Tag: "alien" at biology news

Ecology in an era of globalization

...ford University, California, US) discuss "Invasive alien species in an era of globalization." Noting invasi... importance of determining the economic impacts of alien invasives to better manage and assess existing infestations. The special issue also contains work...

Alien plants attack using 'resource conservation' as weapon, researchers say

...ients and light. Biologists have long assumed that alien species pose less of a threat in resource-poor env...ek. To compare the resource-use efficiencies of alien and native plants, the researchers studied three ecosystems in Hawaii-a forested area with limited l...

NASA predicts nongreen plants on other planets

...nets, to see if they are habitable, and could have alien plants," said Victoria Meadows, an astronomer who heads the VPL. The VPL team is using a suite of computer models to simulate Earth-size planets and their light spectra as space telescopes would see them. The scientists' goal is to discover the likel...

Prehistoric mystery organism verified as giant fungus

...s of geologic time, terrestrial Earth looked quite alien in comparison to the modern world. Simple vascular plants, the ancestors of the familiar conifers, ferns and flowering plants of today, began to diversify on land during the Devonian Period. "Initially, they’re just stems. They don’t have roots. T...

Life in the extreme

...om a yet unidentified source. But life in these alien environments can also exist without symbionts as Ian MacDonald from Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi US has demonstrated. His observations of the fauna around coastal margin hydrocarbon seeps in the Gulf of Mexico have revealed a habitat rich...

Molecular 'signature' protects cells from viruses

...f Clinical Pharmacology. 'They often recognise the alien RNA and set off the alarm: for example, they then produce what is known as the beta interferon, thereby activating specific killer cells. They also initiate the cell's suicide programme ?apoptosis. The viruses cannot then continue to breed.' Up to...

Too mellow for our predatory world

...ing on the Galápagos Islands; they also introduce alien animal and plant species which are causing great damage to local flora and fauna. Roedl and his colleagues Silke Berger as well as Michael Romero and Martin Wikelski wanted to find out to what extent marine iguanas from various populations and with...

Invasive species alter habitat to their benefit

When scientists study habitats that alien species have invaded, they usually find predictable patterns. The diversity of native species declines, and changes occur in natural processes such as nutrient cycling, wildfire frequency and the movement of water through the system. But simply ob...

Invasive species harms native hardwoods by killing soil fungus

... impact of accidental and intentional dispersal of alien invasive species across the globe," says Kristina ...ment and many more continue to be introduced. Some alien species cause little harm, while others can become very aggressive and radically transfigure their n...

Researchers use brain scans to predict behavior

...s, causing these patients to perceive the world as alien and unpredictable. Other areas involved in prediction included regions in the visual cortex involved in the analysis of the motion display and regions involved in the control of visual attention. "These activations may reflect the degree to which...

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

What would you call an alien if you encountered it on the street tomorrow? What if that alien didn't come from another world but rather was created in a laboratory right here on Earth and functi...

Prozac for future Plants on Mars

...eparated may treat the former conjoined twin as an alien "enemy," according to a Penn State researcher. "We were looking at how plants determine who is a competitor when competing with other roots for limited resources," says Dr. Omer Falik, postdoctoral researcher in plant ecology. "There is no reason fo...

Plants discriminate between self and non self

...eparated may treat the former conjoined twin as an alien "enemy," according to a Penn State researcher. "We were looking at how plants determine who is a competitor when competing with other roots for limited resources," says Dr. Omer Falik, postdoctoral researcher in plant ecology. "There is no reason fo...

Evolution of life on Earth may hold key to finding life in outer space

...hile found, animators created a parallel imaginary alien planet on which these microbes are likely to thriv...urvive, allowing audiences to explore the types of alien worlds where scientists may one day find real alien life. "All known living organisms on Earth shar...

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

...d by a Cornell University expert, the adult female alien is the only one of its kind ever discovered in the...n Indiana in 2002. Experts suspect that the female alien that was trapped in Fulton County probably hitchhiked into the area on a wooden crate or in packing ...

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

...bance makes a landscape susceptible to invasion by alien plant species, the construction of reservoirs around the globe could be contributing to the accelerating spread of exotic aquatic species, according to a Forum article in the June 2005 issue of BioScience. John A. Havel of Southwest Missouri State Un...

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