Cover in Biological News

Landfill cover soil methane oxidation underestimated

MADISON, WI, APRIL 27, 2009 Landfilled waste decomposes in the absence of oxygen and results in the production of methane. Landfills are classified as the second-largest human-made source of CH4 in the U.S. Additionally, landfill gas contains numerous non-methane hydrocarbons that are either vola...

Long-term study of orchard ground cover management systems

ITHACA, NY - Orchard floor and groundcover management is important to fruit growers, affecting the efficiency of orchard operations, fruit tree performance, and soil quality. Herbicide-treated tree rows with mowed grass "drive lanes" are the most widely used orchard groundcover management syste...

Iowa State researchers study ground cover to reduce impact of biomass harvest

AMES, Iowa -- Ground cover may be one workable method to reduce the effects of erosion that future biomass harvests are predicted to bring. Iowa State University researchers are looking at ways to use ground cover, a living grass planted between the rows of corn, in production farming. The s...

Researchers link ocean organisms with increased cloud cover and potential climate change

Atmospheric scientists have reported a new and potentially important mechanism by which chemical emissions from ocean phytoplankton may influence the formation of clouds that reflect sunlight away from our planet. Discovery of the new link between clouds and the biosphere grew out of efforts to...

Protowings may have helped bird ancestors cover rough terrain

Biologists have long argued about how birds evolved the ability to fly, because it is not immediately evident what improvement in fitness would result from ancestral, partly evolved wings. Two theories have recently dominated the debate: one postulates that flight evolved in tree-dwelling ancestors...

Image of myosin-actin interaction revealed in cover story of Molecular Cell

Scientists from the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and the University of Vermont have captured the first 3-dimensional (3D) atomic-resolution images of the motor protein myosin V as it "walks" along other proteins, revealing new structural insights that advance the current model of protein ...

AGU journal highlights -- Aug. 6, 2009

... Scientists identify lake shorelines on Mars Land cover changes influence regional climate An overview of...//dx.doi.org/10.1029/2009GL038854 6. Land cover changes influence regional climate Human-induced land cover changes (LCCs), such as the clearing of forests fo...

August 2009 Geology and GSA Today media highlights

...e great extinction event that occurred at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, including the extinction of dinosaurs. Although a several-kilometer-thick cover of sedimentary rocks buries the crater, the outline of the crater is still visible at the surface by a semicircular ring of water-filled sinkhole lake...

MU researchers create drought conditions to unearth solutions

...tions. The shelters measure 50 feet by 100 feet, look like greenhouses and are mobile. The researchers will move the shelters during sunny weather and cover the plants when rain approaches. The shelters are being placed in different areas of the state with different environments, crop species and soil...

Research shows rates of severe childhood obesity have tripled

...nforce the fact that medically-based programs to treat obesity are needed throughout the United States and insurance companies should be encouraged to cover this care." The research was published on-line and will appear in the September print edition. Skelton and colleagues compared data from the Nation...

ISU researchers find possible treatment for spinal muscular atrophy

...niversity of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester; and Laxman Gangwani, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, have their research highlighted as the cover story on this month's issue of the journal RNA Biology . Their research (link to research) is the most downloaded story on the RNA Biology page of th...

Spring cold snap helps with stream ecosystem research

...responses to the 2007 spring freeze" describes how a small change in canopy cover can dramatically impact a stream. "The study implies that the algal pro... many stream organisms are dependent on algae for food." Although canopy cover in the spring leads to decreased organism growth, in the autumn, bacteria a...

IOS Press announces launch of Journal of Berry Research

...nd culture management; and health for consumers (components and factors affecting the nutritional value of berries). Specifically, the Journal will cover berries (strawberry, cranberry, bilberry, blueberry, etc.), as well as grapes and small soft fruit in general (e.g., kiwi fruit). It will publish rese...

Chasing tiny vehicles

.... This approach should also allow a better understanding of existing nanovectors as well as the development of new systems, as reported in the current cover story of the Journal of Controlled Release . ( Journal of Controlled Release , 20 July 2009) Nanoparticles are so small that many barriers in the...

