Tag: "century" at biology news

Bigger horns equal better genes

...pine ibex were hunted almost to extinction about a century ago for sport and the purported pharmacological properties of their horns. The last survivors were protected in an Italian national park, and the species has slowly repopulated and today is no longer considered endangered. ...

Salty oceans provide early warning for climate change

...can’t possibly travel this fast (it takes nearly a century for a parcel of water to move from the South Atlantic to the North Atlantic). Instead the scientists think that energy is transferred through the ocean along a deep pressure wave. “The surge of salt generates a pressure gradient in the ocean that sen...

Potent possibilities for parasite attack

...rdable drugs have been in use for more than half a century and drug resistance is rife, creating a desperate need for new treatments. Biological studies for the function of 50% of Leishmania genes are lacking, so this comparative genome study provides a route to find those that might be essential to each spe...

An 'elegant' idea proves its worth 25 years later

... England Journal of Medicine summarizing a quarter century of experience with the treatment. The effectiveness of sodium phenylacetate and sodium benzoate, two chemicals the body already makes to carry nitrogen for disposal in urine "just knocked my socks off from the moment we first tried them," recalls S...

8 plants from South Africa may hold potential for treating high blood pressure

...d most diverse in the world. In South Africa, 21st century drug therapy is used side-by-side with traditional...'s folk remedies may one day be just what the 21st century doctor orders. ...

Egyptians, not Greeks were true fathers of medicine

...ient remedies we discovered survived into the 20th century and, indeed, some remain in use today, albeit that the active component is now produced synthetically," said Dr Campbell. "Other ingredients endure and acacia is still used in cough remedies while aloes forms a basis to soothe and heal skin condit...

Dinosaur hearing, listening to muscle noise, quieter cubicles

...F MODERNITY Acoustical developments in the 20th century forever altered the sounds that U.S. residents hea...RLD'S WORST SOUNDS Something that is very 21st century is the ability to gradually morph, or transform sounds from one to another. A variation of morphing...

Tundra disappearing at rapid rate

...ponse to climate warming during the early mid 20th century was observed at all locations. Treeline advanced considerably—as much as 85 metres elevation—on warm, south-facing slopes and tree density increased significantly—as much as 65 per cent—on cooler, north-facing slopes. "The mechanism of change app...

Scientists uncover link between ocean's chemical processes and microscopic floating plants

... carbon dioxide levels expected at the end of this century and the middle of the next one. The study, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), New Mexico Tech and the Comer Foundation, sheds light on how chemical processes that occur throughout the world's oceans help regulate Earth's climate. Othe...

Massive coral death attributed to earthquake

...ity to document a process that occurs maybe once a century and promises to provide new insights into coral recovery processes that until now we could only explore on fossil reefs" says Dr Baird. Dr Campbell adds "The news from Simeulue is not all bad. At many sites, the worst affected species are beginnin...

Common gene version optimizes thinking -- but with a possible downside

... work in the living human brain build on a quarter century of investigations by Greengard's team that ultimately linked this pivotal protein to depression and substance abuse as well as to schizophrenia," added NIMH Director Thomas Insel, M.D. To understand DARPP-32's role in the human brain, the NIMH re...

New species of snapper discovered in Brazil

... coral reefs. The new species is named for 18th century naturalist Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira, whose extensive work in the Brazilian interior remains largely unknown. Moura and Lindeman spent five years observing Lutjanus alexandrei to analyze its characteristics and determine the distinct features. ...

MU researcher placing eye implants in cats to help humans see

...es" in the 24th century, people living in the 21st century may not have to wait that long for the illuminating technology. Kristina Narfstrom, a University of Missouri-Columbia veterinary ophthalmologist, has been working with a microchip implant to help blind animals "see." According to Narfstrom, the pr...

Fighting to keep Darwin in the classroom

Nearly a century ago, John Scopes was found guilty of violating a Tennessee statute when he taught evolution in his classroom. Though an appeals court later reversed his conviction on a technicality, the law lingered on the books, joined by later laws promoting "sci...

Darwin's famous finches and Venter's marine microbes

...n took two weeks, but would have taken well over a century on a traditional computer. The Salk scientists could assign over half of all GOS sequences to known protein families, and discovered that certain protein profiles are more popular in the ocean or on land. For example, gram-positive bacteria are b...

Paleontologists discover new mammal from Mesozoic Era

...ary biologists have been searching for more than a century for clues to the evolutionary origins of mammal ear structure. Mammalian hearing adaptation is made possible by a sophisticated middle ear of three tiny bones, known as the hammer (malleus), the anvil (incus) and the stirrup (stapes), plus a bony ...

Hofmeyr skull supports the 'Out of Africa' theory

... Grine. Although the skull was found over half a century ago, its significance became apparent only recently. A new approach to dating developed by Grine team member Richard Bailey and his colleagues at Oxford University allowed them to determined its age at just over 36,000 years ago by measuring the amou...

Mummy's amazing American maize

...ica changed when the Europeans arrived in the 15th century ?everything from the language to the whole way of life," explained Professor Terry Brown, who headed the research in the Faculty of Life Sciences. "Maize is the staple food crop of the region but prior to colonisation it also had a ritual signific...

Mystery of fossilized trees is solved

...ash flood in Gilboa, upstate New York, more than a century ago. However, until now, no-one has known what the entire trees looked like. Two years ago, two fossils were found near Gilboa of trees which had fallen sideways, with their trunk, branches, twigs and crown still intact. American researchers ca...

Napoleon's mysterious death unmasked, UT Southwestern researcher says

... a state-of-the-art tumor-staging method from 21st century pathology and determined that Napoleon had at least T3N1M0, or Stage IIIA, gastric cancer, which is very severe. The method grades severity on a 1 to 4 scale, with 4 being the worst case. The "T" designates cancer size; the "N" designates the presenc...

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