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Tag: "ancient" at biology news

Deep sea algae connect ancient climate, carbon dioxide and vegetation

...bration of carbon-containing compounds produced by ancient sea surface algae that were recently isolated in deep sea drill cores. The data indicates that between 45 - 34 million years ago the atmospheric carbon dioxide level was up to five times greater than today, with a sharp decrease and then stabilizati...

Researchers find first evidence of venom system in extinct mammal

...ological Sciences. About the size of a mouse, the ancient mammal--Bisonalveus browni--may have resembled a small hedgehog or a small mole, but it isn't related to any animal that currently exists, said Craig Scott, a PhD student at the U of A and co-author of the paper in Nature. Currently, there are two t...

Big differences in duplicated DNA distinguish chimp and human genomes

...xample involved a piece of DNA near the site of an ancient chromosome fusion point on chromosome 2. In humans, this piece of DNA is represented as four copies, but in the chimp it has expanded to about 500 copies near the end of the chromosomes. Researchers don't yet understand why this particular piece of D...

Proteomics brings researchers closer to understanding microbes that produce acid mine drainage

...s in real-world conditions." Bacteria, along with ancient microbes called Archaea, in the biofilm capture carbon and nitrogen from the atmosphere and derive energy from iron that has been leached out of the iron sulfide rock, also known as pyrite or "fool's gold." In the process, they produce sulfuric acid ...

Studies reveal how plague disables immune system, and how to exploit the process to make a vaccine

... can use modern tools to learn new things about an ancient scourge, and to prepare for the possible re-emergence of diseases we would like to forget, but better not." ...

Map of life on Earth could be used on Mars

...said. "This could suggest that we have some really ancient habitat specialization. These lineages specialize in these three habitats, and diverge in these habitats for many hundreds of million years before they start moving into other types of habitats." The 'peculiar' ancestor It isn't clear why bacteria ...

Ancient DNA helps clarify the origins of two extinct New World horse species

...r, Jaco Weinstock, Alan Cooper, and colleagues use ancient DNA to argue that the Hippidion genus is younger than previously thought and that American stilt-legged horses were American endemics, not Asian emigres. Their analysis has also whittled down the taxonomy of North American species to just two. "I thi...

High fidelity keeps human DNA assembly line humming

...ife Agrippina to put her son Nero on the throne of ancient Rome. Alpha-amanitin kills people by stalling movement of the DNA conveyer belt. Finding evidence of quality control gives some perspective to the elegance of cell creation. Burton said it does not mean mistakes never occur. The assembly line analog...

Evidence of 600-million-year old fungi-algae symbiosis discovered in marine fossils

...he sea are abundant. Now, there is an example from ancient ocean life. At a site where abundant algae lived ...id. "The Doushantuo Formation opens a window into ancient marine life. There is a lot more remains to be learned from these rocks," Yuan added. ...

Searching the depths of the straits of Florida for disease cures

... exploration on the Miami Terrace, a 60-mile long, ancient deep-water reef just east of Fort Lauderdale and Miami. During dives on the Miami Terrace in May of 2004, the team, along with scientists from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, found incredible diversity that varied dramatically along its l...

Venom doc tracks down snake bioweapons

...were derived from proteins presumably expressed in ancient reptile saliva. Both of these toxin types, CRISP and kallikrein, are closely related to toxins called helothermine and gilatoxin, which are produced by the Beaded Lizard and the Gila Monster, respectively. One of the toxins in this study (called the...

Chimp genome reveals a retroviral invasion

...g, and gibbon). This undermines the notion that an ancient infection invaded an ancestral primate lineage, since great apes (including humans) share a common ancestor with Old World monkeys. Eichler and colleagues found over 100 copies of PTERV1 in each African ape (chimp and gorilla) and Old World monkey (...

Hydrogen and methane provide raw energy for life at 'Lost City'

...of organisms, with which to look for life in those ancient rocks or on other planets. The work being published was funded by the NSF, NASA Astrobiology Institute and a Swiss national science grant. "The findings are an exciting example of NSF's commitment to discovery through basic research," said Bilal Ha...

Master gene controls healing of skin in fruit flies and mammals

...o it is remarkable that flies and mammals share an ancient conserved pathway to construct and repair the body envelope that protects them from sharp edges and microbes, even though that body envelope is constructed of mostly different molecules." In their paper, the UCSD researchers state that studying the ...

Oldest fossil human protein ever sequenced

...lationships between extinct and living species. As ancient DNA rarely survives, this new method opens up the possibility of determining these relationships in much older fossils which no longer contain DNA. The research presents the sequence for the bone protein osteocalcin from a Neanderthal from Shandivar...

What's really making you sick? Plant pathologists offer the science behind Sick Building Syndrome

...ngsville, TX. "Mold has been known to humans since ancient times and it is impossible to eliminate mold from our lives," Skaria said. "However, we now have the technological ability to detect mold growth in its infancy to control it." Apart from mold, dust and other antigens also cause SBS. This makes SBS a...

Are rice and wheat behind China's population boom?

...he discovery of wheat - excavated from a pit among ancient house ruins and garbage dumps - was especially int...ipulating rice production to the extent that these ancient people did, in combination with millet and wheat, helps explain the foundation of China's huge popul...

New research indicates a 'troubled' greenhouse is brewing

... a University of Oregon geologist's analysis of an ancient greenhouse event. "We know the gathering greenhou...d the same techniques to buried soils spanning the ancient greenhouse event. "This is known to have been a time of high atmospheric carbon dioxide from studie...

Researchers find missing genes of ancient organism

...nal Nature that the "missing" genes for tRNA in an ancient parasite are made up by splicing together sequence...ysics and Biochemistry at Yale focuses on the most ancient organism with a known genome sequence. Nanoarchaeum equitans, is a member of a new phylogenetic king...

Plant hemoglobins: Oxygen handlers critical for nitrogen fixation

Hemoglobins, key components of our blood, are ancient proteins with well-known roles in oxygen transport and respiration in animals. Hemoglobins are also present in plants and bacteria, but until now the physiological role of plant hemoglobins has been unclear. A group of researchers reveal this week th...

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