Bay in Biological News

Dark chocolate: Half a bar per week to keep at bay the risk of heart attack

Maybe gourmands are not jumping for joy. Probably they would have preferred bigger amounts to sup-port their passion. Though the news is still good for them: 6.7 grams of chocolate per day represent the ideal amount for a protective effect against inflammation and subsequent cardiovascular disease...

Chesapeake Bay ecosystem health remains poor, but slightly improved in 2007

An independent scientific analysis led by University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science researchers gives the Chesapeake Bay a C-minus in 2007, indicating that Bay ecological conditions were slightly better than the previous year, but far below what is needed for a healthy Bay. The C...

Warning buoys for right whales installed along Massachusetts Bay

Endangered North Atlantic right whales are safer along Massachusetts Bay's busy shipping lanes this spring, thanks to a new system of smart buoys. The buoys recognize whales' distinctive calls and route the information to a public Web site and a marine warning system, giving ships the chance to av...

Tiny Tampa Bay fish key to evolution of immune system

Armed at first with nothing more than boots, a screen and a bucket, scientists studying a tiny primitive fish that makes up 70 percent of the biomass in Tampa Bay now say they have found the "missing link" marking the point in evolution that led to the development of the modern-day human immune sys...

URI researcher sheds light on 'man-eating' squid; finds them timid, nonthreatening

...l fish and plankton that are no more than a few centimeters in length. The highlight of Seibel's research cruise with colleagues from the Monterey bay Aquarium Research Institute was diving with the impressive animals. Other divers participating were Lloyd Trueblood of URI, Steve Haddock of MBARI, a...

URI researcher sheds light on 'man-eating' squid; finds them timid, non-threatening

...l fish and plankton that are no more than a few centimeters in length. The highlight of Seibel's research cruise with colleagues from the Monterey bay Aquarium Research Institute was diving with the impressive animals. Other divers participating were Lloyd Trueblood of URI, Steve Haddock of MBARI, a...

Salt marshes: A natural and unnatural history

...o a national and global perspective, SALT MARSHES places special emphasis on coastal wetlands in the Atlantic, the Gulf regions, and the San Francisco bay Area, calling attention to their historical and economic legacies. SALT MARSHES frames the politics of land use and how outcomes affect the surviv...

Scientists report first remote, underwater detection of harmful algae, toxins

...Centers for Coastal Ocean Science and the Monterey bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) have successfu...nd domoic acid have been a concern in the Monterey bay area for well over a decade. In 1991, the first U.... mortality of sea lions in and around the Monterey bay area was attributed to the sea lions' feeding on d...

UH team analyzes Hurricane Ike's effects on waterways, fish contamination

...s collect and analyze fresh samples from Galveston bay and related waterways. Cullen College of Engin... leading the team. "Our work with the Galveston bay system started in the early '90s with funding from the EPA Galveston bay National Estuary Program," said Rifai, whose team ...

Sustainable bioenergy project has global launch

...cies and strategies for a responsible transition to a sustainable, worldwide bio-based society. "The commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Chesapeake bay Commission have championed the production of next-generation cellulosic biofuel crops as a way to improve soil and water quality and enhance rural dev...

Troubled waters: Low Apalachicola River flow may hurt gulf fisheries

...ion to identify a region extending about 125 miles offshore of Apalachicola bay in which the changes in ocean color, which is indicative of the abundance o...ver is considered a "hot spot" of ecological biodiversity, and Apalachicola bay supports extensive finfish and shellfish communities dependent on the regul...

U-M researcher and colleagues predict large 2009 Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone'

...e University. Northeast of the Gulf, low water flows into the Chesapeake bay shaped Scavia's 2009 forecast for that hypoxia zone. The Bay's oxygen-st...recast range. "While it's encouraging to see that this year's Chesapeake bay forecast calls for a significant drop in the extent of the dead zone, we mu...

Rice University researchers ask if biofuels will lead to a 'drink or drive'

...uel crops in some areas will require greater use of fertilizers, with the runoff affecting local aquifers and even coastal regions like the Chesapeake bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it warned. The report acknowledged that some biofuel sources, like switchgrass and other lignocellulosic options, can "deli...

