Tag: "historic" at biology news

The secret lives of whales

...s Smith. In the North Atlantic, where only 10% of historic populations of the great whales are estimated to still survive, Smith speculates that substantial species extinction may have occurred in the whale fall fauna. “The deep ocean appears to be a major reservoir of biodiversity on the planet. Some of the...

New Clues Add 40,000 Years to Age of Human Species

Nearly 40 years after an historic anthropology expedition to Ethiopia's Lake Turkana basin, researchers have uncovered evidence suggesting human bones found at that time are roughly 195,000 years old. The researchers believe the findings may bolster the “Out-of-Africa?hypothesis tha...

Breast-Cancer Risk Linked to Exposure to Traffic Emissions at Menarche, First Birth

...hicles. A geographic model was used to reconstruct historic traffic PAHs, using measurements of benzo[a]pyrene, a known potent mutagen and carcinogen, as a surrogate for total PAH exposure. Cruise emissions, cold engine emissions and intersection emissions were used to estimate total traffic PAH emissions. I...

No relief for Pacific Northwest drought

...theastern Arizona. And there is a major problem of historic proportions developing in a six-state region that includes Oregon, Washington, northern California, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. "We project that the drought severity the northwestern states are now experiencing will only get worse in coming months, ...

Biologists discover why 10% of Europeans are safe from HIV

... disease, acting over a sustained period in bygone historic times. Some scientists have suggested this disease could have been smallpox or even bubonic plague but bubonic plague is a bacterial disease rather than a virus and is not blocked by the CCR5-delta32 mutation. Professor Duncan commented: "The fact ...

First North American Encapsulated Islet Transplant without Long-term Immune Suppression into a Patient with Type 1 Diabetes

... disease, acting over a sustained period in bygone historic times. Some scientists have suggested this disease could have been smallpox or even bubonic plague but bubonic plague is a bacterial disease rather than a virus and is not blocked by the CCR5-delta32 mutation. Professor Duncan commented: "The fact ...

Bugs, even 'bad' ones, can be educationally beneficial, new book says

...sts, he said. In the book, Waldbauer explains many historic and recent examples of how people control pests without insecticides. For example, in 1886, the cottony cushion scale (Icerya purchasi), accidentally imported from Australia, threatened California's early citrus industry. At times these pests, whose...

Searching the depths of the straits of Florida for disease cures

...e to the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy's (USCOP) historic 2004 report. The report is the first comprehensive review of the nation's management of ocean resources in over 30 years. It calls for sweeping changes in ocean policy including dramatic increases in ocean science funding and restructuring of governm...

NASA probe could reveal comet life, scientists claim

... comet. NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft will make a historic encounter with Comet Tempel-1 on 4th July, when a metre-long projectile will crash into the comet and tunnel through its outer layers, producing a crater and a plume of gas and dust. UK astronomers involved in monitoring the comet before, during and...

Census of Marine Life explorers surprised by diversity, density of Arctic creatures

A historic expedition of Census of Marine Life explorers to the planet's most northern reaches has revealed a surprising density and diversity of Arctic Ocean creatures, some believed new to science. Sheltered for millennia under a lid of ice currently one to ...

New Scripps Oceanography project to study sediments and ecosystem restoration in Venice lagoon

...anslocation in Venice lagoon, a vital facet of the historic city of Venice, Italy. The new effort, a two-year, $1.5 million project for Scripps, is part of Italy's broad commitment to safeguard Venice and its lagoon, the coastal wetland that surrounds the city and links directly with the Adriatic Sea through...

Dalai Lama, top scientists to discuss science & clinical applications of meditation

...05 at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, DC. The historic conference on meditation, a convergence of Eastern...rence the Dalai Lama will participate in two other historic events in Washington, DC. First, he will address the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience,...

Biotech cotton 8: Bugs 0

... bugs acting together have driven pesticide use to historic low levels ... this is a wonderful success of integrated pest management." Since widespread adoption of Bt cotton in 1997, insecticide use on Arizona's cotton crops is down 60 percent, said Tabashnik. The reduction in chemical pesticide use saves gr...

Overfishing may drive endangered seabird to rely upon lower quality food

...the Monterey Bay region between 1895 and 1911. The historic feathers represent a time period prior to the onse...quid and rockfish. The researchers compared these historic samples with feathers they collected between 1998 and 2002 from 201 murrelets in the same region. Th...

Argonne researchers confirm lead in Beethoven's illness

...here. A control bone fragment sample from the same historic period was also examined. Both bone fragments were from the parietal section ?the top ?of the skull. "The testing indicated large amounts of lead in the Beethoven bone sample, compared to the control," said Bill Walsh, chief scientist at the Pfeiffe...

Guiding principles for facial transplantation unveiled

...ation procedures. "This is truly a remarkable and historic time in plastic surgery," said Bruce Cunningham, MD and ASPS president. "The ability to help restore some hope to a person who suffers from severe facial disfigurement for an improved quality of life is a wonderful thing. Still, there are many unansw...

Two NIH initiatives launch intensive efforts to find roots of common diseases

... efforts that we should support. We must seize the historic opportunity provided by the Human Genome Project and the International HapMap Project, to speed up the discovery of the genetic causes of common diseases like diabetes and hypertension. At the same time, it's critical that we also understand the envi...

Research tracks whales by listening to sounds

...the summer," Mellinger said. "Likewise, all of the historic whaling records are from the summer. The Gulf of Alaska is not a place you want to be in the winter. But apparently, sperm whales don't mind." Other researchers participating in the study include Sue Moore, NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Center in Seattle;...

New tiger report release: Tiger habitat down from just a decade ago

...go. The tigers now occupy only 7 percent of their historic range. This landmark study, commissioned by the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation's Save The Tiger Fund and produced by some of the world's leading tiger scientists at World Wildlife Fund, Wildlife Conservation Society, the Smithsonian's Na...

All the eggs in one basket

...t remain. The study, "Conservation implications of historic sea turtle nesting beach loss," appears in the Aug...y reduced by people. Using trade records from 163 historic sources in four time periods in 20 Caribbean regions, McClenachan and colleagues mapped the historic...

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