Early initiation of Arctic sea-ice formation

... summer production. And, indeed, these seasonal changes can be discerned in the sediment cores. The researchers conclude from their analysis, which cover a two-million year period, that episodic sea ice formation in marginal shelf areas of the Arctic started around 47.5 million years ago, about a millio...

New theory on why male, female lemurs same size

... working in Ranomafana (National Park in Madgascar), and the question about size monomorphism has bugged me since then." In a paper featured on the cover of this month's Journal of Evolutionary Biology , Dunham offers one of the first new theories on lemur monomorphism in more than a decade. After a...

Climate change may spell demise of key salt marsh constituent

...of the plot, from 50 percent originally, in tests that spanned the summer from 2004 to 2006. At the third site, Drakes Island (Maine), the forb pannes cover decreased from 50 percent of the plot to 44 percent (a 12-percent decline) in just the summer of 2007. The researchers believe the forbs disappear...

1-finger exercise reveals unexpected limits to dexterity

...during the common manipulation task similar to rubbing a surface, using a computer track pad or iphone. Adult volunteers wearing a closefitting Teflon cover on their forefingers applied fingertip pressure on a slippery Teflon surface linked to a force-measuring sensor. First, the volunteers simply press...

US-Mexico border wall could threaten wildlife species

...aks to the system," Epps added. "Putting in poles near the fence could allow the owls to swoop down from a perch, and planting brush to provide better cover could help them avoid predation by larger avian species and improve their chances for colonization." Maintaining or augmenting trees that are talle...

Ben-Gurion U. researchers reveal connection between cancer and human evolution

...vered that gene mutations that once helped humans survive may increase the possibility for diseases, including cancer. The findings were recently the cover story in the journal Genome Research . The team of researchers from BGU's National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev (NIBN) set out to look f...

Ferns took to the trees and thrived

...ies with information from the fossil record, Schuettpelz and Pryer constructed a new time-calibrated family tree for ferns. Their study appears on the cover of the July 7 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . Though ancient, it appears that ferns really came into their own during a very hot...

Scientists find a biological 'fountain of youth' in new world bat caves

...very which could lead to the single most important medical breakthrough in human historysignificantly longer lifespans. The discovery, featured on the cover of the July 2009 print issue of The FASEB Journal ( http://www.fasebj.org ), shows that proper protein folding over time in long-lived bats explains...

NSF provides $3.4 million to study climatically important Agulhas Current

...t meter moorings, spanning the mean width of the Agulhas Current, one tide gauge, plus four pressure gauge-equipped inverted echo-sounders (C-PIES) to cover the Current's offshore meandering events cost-effectively. On each full-depth mooring upward-looking profiling current meters will measure the top...

Europe and China watching Earth together

...2008, more than 400 scientists from 165 research institutions in Europe and China are involved in 25 joint research projects. The ongoing projects cover the following themes: land environment, geology, renewable resources, oceanography, hazards, atmospheric studies, topographic mapping, hydrology, sea-...

CSHL scientists harness logic of 'Sudoku' math puzzle to vastly enhance genome-sequencing capability

... field of medical genetics, suggests a new report by a team of scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). The report will be published as the cover story in the July 1st issue of the journal Genome Research . Combining a 2,000-year-old Chinese math theorem with concepts from cryptology, the C...

'Bycatch' whaling a growing threat to coastal whales

...pecies of whale-meat products and determining how many individual whales may actually have been killed. Baker said bycatch whaling also serves as a cover for illegal hunting, but the level at which it occurs is unknown. In January 2008, Korean police launched an investigation into organized illegal whal...

Elephant-size loopholes sustain Thai ivory trade

...ife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC. The report also raises concerns that legal provisions governing trade in domesticated elephants are providing cover for illegal trade in wild-caught, highly-endangered Asian elephants from both Thailand and neighbouring Myanmar. TRAFFIC's survey documented over 2...

