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Dinosaur DNA? New Patent Covers Degraded DNA recovery

The US Patent Office issued Patent # 6,872,552, "A Method of Reconstituting Nucleic Acid Molecules" today to Burt D. Ensley, Ph.D, Chairman of MatrixDesign, and CEO of DermaPlus, Inc. The patent covers methods for recovering and reconstituting genes from "degraded" DNA samples, and could allow scientists to reassemble everything from prehistoric, extinct animals to unsolved crime scenes. "...

Amino acids in nectar enhance butterfly fecundity: A long awaited link

The fascinating interactions between flowers and their pollinators have resulted in a spectacular diversity of plants. In order to entice pollinators such as bees, flies or butterflies to visit and successfully pollinate their flowers, plants have evolved intriguing mechanisms and attractants, of which nectar is best known. Thirty years ago, researchers discovered that nectars of flowers...

Kinovate Life Sciences Launches Nittophase?High Performance Solid Support For Oligonucleatide Synthesis

Kinovate Life Sciences, Inc, a provider of tools for oligonucleotide synthesis and gene delivery, announced today that it will officially launch its new NittoPhase?solid support for oligonucleotide synthesis at the TIDES meeting commencing in Boston on May 1st. The joint development of this solid phase support product was announced on November 8th, 2004 by Kinovate’s sole shareholder, Nitto Denko...

McGill researchers shed light on formation of carcinogen in food

Furan, a potentially dangerous chemical has been found by Health Canada and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in processed foods, especially canned or bottled foods. A new study by McGill researchers Dr. Varoujan Yaylayan and graduate student Carolina Perez Locas explains the presence of this chemical in a wide range of food products. The study, published in the October, 2004 is...

Conserved amino acids play both structural and mechanistic roles in sandwich-like protein

The question of whether amino acids in sandwich-like proteins are there to stabilize the structure or to speed up the protein-folding process is best answered by "all of the above," according to researchers at Rice University in Houston. This discovery, reported in today's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could benefit future research on treatments for disease...

Revueltosaurus skeleton unearthed at Petrified Forest upsets dinosaur tale

The fossilized skeleton of a small crocodile relative excavated last year at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona throws a wrench into theories of how and where the dinosaurs arose more than 210 million years ago at the end of the Triassic Period. The animal, one of many creatures from the Late Triassic known only from their teeth, was thought to be an ancestor of the plant-eating or...

Study shows how retinoic acid enters a cell's nucleus

Cornell University researchers have revealed a process that has stumped scientists for many years: exactly how an acid derived from vitamin A enters a cell's nucleus, where it has strong anti-carcinogenic effects. Discovery of this basic transport mechanism opens a new door for future research on related compounds. The finding has important implications for the fight against cancer and ot...

Endocannabinoids ?the brain's cannabis ?demonstrate novel modes of action to stress

Three separate research team reports ?one from Louisiana, one from Japan and one from Scotland ?are presenting independent research results pointing to involvement of endocannabinoids as a novel neural messenger in various stress-related situations with possible applications in eating, disease treatment and social behavior. The team from...

Study: Predatory dinosaurs had bird-like pulmonary system

What could the fierce dinosaur T. rex and a modern songbird such as the sparrow possibly have in common? Their pulmonary systems may have been more similar than scientists previously thought, according to new research from Ohio University and Harvard University. Though some scientists have proposed that predatory dinosaurs had lungs similar to crocodiles and other reptiles, a new study pub...

Skull study sheds light on dinosaur diversity

With their long necks and tails, sauropod dinosaurs---famous as the Sinclair gasoline logo and Fred Flintstone's gravel pit tractor---are easy to recognize, in part because they all seem to look alike. The largest animals known to have walked the earth, sauropods were common in North America during the middle of the dinosaur era but were thought to have been pushed to extinction by more s...

India's smoking gun: Dino-killing eruptions

New discoveries about the timing and speed of gigantic, 6500-foot (2-km) thick lava flows that poured out of the ground 65 million years ago could shift the blame for killing the dinos. The Deccan Traps of India are one of Earth's largest lava flows ever, with the potential of having wreaked havoc with the climate of the Earth - if they erupted and released climate-changing gases quickly e...

Wright bros. upstaged! Dinos invented biplanes

The evolution of airplanes from the Wright Brothers' first biplanes to monoplanes was an inadvertent replay of the much earlier evolution of dinosaur flight, say two dino flight experts. According to paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee and retired aeronautical engineer R.J. Templin, a small early Chinese dinosaur called Microraptor gui used a two-level, biplane wing configuration to fly from...

