environments 2 4

Tag: "environments" at biology news

Some like it hot: Worms at deep-sea vents favor a fiery 45-55°C

...haviors. Other inhabitants of equally inhospitable environments are known to die fairly quickly under such conditions; in one previous study of desert fire ants, all died within one minute of exposure to a temperature of 55 degrees Celsius. Such ants will survive brief forays into similarly hot areas to obtain fo...

Cuttlefish masters of disguise despite colorblindness

...the task of camouflage in low-contrast, color-rich environments such as those found at shallow depths of water, remains to be answered. Mäthger and her colleagues are currently looking at cuttlefish contrast sensitivity in more detail. "Our result that cuttlefish are able to detect contrast differences of at leas...

Rare Chinese frogs communicate by means of ultrasonic sound

...sses sound patterns, especially in sound-cluttered environments in which filtering is required to allow for communication. Feng and colleagues previously reported that males of the species make thesehigh-pitched bird-like calls, with numerous variants in terms of harmonics and frequency sweeps. Some sounds excee...

Study finds evolution doesn't always favor bigger animals

...face to volume ratios are better adapted to warmer environments where they can more effectively dissipate heat. ...ion of body size in fossil organisms as well as in environments that are now being impacted by global warming. "There's still a huge debate over what drives Cope'...

Genome sequencing is for ecologists, too

...l organism for laboratory and field studies of how environments influence -- and how they're influenced by -- an organism's genetics. The animals are common in lakes and ponds and have been used to monitor the health of aquatic environments. Members of the species can reproduce both with and without sex, which ha...

MIT: Oceans are a major gene swap-meet for plankton

...e see, and which allow microbes to flourish in all environments on Earth," she added. "And if we can understand the details of this phenomenon in Prochlorococcus, the simplest free-living organism, it should be very helpful toward understanding the diversity in all of life." ...

High-tech tags on marine animals yield valuable data for biologists and oceanographers

...grations and behavior of the animals and about the environments in which they live. "We're using these animals as ocean sensors to tell us about oceanographic conditions, and we're also learning how they use the ocean--where they go and what they do," said Daniel Costa, professor of ecology and evolutionary biol...

There's something fishy about human brain evolution

... or forests, argues Dr. Cunnane, ancient shoreline environments provided a year-round, accessible and rich food supply. Such an environment was found in the wetlands and river and lake shorelines that dominated east Africa's prehistoric Rift Valley in which early humans evolved. Dr. Cunnane points to the table s...

Frog’s ear canal may provide insights for understanding human hearing loss

...tegies or technologies that help people to hear in environments where there is substantial background noise. The ...sounds. (A different species that lives in similar environments also demonstrated an ability to hear ultrasounds.) The next steps for the researchers will be to st...

Predators keep the world green, ecologists find

...challenge of experimentally creating predator-free environments in which herbivores can increase without constraint has proven almost insurmountable." However, the researchers realized that the hypothesis could be tested on a vast hydroelectric project. Within Venezuela's Caroni Valley, an area of 4,300 square ...

MRSA use amoeba to spread, new research shows

...ts. "Effective control of MRSA within healthcare environments requires better understanding of their ecology," said Professor Brown. "We now need to focus on improving our understanding of exactly how MRSA is transmitted, both in hospitals and in the wider environment, to develop control procedures that are e...

A salty tale: New bacterial genome sequenced from ancient salterns

...es that we might not expect." Normally, high-salt environments denature bacterial proteins. To survive, S. ruber must maintain a high concentration of potassium inside its cytoplasm, keeping an osmotic balance against the high sodium chloride concentration outside. That's where evolutionary strategy comes in. ...

How E. coli bacterium generates simplicity from complexity

... in E. coli when it is "grown" in 15,580 different environments in computer simulations. "When it comes to genome... transcriptional regulatory networks in the 15,580 environments of food sources and electron acceptors. To their surprise, no matter what carbon source it ingests o...

Adult stem cells aid recovery in animal model of cerebral palsy

...species, or speciation, an ability to adapt to new environments and exploit new ecological niches, and a lower rate of extinction. Speciation, adaptation, and extinction are all controlled by the interplay between genetic and environmental factors. Understanding the genetic changes that lead to the formation of n...

Islands in the Genome Promote Speciation

...species, or speciation, an ability to adapt to new environments and exploit new ecological niches, and a lower rate of extinction. Speciation, adaptation, and extinction are all controlled by the interplay between genetic and environmental factors. Understanding the genetic changes that lead to the formation of n...

Novel protein complex enables survival in hostile environment

...with cold oxygen-containing water, creating cooler environments -- 48 to 94 C (118 to 200 F) -- where M. jannaschi... jannaschii from sulfite-free and sulfite-enhanced environments revealed that M. jannaschii tolerates sulfite and even uses it as a sulfur source by expressing an e...

Multiple genes permit closely related fish species to mix and match their color vision

...ays very similar might respond to their particular environments by interpreting the visual world slightly differently, using photoreceptors that are attuned to particular wavelengths of light. By studying a special group of closely-related fish species inhabiting the Great Lakes of Africa, researchers have uncove...

Gene controls whether fear is a factor

...nstinctive fear of open spaces, venturing out into environments they would usually avoid naturally, Shumyatsky said. Mice lacking stathmin continued to perform normally on a water maze test, an indication that spatial learning and memory--controlled outside of the amygdala--were unaltered. "The findings provide ...

Cattle grazing may help rather than hurt endangered species

...that grazing may help sustain the kinds of aquatic environments endangered fairy shrimps need to survive," author ...ough time to mature before their temporary aquatic environments disappear. "Consequently, land managers can play an important role in climate change impacts, i.e. ...

Fish evolve a longer lifespan by evolving a longer reproductive period, researchers find

...long, the researchers found that guppies living in environments with a large number of predators have adapted to r... work , we showed that guppies from high predation environments have longer lifespans," said David Reznick , professor of biology. "Our new study explores how and...

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