Microscopic in Biological News

Mighty diatoms: Global climate feedback from microscopic algae

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Tiny creatures at the bottom of the food chain called diatoms suck up nearly a quarter of the atmosphere's carbon dioxide, yet research by Michigan State University scientists suggests they could become less able to "sequester" that greenhouse gas as the climate warms. The ...

Coating copies microscopic biological surfaces

Someday, your car might have the metallic finish of some insects or the deep black of a butterfly's wing, and the reflectors might be patterned on the nanostructure of a fly's eyes, according to Penn State researchers who have developed a method to rapidly and inexpensively copy biological surface...

Fine print: New technique allows fast printing of microscopic electronics

A new technique for printing extraordinarily thin lines quickly over wide areas could lead to larger, less expensive and more versatile electronic displays as well new medical devices, sensors and other technologies. Solving a fundamental and long-standing quandary, chemical engineers at Prince...

Smithsonian scientists working to save microscopic threatened species

The Smithsonians National Zoo recently acquired 12,000 new animalsmicroscopic Elkhorn coral larvae harvested by National Zoo scientists in Puerto Ricoas part of an international collaborative program to raise the threatened species. National Zoo scientists hope to one day return the animals, once ...

Scientists uncover link between ocean's chemical processes and microscopic floating plants

Scientists have discovered that increased levels of ocean acidity and carbon dioxide concentrations have resulted in unexpected changes in oceanic chemical processes. Their research results are published in the March 7, 2007, issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Oliver Wingenter of ...

BGSU biologist trying to crack microscopic code

Dr. Ray Larsen is trying to learn a second language. The Bowling Green State University biologist wants to crack the communication code of proteins, especially the ones whose "talking" aids and abets disease. "Proteins interact; they 'talk' to each other," the associate professor says. "It's how ...

Researchers use 3-D imaging system to unveil swimming behavior of microscopic plankton

From the surface, the ocean appears to be vast and uniform. But beneath the surface, tiny animals called zooplankton are swept into clusters and patches by ocean currents. The very survival of many zooplankton predators--from invertebrates to whales--and the success of fishermen catches can depend ...

Microscopes at microscopic size

Traditionally if scientists wanted to look at something small they would put a sample under a microscope but now researchers have managed to shrink the microscope itself to the size of a single human cell. An interdisciplinary research team, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Science Resear...

Protein offers way to stop microscopic parasites in their tracks

Scientists may have found a way to throw a wrench in the transmissions of several speed demons of the parasite world. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University have identified a protein that could help them develop drugs to stop or slow cell invasio...

DNA computation gets logical at the Weizmann Institute of Science

...Ehud Shapiro of the Weizmann Institute's Biological Chemistry, and Computer Science and Applied Mathematics Departments have found a way to make these microscopic computing devices 'user friendly,' even while performing complex computations and answering complicated queries. Shapiro and his team at Weizmann i...

Experimental treatment halts hypoxic-ischemic brain injury in newborns

...duced activation of matrix metalloproteinases and damage to the blood-brain barrier. The researchers also applied magnetic resonance imaging tests and microscopic analysis of brain tissues, which showed that PAI-1 treatment greatly reduced brain edema, axonal degeneration and the loss of brain tissue. Dr. Ku...

Researchers capture bacterial infection on film

...interact with their host." Dr Nick Waterfield, co-author on the study and Research Officer at the University of Bath, said: "To be able to film the microscopic battle between single bacterial cells and immune cells in a whole animal and in real time is astounding. "It will ultimately allow us to properly ...

Scientists closer to making implantable bone material, thanks to new research

...ch allowed the researchers to probe the samples so that they could understand how stiff the bone-like materials were and what their structure was at a microscopic level. ...

Silicon with afterburners: Process developed at Rice could be boon to electronics manufacturer

...mechanical engineering and materials science and of computer science. Doping introduces impurities into pure crystalline silicon as a way of tuning microscopic circuits to a particular need, and it's been effective so far even in concentrations as small as one atom of boron, arsenic or phosphorus per 100 mill...