Creeping crinoids! Sea lilies crawl to escape predators, new video shows

With their long stalks and feathery arms, marine animals known as sea lilies look a lot like their garden-variety namesakes. Perhaps because of that resemblance, scientists had always assumed that sea lilies stayed rooted instead of moving around lik...

U. of Colorado researcher identifies tracks of swimming dinosaur in Wyoming

With their long stalks and feathery arms, marine animals known as sea lilies look a lot like their garden-variety namesakes. Perhaps because of that resemblance, scientists had always assumed that sea lilies stayed rooted instead of moving around lik...

Newly discovered birdlike dinosaur is oldest raptor ever found in South America

Relative of Velociraptor rewrites evolutionary charts The recent discovery of a 90-million-year-old dinosaur in Patagonia demonstrates that dromaeosaurs, a group of carnivorous theropods that includes Velociraptor and is closely related to birds, originated much earlier than previously thought. Rather than originating during the Cretaceous, dromaeosaurs can now be traced back to the Juras...

Did feathered dinosaurs exist?

New evidence raises questions about current theoryBiologists examining evidence for the claim that birds evolved from dinosaurs have reached some surprising new conclusions. However, they caution that "the problem of avian origins is far from being resolved." Their analysis is published online October 10, 2005 in the Journal of Morphology, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and available vi...

Fossil find: 'Godzilla' crocodile had head of a dinosaur, fins like a fish

At the southern tip of South America , they found fossils of an entirely new specie...

New technique helps researchers determine amino-acid charge

Measurements of the ion-current through the open state of a membrane-protein's ion channel have allowed scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to obtain a detailed picture of the effect of the protein microenvironment on the affinity of ionizable amino-acid residues for protons. The findings, reported in the Dec. 15 issue of Nature, are expected to be welcome news for...

Duck-billed dino crests not linked to sense of smell

After decades of debate, a U of T researcher has finally determined that duck-billed dinosaurs' massive but hollow crests had nothing to do with what many scientists suspected -- the sense of smell. Speculation about their function has led to theories that the crests functioned as everything from brain coolers to snorkels for underwater feeding. Now, David Evans, a PhD student in zoology a...

Next good dinosaur news likely to come from small packages

Dinosaurs seem bigger than life ?big bones, big mysteries. So it's a delicious irony that the next big answers about dinosaurs may come from small ?very small ?remains. "Molecules are fossils, too," said Michigan State University zoologist Peggy Ostrom. "We've shown that proteins survive in very old fossils, and proteins can tell us about diseases, about where prehistoric animals fit in t...

The world's deepest dinosaur finding - 2256 metres below the seabed

While most nations excavate their skeletons using a toothbrush, the Norwegians found one using a drill. The somewhat rough uncovering of Norway's first dinosaur happened in the North Sea, at an entire 2256 metres below the seabed. It had been there for nearly 200 million years, ever since the time the North Sea wasn't a sea at all, but an enormous alluvial plane. It is merely a coincidence...

Minor mutations in avian flu virus increase chances of human infection

The H5N1 avian influenza virus, commonly known as "bird flu," is a highly contagious and deadly disease in poultry. So far, its spread to humans has been limited, with 177 documented severe infections, and nearly 100 deaths in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, China, Iraq, and Turkey as of March 14, 2006, according to the World Health Organization ( www.who.int</...

Rhinos clinging to survival in the heart of Borneo, despite poaching

World Wildlife Fund today released the results of a field survey from the island of Borneo which found that poaching has significantly reduced Borneo's population of Sumatran rhinos, but a small group continues to survive in the "Heart of Borneo," a region covered with vast tracts of rain forest. The survey found evidence of at least 13 rhinos in the interior of the Malaysian state of Sab...

Illinois pig to make history as source of first complete swine genome

A pig used for research at the University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign has a home in history. Its DNA will provide the first sequence of the swine genome to be completed with the help of a two-year $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced today (Jan. 13) by Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns. Lawrence B. Schook, a professor of animal sciences at Illinois and co...

FSU biologist says new dinosaur is oldest cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex

Florida State University paleobiologist Gregory M. Erickson sliced up some ancient dinosaur bones uncovered in China to help an international team of scientists identify a new genus and species. Despite striking skeletal differences and only subtle similarities, the FSU researcher determined that the two remarkably intact specimens were cousins of North America's hulking Tyrannosaurus rex. <p...

El Nino events affect whale breeding

New research shows that global climate processes are affecting southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) in the South Atlantic. A thirty-year study by an international team of scientists found a strong relationship between breeding success of whales in the South Atlantic and El Nino in the western Pacific. The results are published this week in the On-line journal Biology Letters. Southe...

