These shells don't clam up: Innovative technique to record human impact on coastal waters

With their sedentary lifestyles and filter-feeding habits, clams have been silent witnesses to the changes that humans have inflicted upon their waters. These clams are silent no more, as Dr. Ruth H. Carmichael of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and her colleagues have reported in their recent paper i...

These shells don't clam up: Innovative technique to record human impact on coastal waters

With their sedentary lifestyles and filter-feeding habits, clams have been silent witnesses to the changes that humans have inflicted upon their waters. These clams are silent no more, as Dr. Ruth H. Carmichael of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and her colleagues have reported in their recent paper i...

New giant clam species offers window into human past

Researchers report the discovery of the first new living species of giant clam in two decades, according to a report to be published online on August 28th in Current Biology , a Cell Press publication. While fossil evidence reveals that the new species, called Tridacna costata , once accounted f...

Deep in the ocean, a clam that acts like a plant

How does life survive in the black depths of the ocean? At the surface, sunlight allows green plants to "fix" carbon from the air to build their bodies. Around hydrothermal vents deep in the ocean live communities of giant clams with no gut and no functional digestive system, depending on symbiotic...

New genetic test can detect clam disease

A sensitive new genetic test can now detect a crippling disease called QPX occurring in clam beds from Cape Cod south to Virginia and north to Canada. Although it does not affect humans and it is not as well known as red tide, the disease can have a significant impact on a local economy by killing...

The tiny difference in the genes of bacteria

...ke of Vibrio parahaemolytics often occurs through raw clams that have filtered contaminated sea water. With this method, we are able to say from which clam species the germ originates." The new technique can also be used to characterize other bacterial pathogens and to investigate how pathogenic bacteria ...

The tiny difference in the genes of bacteria

...ke of Vibrio parahaemolytics often occurs through raw clams that have filtered contaminated sea water. With this method, we are able to say from which clam species the germ originates." The new technique can also be used to characterize other bacterial pathogens and to investigate how pathogenic bacteria ...

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

...Sea Grant (NYSG) announces the release of The Hard clam Research Initiative: Factors Controlling Mercenari... five research projects funded through NYSG's Hard clam Research Initiative which began in 1999. Funding p...lated studies addressed the downward trend in hard clam populations in Long Island's south shore bays, an ...

Tentacles of venom: New study reveals all octopuses are venomous

...s species remain the only group that aredangerous to humans, the other species have been quietly using their venom for predation, such as paralysing a clam into opening its shell. "Venoms are toxic proteins with specialised functions such as paralysing the nervous system" he said. "We hope that by un...

Animal and biological science highlights: San Antonio Fluid Dynamics Conference, Nov. 23-25

... the clams open and close their shell in a synchronized manner as they dig. "By pushing itself UP with its foot before it digs down," Hosoi says, "the clam clears a space around the leading edge of the shell. Given the extra space, the sand at the leading edge of the shell can unpack." This "fluidizes" th...

Brown scientist finds coastal dead zones may benefit some species

...be as devoid of life after all. A Brown scientist has found that dead zones do indeed support marine life, and that at least one commercially valuable clam actually benefits from oxygen-depleted waters. Andrew Altieri, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at ...

ICS presents prestigious Digby McLaren Medal to Cincinnati's Carl Brett

...en fossils," he says. "The only clams I had ever seen were live ones at the shore. I picked up that first slab in my back yard and saw an imprint of a clam shell I was so excited!" When he was a senior in high school, Brett competed in the New York State science fair with a trilobite project and won, ...

The cooperative view: New evidence suggests a symbiogenetic origin for the centrosome

... centrosomes are another likely candidate. They base their argument on evidence that the centrosomes, which they obtained from the eggs of the surf clam Spisula, contain RNA that is likely a remnant of a once-independent, simpler genome that was incorporated by symbiosis. Most animal genes have int...