Music is the engine of new U-M lab-on-a-chip device

...dozens of air hoses, valves and electrical connections between the chip and a computer to move, mix and split pin-prick drops of fluid in the device's microscopic channels and divots. "You quickly lose the advantage of a small microfluidic system," said Mark Burns, professor and chair of the Department of Che...

Chasing tiny vehicles

...sor Christoph Bruchle, a research group cooperating with Dr. Christian Plank of the Technische Universitt Mnchen (TUM) has now used a highly sensitive microscopic technique to pursue individual nanoparticles as they make their way into target cells in real-time and at high spatial and temporal resolution. They ...

The last supper of the hominids establishes the times they lived at the sites

...tudy, recently published in the Journal of Human Evolution , the researchers analyze the dental wear of the ungulates (herbivorous mammals) caused by microscopic particles of opaline silica in plants. These marks appear when eating takes place and erase the previous ones. This is why they are so useful. Th...

NOAA bans commercial harvesting of krill

...d harvest species." This new group may not be caught or taken by any fishery or gear type within the EEZ. Krill are important because they convert microscopic phytoplankton into a food source for numerous other species and are a principal food source for many species of fish, seabirds and marine mammals. So...

NYU Langone Medical Center awarded NIH grants totaling $1,560,000

...place at institutions across the country. Since 2007, the HMP has awarded more than $70 million to expand its exploration of how the trillions of microscopic organisms that live in and on our bodies affect our health. The human microbiome is all the microorganisms that reside in or on the human body, as wel...

NIH expands Human Microbiome Project; funds sequencing centers and disease projects

... The Human Microbiome Project has awarded more than $42 million to expand its exploration of how the trillions of microscopic organisms that live in or on our bodies affect our health, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced today. The human microbiome is all ...

American Chemical Society's Weekly Presspac -- June 17, 2009

...ch Triangle Park, N.C. Phone: (919) 541-5767 Fax: (919) 541-0905 Email: stout.dan@epa.gov ARTICLE #2 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE "Milking" microscopic algae could yield massive amounts of oil Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research Scientists in Canada and India are proposing a surprisin...

Troubled waters: Low Apalachicola River flow may hurt gulf fisheries

... in a nearly two-decade water war. The Florida State researchers found that in years with low river flow, the concentration of phytoplankton -- the microscopic plant-like organisms that feed into the food chain -- decreased over a large area of the continental shelf. This is significant because scientists hav...

Size did matter

...aul Tafforeau, a palaeontologist at the ESRF. This method is currently the most powerful and sensitive way to investigate in three dimensions and at a microscopic scale, the internal anatomy of exceptional fossils without damaging them. "Holotomography is a non-destructive imaging technique like computer tomogra...

Shape matters in the case of cobalt nanoparticles

...ied and then removed. In the absence of a magnetic field, both the spherical and cubic nanoparticles spontaneously form chainslining up as a string of microscopic magnets. Then, when placed in an external magnetic field, the individual chains bundle together in parallel lines to form thick columns aligned with t...

CU-Boulder study shows Maya intensively cultivated manioc 1,400 years ago

...is unlikely that the people of Ceren were alone in their intensive cultivation of manioc, Sheets and his colleagues are now investigating chemical and microscopic botanical evidence at other Maya archaeological sites that may be indicators of manioc cultivation and processing. Sheets said Maya villagers livin...

University of Saskatchewan and Canadian Synchrotron researchers shed light on esophageal disease

...were quite striking. This is a good proof of concept for developing a traceable technique that matches what can be seen at the macroscopic scale using microscopic samples." The team analyzed preserved samples of healthy and diseased tissue that Dr. Casson had collected during esophageal biopsies. Using a tech...

NASA satellite detects red glow to map global ocean plant health

...satellite. Ocean scientists can now remotely measure the amount of fluorescent red light emitted by ocean phytoplankton and assess how efficiently the microscopic plants are turning sunlight and nutrients into food through photosynthesis. They can also study how changes in the global environment alter these proc...