Retinol for combating leukemia cells

Some ten years ago the Department of Cell Biology and Histology at the University of the Basque Country initiated research into how cell death was boosted by means of retinoids. It was thought that this potential could be used in the fight against cancer cells. Vitamin A, also known as retinol, is present in milk, liver, egg yolk, butter and other foodstuffs and as carotene in vegetables...

Use of amino acid supplement following a heart attack provides no benefit, may be harmful

Use of the amino acid supplement L-arginine following a heart attack does not improve certain cardiac functions and measurements and may be associated with an increased risk of death, according to a study in the January 4 issue of JAMA. L-arginine is a widely available dietary supplement and is publicized as having benefits for patients with hypertension, angina, heart failure and sexual d...

Scientists elucidate the kinome of key model organism

The journal PLoS Genetics has published the findings of a team of scientists at the nonprofit Boston Biomedical Research Institute that provides a whole genome analysis of the protein kinases from a scientifically valuable model organism known as Dictyostelium. Led by Dr. Janet Smith, this study offers important insights into the evolution of kinases, which are enzymes involved in cell...

Insect predation sheds light on food web recovery after the dinosaur extinction

The recovery of biodiversity after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction was much more chaotic than previously thought, according to paleontologists. New fossil evidence shows that at certain times and places, plant and insect diversity were severely out of balance, not linked as they are today. The extinction took place 65.5 million years ago. Labeled the K-T extinction, it marks the beginning of t...

WWF captures first-ever photo of wild rhino on Borneo

See the picture The rhino is believed to be one of a population of as few...

Large dinosaurs were extremely hot in their day, UF study finds

If you think dinosaurs are hot today, just think back to about 110 million years ago when they really ran hot and heavy. That is a 118-degree Fah...

Hopkins scientists show hallucinogen in mushrooms creates universal 'mystical' experience

Using unusually rigorous scientific conditions and measures, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that the active agent in "sacred mushrooms" can induce mystical/spiritual experiences descriptively identical to spontaneous ones people have reported for centuries. The resulting experiences apparently prompt positive changes in behavior and attitude that last several months, at least. </p...

Alarming decline in Nepal's rhinos and tigers in former Maoist stronghold

Washington ?Results released today by World Wildlife Fund of the first assessment done in two years in one of Nepal's premier national parks reveal an alarming decline in tiger and rhino populations, indicating widespread poaching. The area only became accessible for visits since the ceasefire between the Maoist insurgents and government troops a month ago. Since 1986, 70 rhinos were trans...

Trotting with emus to walk with dinosaurs

One way to make sense of 165-million-year-old dino tracks may be to hang out with emus, say paleontologists studying thousands of dinosaur footprints at the Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite in northern Wyoming. Because they are about the same size, walk on two legs and have similar feet, emus turn out to be the best modern version of the enigmatic reptiles that once trotted along a long-lost coastlin...

Minorities, uninsured less likely to receive care at high-volume hospitals

Compared to white patients, black, Asian and Hispanic patients and those who are uninsured are less likely to undergo complex surgery at high-volume hospitals, which have been associated with better outcomes, according to a study in the October 25 issue of JAMA. Efforts to improve the quality of surgical care in the United States have led many organizations to advocate the use of high-vol...

Far more than a meteor killed dinos

There's growing evidence that the dinosaurs and most their contemporaries were not wiped out by the famed Chicxulub meteor impact, according to a paleontologist who says multiple meteor impacts, massive volcanism in India, and climate changes culminated in the end of the Cretaceous Period. The Chicxulub impact may, in fact, have been the lesser and earlier of a series of meteors and volca...

Serengeti patrols cut poaching of buffalo, elephants, rhinos

A technique used since the 1930s to estimate the abundance of fish has shown for the first time that enforcement patrols are effective at reducing poaching of elephants, African buffaloes and black rhinos in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. "Wildlife within protected areas is under increasing threat from the bushmeat and illegal trophy trades, and many argue that enforcement with...

Dinosaurs -- stones did not help with digestion

The giant dinosaurs had a problem. Many of them had narrow, pointed teeth, which were more suited to tearing off plants rather than chewing them. But how did they then grind their food? Until recently many researchers have assumed that they were helped by stones which they swallowed. In their muscular stomach these then acted as a kind of 'gastric mill'. But this assumption does not seem to be co...

Good times ahead for dinosaur hunters, according to U of Penn scientist's dinosaur census

The golden age of dinosaur discovery is yet upon us, according to Peter Dodson at the University of Pennsylvania. In a forthcoming issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dodson revises his groundbreaking 1990 census on the diversity of discoverable dinosaurs upward by 50%, offering a brighter outlook about the number of dinosaurs waiting to be found. His findings also add...