SRI International announces findings from new upper atmospheric radar system for scientific research

...e AMISR system at Poker Flat was the first of three radars constructed by SRI. The next two radars are being constructed in Arctic Canada, at Resolute bay in the territory of Nunavut. The first of the two radars will become operational later in 2009. These incoherent scatter radars are the closest in the...

Shellfish face an uncertain future in a high CO2 world

...end on them, beyond a critical tipping point remains to be seen" said Miller. With numbers so critically lowthe oyster population in the Chesapeake bay today stands at just 2 percent of what it was in colonial timesfuture losses could have dire consequences, both environmentally and economically. Inde...

Rules proposed to save the world's coral reefs

...al ecosystems viable, based on the results of research carried out in the Bohol Sea in the Philippines, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and Kimbe bay in Papua New Guinea. These rules are: allow margins of error in extent and nature of protection, as insurance against unforeseen threats; sprea...

Dolphins maintain round-the-clock visual vigilance

...round, the dolphins were still responding as accurately as they had done at the beginning of the experiment. The team also enticed the dolphins into a bay at night where they could be shown the horizontal and vertical bar shapes, and found that the dolphins were as sharp at the end of the 120 hour experi...

Sea Grant report synthesizes recent research on New York's clams

...hard clam's reduced reproductive success, changes in the clam's food supply and predators, the effects of brown tide, ecosystem changes in Great South bay and other Long Island bays, and the effects of harvesting practices as predicted by clam population models. Continues Ms. Schlenk, "Particular emphasi...

Researchers report 'moderately large' potential for red tide outbreak in Gulf of Maine region

...y, spent 10 days collecting seafloor sediment samples between Massachusetts bay and the bay of Fundy looking for Alexandrium cysts. After the samples were processed...

Marine scientists warn of potential for spring, summer red tide outbreak in Gulf of Maine

...y, spent 10 days collecting seafloor sediment samples between Massachusetts bay and the bay of Fundy, looking for Alexandrium cysts. After the samples were processe...

Genes from tiny marine algae suggest unsuspected avenues for new research

...riad of possibilities for new research in algal physiology, plant biology, and marine ecology. The project was led by Alexandra Worden at the Monterey bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and the Joint Genome Institute (JGI). The genome analyses involved a collaborative effort between MBARI, JGI, and ...

Genes from tiny algae shed light on big role managing carbon in world's oceans

...REEK, Calif. Scientists from two-dozen research organizations led by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and the Monterey bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) have decoded genomes of two algal strains, highlighting the genes enabling them to capture carbon and maintain its...

2009 AIBS Media Award

...-Newton has studied the effects of dam removal on aquatic ecosystems and is presently looking at microbial dynamics of systems found in the Chesapeake bay watershed. John Carey, a senior correspondent in Business Week 's Washington Bureau, has covered science, technology, medicine, health, energy, an...

Scripps scientists help decode mysterious green glow of the sea

... 30 to 40 minutes after sunset and lasting approximately 20 to 30 minutes. Deheyn and Latz collected hundreds of specimens from San Diego's Mission bay for their study, allowing them to not only examine live organisms but also produce the fireworms' luminous mucus for the first time in an experimental...

Quails get super fit by simply eating omega-3 diet

... Arctic to their winter residences in South America, they set out on one of the world's longest migrations. On the way, the tiny birds stop off at the bay of Fundy on the Canadian east coast, where they spend two weeks gorging on a superfood, Corophium volutator (mud shrimps), which have some of the high...

The Prestige oil spill caused changes in the cell structure of mussels

...release is available in Spanish . The oil spill from the Prestige petroleum oil tanker in 2002 caused serious damage to the ecosystems in the bay of Biscay. A PhD thesis at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) has studied the consequences of this spill for the mussels inhabiting this n...

DEIMOS joins MARS and its satellite of instruments on seafloor

...s, so it seems only appropriate that the ocean observatory MARS in Monterey bay have its own DEIMOS. This DEIMOS, however, is an underwater acoustic packag... well deploy an echo sounder package and 312 car batteries. The Monterey bay Aquarium Research Institute operates MARS as a test platform for the Nation...

