earth 2 2

Tag: "earth" at biology news

USC, Rice to develop bacteria-powered fuel cells

...re digesting," said Lüttge, associate professor of earth science and chemistry. "Any change in one variable will affect the other two, and what we want to do is find out how to tweak each one to optimize the performance of the whole system." Lüttge's participation in the program grew out of a decade-long ...

Ancient DNA provides clues to the evolution of social behavior

...r disease should have wiped it off the face of the earth long ago. Yet the hearty gopher-like creature has not only managed to survive for thousands of years in the harsh climate of the Argentine highlands, it has evolved a complex social structure that's unique among the more than 50 closely related tuco-...

UF scientists reveal ancient origin of vertebrate skeleton

...Michael Caldwell, Ph.D., an associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and of biological sciences at the University of Alberta. "One of the classic characters in the scientific literature for the past 100 years that has been argued to link all vertebrates, to the exclusion of lampreys and hagfi...

'Accelerated evolution' converts RNA enzyme to DNA enzyme in vitro

...y conducted the study, said, "During early life on earth both genetic information and catalytic function were thought to reside only in RNA. In our study, the evolutionary transition from an RNA to a DNA enzyme represents a genuine change, rather than a simple expansion, of the chemical basis for catalytic...

UF scientists reveal ancient origin of vertebrate skeleton

...Michael Caldwell, Ph.D., an associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and of biological sciences at the University of Alberta. "One of the classic characters in the scientific literature for the past 100 years that has been argued to link all vertebrates, to the exclusion of lampreys and hagfi...

Primates harvest bee nests in Ugandan reserve

...writes. "Bwindi-Impenetrable is the only place on earth where gorillas, chimps and humans partition forest resources. Given the importance of honey as one of the most concentrated sources of sugar and protein in the forest, and the fact that the park management plan allows collection of non-timber forest...

Alleged 40,000-year-old human footprints in Mexico much, much older than thought

...y Geochronology Center and an adjunct professor of earth and planetary science at UC Berkeley, and his colleagues in Mexico and at Texas A&M University report in the Dec. 1 issue of Nature a new age for the rock: about 1.3 million years. "You're really only left with two possibilities," Renne said. "O...

Missing fossil link 'Dallasaurus' found

...house temperatures and rising sea levels. "As the earth warmed and the seas rose, small land-dwelling lizards took to the oceans and developed increasing levels of seagoing capabilities, and over 30 million years, eventually evolving into the top predator of their domain before becoming extinct some 65 mi...

Novel protein complex enables survival in hostile environment

...ns must have been able to tolerate sulfite. "Early earth had a lot of sulfide but no oxygen until about 2.7...id. "Methanogens present during the oxygenation of earth had to face this sulfite." But Johnson and Mukhopadhyay could not find any sign of such ability in...

Protein behind autumn color splendor identified

... is visible from space--in satellite images of the earth the tropical and temperate forest areas are green. In the tropics there is no autumn, but in our climate deciduous trees and other perennials lose their chlorophyll in the fall. The reason for this is that the proteins in the leaves contain amino a...

A bug's life: Exceptional genomic stability yet rapid protein evolution in a carpenter ant mutualist

...atalysts throughout the 4 billion years of life on earth and have largely shaped the evolution of complex organisms." Symbiotic bacteria live in root nodules of leguminous plants, in gutless marine worms, in echinoderms such as starfishes and sea urchins, and in specialized cells of insects such as aphids...

Restaurant seafood prices since 1850s help plot marine harvests through history

...rt of peoples' diets since humans first walked the earth and remains a vital item in the daily diet of millions worldwide," says Danish environmental historian Poul Holm, who leads the HMAP network of researchers and institutions. "The Romans ate fish in vast quantities. And over-fishing in medieval Europ...

Scientists crack 40-year-old DNA puzzle and point to 'hot soup' at the origin of life

...gests that the primordial soup where life began on earth was hot and not cold, as many scientists believe. In a paper published in the Journal of Molecular Evolution this week, researchers from the University of Bath describe a new theory which they believe could solve a puzzle that has baffled scientists...

Scientists closer to new cancer detection method

...ment of chemical engineering and the department of earth and environmental engineering. "A cell contains a lot of material that absorbs and emits light when it's excited," Turro said. "That's been the problem. However, if you wait 10 nanoseconds, the signals from the native fluorescence go away. What's le...

New technology shows our ancestors ate…everything!

...nt," said Teaford. The result is like a map of the earth that shows mountains, valleys and plains in full relief, only at a microscopic scale. As anticipated from traditional examination of fossilized teeth, the tooth surfaces of P. robustus were more pitted and complex, while those of A. africanus were m...

Secrets of the deep may hold key to life on other planets

...evolutionary history different to anything else on earth and even give us clues to how life could exist ono...full community can grow in just three years," said earth and environment lecturer Dr Crispin Little. "Vent communities are dependent on geochemical rather ...

Study casts doubt on 'Snowball Earth' theory

...e lead author is Alison Olcott, a Ph.D. student of earth sciences in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Geologists agree that prehistoric Earth was locked in a deep freeze during Precambrian times, about 750 to 600 million years ago. They disagree over the severity of the glaciation. "Snowbal...

Oxygen increase caused mammals to triumph, researchers say

...ientists believed that great fires burned over the earth about 10 million years ago, reducing the number of trees and, therefore, the amount of photosynthesis and oxygen. ...

Space matters: Estimating species diversity in the fossil record

Estimates for the number of living species on earth range from 3.5 million to over 30 million but only 1.9 million species have been classified and described. Estimating historical biodiversity from the fossil record is an even more daunting task. One tool ecologists - but not paleontologists - have ...

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

...isms, said team leader Jill Banfield, professor of earth and planetary science and of environmental science, policy and management at UC Berkeley. This technique not only tells her and her colleagues what genes are expressed as proteins in each bacteria, but also how much of each is produced - the key to ...

1 2 3