP children had higher sugar content than corresponding selections of AA children. According to study co-author, geneticist Danielle Reed, PhD, "The children most sensitive to...

Rats infected as newborns grew up vulnerable to memory problems during an immune challenge

... often than the rats who'd been injected with salt water as newborns. In other words, under immune stress, ...onatally infected and control adult rats with salt water or with bacterial LPS. Two hours later, they euthenized the rats and checked brain markers of the im...

Dead zone area in Gulf could be increasing, researchers say

... of Mexico and their findings show that the area's water contains lower oxygen levels than expected this ti... the stratification levels between the fresh river water and heavier salt water could results in increased hypoxia, which creates the dead zone." Hypoxia is...

Liposome finding implies electrical effect on cell development

..., the researchers placed liposomes in a droplet of water and applied very low electric fields (5-10 volts per centimeter), much lower than the fields present in operating neurons (a fraction of a volt but operating over a very short distance--less than a micron--to produce a field up to one thousand times ...

Transgenic plants remove more selenium from polluted soil than wild plants, new tests show

...s when biologists discovered that irrigation drain water held at the Kesterson Reservoir in the San Joaquin Valley was causing serious deformities in birds. The researchers say cleaning up the sediment in the San Luis Drain could cost millions of dollars using conventional methods, including soil washing,...

WHO Warns Of Increased Risk Of Vector-borne Diseases In Tsunami-affected Areas

...s strengthening its disease surveillance, stagnant water conditions creating conditions for mosquito vector...n up the Aedes mosquito breeding sites in the open water containers and debris around camps and homes", added Dr Samlee. Experts have been deployed and an E...

New lab technique identifies high levels of pathogens in therapy pool

...ients became ill at the facility. The indoor pool water was kept at temperatures of 92 degrees to 94 degre...m different bacteria and fungi in the pool air and water and identify more than 600 unique sequences, including "Mycobacterium avium." Hernandez led the sam...

Marburg haemorrhagic fever in Angola update

...?have presented additional challenges. Supplies of water and electricity are intermittent, also in health care facilities. Weakened infrastructures, including those for communications and transportation, are another problem. Yesterday, the WHO office in Uige was informed of a death in another municipality,...

Microbial fuel cell: High yield hydrogen source and wastewater cleaner

...olysis, the process that uses electricity to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen. Logan adds, "This new process demonstrates, for the first time, that there is real potential to capture hydrogen for fuel from renewable sources for clean transportation." ...

Buying Time Through Hibernation on Demand

...orwegian skier was rescued after submersion in icy water for more than an hour. When rescued she was clinically dead with no heartbeat, no respiration, and her body temperature had fallen to 57 degrees Fahrenheit (normal is 98.6 F). She was resuscitated and since has made a good physical and mental recover...

U-M team recovers ancient whale in Egyptian desert

...orwegian skier was rescued after submersion in icy water for more than an hour. When rescued she was clinically dead with no heartbeat, no respiration, and her body temperature had fallen to 57 degrees Fahrenheit (normal is 98.6 F). She was resuscitated and since has made a good physical and mental recover...

Medical molecules designed to respond to visible light that can penetrate tissue

...exciting potential of creating molecules to reduce water to hydrogen. The talk, "Designing photochemical molecular devices utilizing Os and Ru polyazine light absorbers and Rh and Pt reactive sites: Applications in solar energy conversion and photodynamic therapy (INOR 410)," will be presented at 4:50 p.m....

Reservoirs may accelerate the spread of invasive aquatic species, researchers say

...ads to many-fold increases in the area of standing water in a region and that reservoirs typically replace ...irs are usually shallower, more connected to other water bodies, and more laden with suspended and dissolved solids; they also have a higher and more variabl...

First frozen egg baby born in Canada

...al rate. Human eggs are very fragile and have high water content. Conventional methods of freezing have been relatively unsuccessful because they allow the formation of ice crystals, damaging the cells and rendering the egg unusable. This problem has now been resolved by a new method of rapid freezing call...

Discovery may lead to better Candidiasis drug

...nments, which, in turn, regulates their volume and water content. Cells that lose their water content without being able to regulate its re-uptake die rapidly, Edgerton said. "Now that the targ...

NASA study finds snow melt causes large ocean plant blooms

...ferences generate monsoon winds that mix the ocean water in the Western Arabian Sea. This mixing leads to b...eating a larger temperature difference between the water of the Arabian Sea and the Indian subcontinent landmass. The temperature difference is responsible ...

Study reveals new technique for fingerprinting environmental samples

...major energy source for microbes living in surface water there was an abundance of genes involved in photosynthesis in samples collected from shallow water. These differences in the abundances of genes involved in particular functions provide DNA clues to features of the environments from where the samples...

Global analysis of membrane proteins

...erent proteins that transport nutrients, ions, and water into and out of the cell. Such membrane proteins also help cells recognize each other in the body, and make the nervous system work. Scientists at Stockholm University have now mapped out nearly all of the membrane proteins in the enteric bacterium E...

Scientists journey to southern Africa to unravel the secret world of elephant communication

...apparent reason, the four males step away from the water and freeze in unison, as if posing for a group act... back, they tended to clump together and leave the water hole sooner. But what's really interesting is that the unfamiliar anti-predator call from Kenya also...

Physiological effects of reduced gravity on bacteria

...at system. As bacteria are important residents in water systems, including those of space stations, examin...t influence bacterial distribution. In this study, water system bacterial isolates from the ISS were compared to other isolates from corresponding type strai...

Anammox bacteria produce nitrogen gas in oceans' snackbar

...nt system leads to upwelling of nutrient-rich cold water off the coast of Namibia and acts as a kind of sna...ules), fluorescence microscopy and DNA analyses of water samples was used to proof the abundance of anammox bacteria in the Atlantic Ocean. The discovery of ...

Researchers discover underwater volcano

...y NOAA's Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory. The water surrounding the volcanic cone is extremely turbid due to hydrothermal activity and the vigorous vents that produce this volcanic "fog" are obscured, according to Staudigel. Although visibility from the submersible was less than 10 feet, the researche...

Are rice and wheat behind China's population boom?

...ields through the introduction of nutrients in the water and knowledge of water management practices. "By successfully manipulating rice production to the extent that these ancient...

New project aims to make large-scale lobster farms feasible

...discovery that lobster larvae are settling on open water fish cages in Puerto Rico by the thousands. The re...ques for gathering even more larvae, to study open water and land-based methods for raising the larvae to adulthood, and to begin developing possible feeds f...

Advancements In Genomics Foster Deep Sea Discoveries

...ry much, but pressure as they move up and down the water column can. They sense that pressure.?/p> The ...p sea, while some 20 percent exists in the shallow water environment and a mere half of a percent is on land. Extreme deep ocean conditions include near fre...

Oceans more vulnerable to agricultural runoff than previously thought, study finds

...as red or brown tides, which release toxins in the water that can poison mollusks and fish. Excessively lar...ndows of time during a six-month cycle. The excess water from irrigation runs off through streams and channels into the estuaries and then out to sea." Mats...