Arctic governments and industry still unprepared for oil spills 20 years after Exxon Valdez

... to permanently protect Alaska's fish-rich Bristol bay from drilling. The Exxon Valdez oil spill in P...ble long-term damage. These areas include Bristol bay in the southeastern Bering Sea in Alaska, known as...the United States. Oil and gas development in the bay is estimated to bring in $7.7 billion over the 25-...

Dust deposited in oceans may carry elements toxic to marine algae

...s in atmospheric aerosols that could also have toxic effects on marine phytoplankton. The modeling study suggested that certain areas--such as the bay of Bengal and downwind of South and East Asia--are particularly at risk for the effects of copper deposition on ocean ecosystems. The study has sev...

EPA to study Puerto Rico waters and marine habitat

...otecting and improving the Caribbean environment in and around the San Juan bay Estuary, Jobos Bay, La Parguera and other marine areas around Puerto Rico. ...redged materials were discharged to a site at the ocean floor. The San Juan bay Estuary is the only tropical estuary included in the EPA's National Estuary...

Study links seabird deaths to soap-like foam produced by red-tide algae

...ve birds found stranded on beaches around Monterey bay were starving and severely hypothermic, having los...ornia Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), Monterey bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), and Moss Land...time as the Cosco Busan oil spill in San Francisco bay and an ongoing controversy over aerial spraying on...

Study finds life-saving trend among seagulls

... a predator approaches." How does this relate to humans? Dr. Beauchamp spent the last two summers tracking and studying gull behaviour in the bay of Fundy. He compared the activity of gulls that were sleeping relative to the alertness of their neighbours. "Gulls sleep with one eye open and const...

UC San Diego senior named Churchill Scholar for extraordinary undergraduate research

...xagonal lattices and the underlying structure of carbon nanotubes. "I had a gut feeling about coming to UC San Diego," Juneja said. "I am from the bay Area and I looked at UC Berkeley, but knew UC San Diego was a hot up-and-coming research institution. I was able to get so much hands-on experience ou...

Diet could reduce onset of eye disease by 20 percent

...t a relatively minor change in diet - adding a little more fruit into our meals - can make a profound difference and can keep eye diseases like AMD at bay for up to 20% longer. "There are of course other risk factors related to AMD such as age, light exposure, smoking and being overweight. But if we ...

Decline of shorebird linked to bait use of horseshoe crabs

...erage weight of red knots when they leave Delaware bay has declined significantly since their primary foo...he study. There is a long tradition in Delaware bay of harvesting horseshoe crabs for use as bait in v...eggs available for shorebirds to eat. Delaware bay is globally recognized as an important feeding sto...

CSHL researchers identify gene that helps plant cells keep communication channels open

...elopment." The team's findings will be published in the Feb 17th issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . GAT1 keeps callose at bay As plants develop, growth signals and environmental cues such as damage or stress trigger overproduction of a substance called callose. Although c...

Hispanic women and breast cancer: An understudied group

...ional abstract on Hispanics from the San Francisco bay Area Breast Cancer Study. #A78. The ELLA Binat...foreign-born Hispanic women from the San Francisco bay Area. A final study, the San Francisco bay Area Breast Cancer Study, presented by Esther John...

February 2009 Geology and GSA Today media highlights

...structure of Olympus Mons, Mars Patrick J. McGovern and Julia K. Morgan, Lunar and Planetary Institute, Universities Space Research Association, 3600 bay Area Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77058, USA. Pages 139-142. The immense Olympus Mons volcano on Mars (about 23 km tall and 600 km wide) exhibits a so...

BioScience tip sheet, February 2009

...breaks might be improved. Effects of Horseshoe Crab Harvest in Delaware bay on Red Knots: Are Harvest Restrictions Working? Lawrence J. Niles, Jonat...rs present data indicating that the 2007 horseshoe crab harvest in Delaware bay exceeds that of 1990, despite restrictions imposed in the interim. Moreover...

Substantial work ahead for water issues, say scientists at ACS' Final Report briefing

...s and computer scientists to create the Chesapeake bay Environmental Observatory (CBEO). The CBEO has add...ast data and analyzing past data reveals that the bay is even more complex than many might imagine." For instance, hypoxic zones in the bay large areas of low oxygen levels where most anima...