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Tag: "wood" at biology news

Termites feed through good vibrations

...scovery that termites use vibrations to choose the wood they eat may provide opportunities to new methods ...er drywood termites as they fed on large and small wood blocks. Dr Evans then broadcast the recorded vibrations made by termites from the large blocks into ...

Scientists collaborate to assess health of global environment

...sus groundwater usage in Chile's Atacama Desert or wood fuel harvesting in Zambia. Overall, the diminishing capacity of services to meet human demands reflects a global problem, Mooney said. Fifteen of the 24 services the assessment considered have been degraded over the last 50 years--most notably fresh...

World's largest rainforest drying experiment completes first phase

...he sugar and other carbohydrates that they make to wood production. This finding has important implications for climate change since the amount of carbon removed from the atmosphere during tropical droughts will decrease significantly. In addition, there are implications for sustainable forest management,...

Camera Traps Catch Eye of the Tiger

...s converted to commercial plantations growing pulp wood and palm oil trees." This is the first time WWF has used camera traps to study tigers in Indonesia. In July 2004, field staff began handing out questionnaires to find out if local people had seen any tigers. Scientists then conducted a track survey,...

Advances in the characterisation of the oyster mushroom genes

...nin and cellulose ?the two principal components of wood - are being broken down. Degradation of lignin has...und together in nature. They are found together in wood and it would seem logical that the genes responsible for the degradation of one or the other are loc...

Nature provides inspiration for important new adhesive

...ives that may revolutionize a large portion of the wood products industry, and have important environmenta...o strongly to rocks," said Li, who is an expert in wood chemistry and adhesives in the OSU Department of Wood Science and Engineering. "Thinking about it, I...

Primates on the brink

...r agriculture, logging, and the collection of fuel wood continues to be the major factor in the declining number of primates, according to the report. Hunting for subsistence and commercial purposes also is a major and insidious threat, especially in Africa and Asia. Live capture for the pet trade also po...

Atmosphere may cleanse itself better than previously thought

...h are produced when we burn organic matter such as wood or fossil fuels. The atmosphere has three main ways to cleanse itself of such pollutants, two of which are relatively direct: either water droplets in clouds absorb them and rain them out, or sunlight strikes them and the energy breaks the molecules ...

Roundup®highly lethal to amphibians, finds University of Pittsburgh researcher

... tree frog tadpoles were completely eliminated and wood frog tadpoles and toad tadpoles were nearly eliminated. One species of frog, spring peepers, was unaffected. "The most shocking insight coming out of this was that Roundup®, something designed to kill plants, was extremely lethal to amphibians," sai...

Grass makes environmentally friendly biofuel

...armers and burned in modified stoves built to burn wood pellets or corn, says Jerry Cherney, the E.V. Bake...orward, he says. Cherney has made a comparison of wood pellets with various mixes of grasses and the BTUs (British Thermal Units) produced per pound. He ha...

Study of energy and health in Africa focuses spotlight on charcoal and forest management

...ns in Asia and Latin America, is dependent on both wood and charcoal for cooking and heating homes. In 2000, nearly 470 million tons of wood were consumed in homes in sub-Saharan Africa in the form of firewood and charcoal. This is more wood...

The making and breaking of microtubules

...he end of the microtubule, forming "peels," like a wood shaving curling up from a plane. Wang found conditions for which the curls of GDP-bound tubulin close into tubes, with the protofilaments tightly wrapped around the tube axis. These tubes are double-layered, a property that contributes to their stabi...

Fungus-farming termites descend from an African rain forest Eve

...s. The termites use chewed plant material, such as wood and dry grass, to feed the fungus and allow it to flourish, while the fungus converts otherwise indigestible plant material into nutrients the termites can utilize. Earlier work had shown that in the evolutionary past, a single, unreversed, transitio...

Ethanol and biodiesel from crops not worth the energy

...s of producing ethanol from corn, switch grass and wood biomass as well as for producing biodiesel from so...t more fossil energy than the fuel produced; and # wood biomass requires 57 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced. In terms of energy output co...

Using the genomic shortcut to predict bacterial behavior

...s of producing ethanol from corn, switch grass and wood biomass as well as for producing biodiesel from so...t more fossil energy than the fuel produced; and # wood biomass requires 57 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced. In terms of energy output co...

Shade trees getting 'scorched' by plant disease

...costs of replacement as shade trees in landscapes, wood lots, and golf courses affected by BLS decline and must be removed. BLS is caused by a bacterial pathogen, Xylella fastidiosa, which has a wide host range that includes common landscape ornamentals and weeds. X. fastidiosa is spread by insects, main...

Zebrafish may hold key to improved cancer research

...ranging from preserved foods to smoking and use of wood stoves. University researchers have also been active in studies on dioxin and PCBs, both concerns in the process of carcinogenesis. "With zebrafish as a model we should be able to better determine what types and levels of environmental carcinogens a...

Seeing the forest and the trees

...tree plantations containing only species with high wood density such as teak resulted in a 75 percent incr.... By contrast, selectively logging trees with high wood density was found to reduce carbon storage by as much as 70 percent. Other scenarios, such as diseas...

Geoscientists follow arsenic from chicken feed to streambeds

... of it is excreted in urine. Poultry litter -- the wood chips, feathers, droppings, and urine from under poultry houses -- is rich in nitrogen and phosphorous, so is a logical fertilizer. But what happens to that arsenic? Virginia Tech geoscientists are determining what happens to such feed additives whe...

New class of antibiotics effective against drug-resistant bacteria discovered in fungi

... of it is excreted in urine. Poultry litter -- the wood chips, feathers, droppings, and urine from under poultry houses -- is rich in nitrogen and phosphorous, so is a logical fertilizer. But what happens to that arsenic? Virginia Tech geoscientists are determining what happens to such feed additives whe...

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