Ancient whale fall from California's Ao Nuevo Island one of youngest, most complete known

..., there is no light for photosynthesis. Based on the shape of the fossil clam shells attached to the whale skeleton, Pyenson and Haasl determined that th...ey hope to do "side-by-side comparisons of the fossil and modern whale-fall clam shells" to better characterize those from the fossil whale fall. ...

Ancient whale fall from California's Año Nuevo Island one of youngest, most complete known

..., there is no light for photosynthesis. Based on the shape of the fossil clam shells attached to the whale skeleton, Pyenson and Haasl determined that th...ey hope to do "side-by-side comparisons of the fossil and modern whale-fall clam shells" to better characterize those from the fossil whale fall. ...

September Geology and GSA Today media highlights

...tional carbon be added to the material after the death of the organism. For clam shells, carbon is commonly added in the form of subsequent cements, but the...re easy to recognize because they are a different mineral than the original clam (i.e., calcite instead of aragonite). Webb et al. have found clams that con...

Study warns deep-sea mining may pose serious threat to fragile marine ecosystems

...thermal vent systems that spew 350-degree Celsius water into the frigid deep-sea environment, and support sulphur-loving bacteria and bizarre worm and clam species—could smother and contaminate these communities, which some biologists argue may represent the origins of life on earth. "We need to act...

RNA found in the cellular centrosome of surf clams

...evidence that RNA is present in the centrosomes of clam cells," says Robert Palazzo, professor of biology ...s at Rensselaer. Palazzo's laboratory isolated clam centrosomes and Mark Alliegro and Mary Anne Allieg...ere are at least five specific forms of RNA in the clam cell centrosome which could be related to structur...

Paleontologists learn how not to become a fossil

... So say four paleontologists who have published a detailed, global study of clam preservation. Their work is intended to enhance evolutionary studies by det... geneticists use mice or fruit flies as model systems. Jablonski called the clam "a real bellweather" for understanding many long-term changes in biodiversi...

Discovering an ecosystem beneath a collapsed Antarctic ice shelf

... in the area vacated by the former ice shelf. The crew recorded a video of the seafloor at the end of its mission and only later discovered a thriving clam community, mud volcanoes, and a thin layer of bacterial mats. The discovery could provide evidence for researchers to better understand the dynamic...

Gifts from the sea

...isease; and motion sickness and dizziness. Surf clam (Spisula solidissima): Surf clam eggs are popular among scientists studying cell di...be harvested from a single female. By inducing the clam eggs to undergo cell division at the same time, sc...

Mutation in clams protects against paralytic shellfish poisoning but raises human health risk

...bes differences in the responses of two soft shell clam populations -- one in the Bay of Fundy and the oth...It's easy to use and could help reduce the time of clam flat closures (related to red tide)." Betty Twa...istory. They showed that nerves taken from the two clam populations also function differently, with those ...

Oceans more vulnerable to agricultural runoff than previously thought, study finds

... gulf. Red tides, for example, can cause outbreaks of life-threatening diseases, such as paralytic shellfish poisoning, which can shut down mussel and clam harvesting for long periods of time. Another concern is hypoxia, or oxygen depletion, caused by excessive algae growth. As the algal mass sinks, it...

Study identifies predictors of HIV drug resistance in patients beginning triple therapy

...y (MBL) has published the results of an EPA-funded clam embryo study that supports her hypothesis that, wh...einisch and her colleagues treated developing surf clam embryos (Spisula solidissima) with different combi...ffects on nerve cell growth. "On a cellular level, clam neurons are extremely useful in studying basic mec...

Clam embryo study shows pollutant mixture adversely affects nerve cell development

...y (MBL) has published the results of an EPA-funded clam embryo study that supports her hypothesis that, wh...einisch and her colleagues treated developing surf clam embryos (Spisula solidissima) with different combi...ffects on nerve cell growth. "On a cellular level, clam neurons are extremely useful in studying basic mec...