Research vessel Polarstern starts 24th Arctic season

...ncentrates on geoscientific questions. The exact study area for the geoscientific measurements in the western Greenland Sea is dependent on Arctic ice cover in this summer. Seismologic examinations are meant to deliver new insights into the geological history of the East Greenland shelf. Researchers from B...

Scientists sequence genome of the N2-fixing, soil-living bacterium Azotobacter vinelandii

... of oxygen, using three distinct nitrogenase systems. The work of the Azotobacter vinelandii genome project team, which will be featured on the cover of the second July 2009 issue (14) of the Journal of Bacteriology *, identifies unique features of the A. vinelandii genome that explain how the ba...

World Day to Combat Desertification focuses on human security

...he term 'desertification' does not refer to the spread of existing deserts, but to the creation of new ones through the degradation of drylands, which cover 40% of the world's land surface. Since dryland desertification can be remedied by using appropriate land management techniques, it is essential to mon...

New species of phallus-shaped mushroom named after California Academy of Sciences scientist

...like a phallus. A new species of stinkhorn mushroom, Phallus drewesii , has been discovered on the African island of Sao Tome and graces the upcoming cover of the journal Mycologia . The mushroom is named after Robert Drewes, Curator of Herpetology at the California Academy of Sciences, and is described...

American Chemical Society weekly presspac -- June 10, 2009

...tists, engineers, and architects are developing new solar panels, including materials that resemble normal shingles and invisible solar films that can cover glass windows. There's a rapidly growing demand for these so-called building-integrated photovoltaics, or BIPV, that blend solar technology into the o...

'Honey bee health' of concern at Western Apicultural Society conference

...l Infections." Steve Sheppard of Washington State University, Pullman, will cover ""Washington State Honey Bee Health Program: Breeding, Diagnostics and Inse...wly recruited faculty member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, will cover "Native Bees in Crop Production in Eastern States." Claire Kremen, a conser...

Mammalogists to convene in Alaska for annual meeting

...ymposia and workshops focusing on scientific research on more than 40 species of mammals from little brown bats to big brown bears. Presentations will cover many aspects of the latest mammal research, including genetics, physiology, morphology, behavior, biogeography and conservation. "The meeting gives...

Caribbean coral reefs flattened

...implications for biodiversity and coastal defences a double whammy for fragile coastal communities in the region. It was already known that coral cover in the Caribbean was in decline, but this is the first large scale study showing exactly what this means for the architecture of the region's reefs. ...

FAO/IAEA Symposium to address animal production and health

...on and the programme of the Symposium is available at http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Meetings/Announcements.asp?ConfID=35424 Journalists wishing to cover the event can register online, e-mail Al Sinoy ( a.sinoy@iaea.org ) or call [43-1] 2600-21276. Individual interviews can be arranged through IAEA P...

Wet ear wax and unpleasant body odors signal breast cancer risk

... because they've found that a gene responsible for breast cancer causes these physical symptoms. The report describing this finding is featured on the cover of The FASEB Journal 's June 2009 print issue ( http://www.fasebj.org ), and should arm physicians with another clue for detecting breast cancer risk...

In the turf war against seaweed, coral reefs more resilient than expected

...icanes, a disease outbreak and the loss of a seaweed-grazing urchin), coral cover on several reefs in Jamaica plummeted from about 70 percent to less than 10... 5. They found that while there were moderate local increases in seaweed cover over the study period, only four percent of reefs worldwide were dominated ...

First comprehensive guidelines for managing medullary thyroid carcinoma published in Thyroid journal

...n invasive, life-threatening malignancy. The American Thyroid Association ( www.thyroid.org ) has compiled 122 evidence-based recommendations that cover a range of clinical topics, including diagnosis and therapy for early disease, genetic testing, surgical management, post-surgical treatment and monit...

Demonstration Features Commercial Technology for Combating Terrorism

...ng Group, which is the national interagency research and development program for combating terrorism at home and abroad. This year, FPED VII will cover 20 equipment categories, including: automated entry control systems and equipment; armored and utility vehicles; biometrics; blast protection/mitigati...