Healing wounds with lasers, vehicles that drive themselves, other cutting-edge optics

...ring. For years, scientists have used the energy in laser light to drill microscopic holes or as tweezers or traps to direct and maneuver small pieces of matter...ves off and on. It's called a metamaterial since it consists of an array of microscopic split metal rings. The rings can be controlled by nearby electrodes; modula...

Microfossils challenge prevailing views of the effects of 'Snowball Earth' glaciations on life

...This time period, before Snowball Earth, is preserved as a sort of "snapshot" in the canyon walls. The scientists found that diverse assemblages of microscopic organic-walled fossils called acritarchs, which dominate the fossil record of this time, are present in lower rocks of the Chuar Group, but are absent...

Scientists work to plug microorganisms into the energy grid

...the looming fuel crisis in the 21st century may be found by thinking small, microscopic in fact. microscopic organisms from bacteria and cyanobacteria, to fungi and microalgae, are bio...

Using high-precision laser tweezers to juggle cells

...study single cells while exposing them to controlled environmental changes. The unique method, where a set of laser tweezers move the cell around in a microscopic channel system, allows the researchers to study how single cells react to stress induced by a constantly changing environment. Studies on how cells...

Swine flu: What does it do to pigs?

...lu subtypes were able to induce flu-like symptoms and lung lesions in weanling pigs. However the severity of the disease with regard to both gross and microscopic lung lesions was greater in the H1N1-infected pigs". All infected pigs developed respiratory symptoms such as nasal discharge, coughing, sneezing a...

Drugs needed to preserve eggs for reproduction need to be given in stages

...y added to the mix of manmade cryoprotectants are sugars, which are used by a variety of species, such as brine shrimp and eight-legged tardigrades, a microscopic water-dweller also known as "water bears," to survive drought conditions. Scientists like Dr. Eroglu, are showing that these sugars, such as trehalose...

Laughing hyenas, wailing levees, the sound of cheese and blaring bagpipes

...e meant to treat. Cardiologist Jonathan Lindner of Oregon Health and Science University will discuss his latest experiments in gene therapy, which use microscopic bubbles chemically modified to stick to the cells that line blood vessels. This technique, ultrasound-mediated gene delivery (UMGD), exploits the p...

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

... and North Carolina State University (NCSU). The finding is based in part on a regional seafloor survey of quantities of Alexandrium fundyense--the microscopic algae notorious for producing a toxin that accumulates in clams, mussels and other shellfish and that can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) in...

Translating the conversation between the brain and blood vessels

...t redirects it to the heart and muscles if we start running, for example. Recently, his team has been looking at which genes regulate ion channels, microscopic gates that move chemicals in and out of cells, and that play a role in the signaling between the brain and the blood vessels. In experiments with anim...

Prenatal meth exposure linked to abnormal brain development

...the same ages. The MRI scans used diffusion tensor imaging to help measure the diffusion of molecules in a child's brain, which can indicate abnormal microscopic brain structures that might reflect abnormal brain development. The scans showed that children with prenatal meth exposure had differences in the...

Genes from tiny marine algae suggest unsuspected avenues for new research

...al green algae living today are thought to be the Prasinophytes, a group of microscopic green algae found across the world's oceans. Microbial oceanographer Ale...lso compares Micromonas ' genes with genes found in other organisms. A microscopic alga with leaves? Worden and her fellow researchers discovered that Mi...

Montana State grad's work helps diagnose skin cancer without a biopsy

...roscopy research will produce a device that could one day find its way into dermatology clinics around the world, Dickensheets said. "We think that microscopic imaging of cell structure combined with the chemical specificity provided by spectroscopy is the real key to making it a useful tool," Dickensheets sa...

Cause of mussel poisoning identified

...ng" can also be caused by pathogenic viruses and bacteria, many cases are due to gastrointestinal toxins and/or neurotoxins produced by certain marine microscopic plankton, the so-called "toxic algae". Mussels can filter a high amount of these toxic microorganisms from the seawater column, and after ingestion th...