Patterns in Biological News

Geographic profiling applied to track hunting patterns of white sharks in South Africa

VIRGINIA KEY, Fla. -- Predation is one of the most fundamental and fascinating interactions in nature, and sharks are some of the fiercest predators on Earth. However, their hunting pattern is difficult to study because it is rarely observed in the wild. As a result, shark predatory behavior has r...

Researchers gain genome-wide insights into patterns of the world's human population structures

Through sophisticated statistical analyses and advanced computer simulations, researchers are learning more about the genomic patterns of human population structure around the world. Revealing such patterns provides insights into the history of human evolution, the predominant evolutionary forc...

UK researcher identifies just 8 patterns as the cause of all humor

Evolutionary theorist Alastair Clarke has today published details of eight patterns he claims to be the basis of all the humour that has ever been imagined or expressed, regardless of civilization, culture or personal taste. Clarke has stated before that humour is based on the surprise recogni...

DNA repair patterns may predict risk of pancreatic cancer

PHILADELPHIA Genetic variations in DNA repair patterns may increase risk of pancreatic cancer by as much as threefold or decrease it by as much as 77 percent, depending on the genes involved, according to a report published in the January 15, 2009, issue of Clinical Cancer Research , a journal o...

Researchers examine role of soil patterns in dam restoration

MADISON Looking at the site today, it's easy to forget that a dam and pond stood for 43 years on the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Franbrook Farm Research Station in southwestern Wisconsin. All traces of the structure are gone, and acres of plants, both native and weedy, now carpet the floor ...

Scientists Find new migratory patterns for Mediterranean and Western Atlantic bluefin tuna

New research into the life cycle of Atlantic bluefin tuna shows, for the first time, that Mediterranean and North American bluefin mix substantially as juveniles, but return to their place of birth to spawn. These new research findings have critical implications for how bluefin tuna are managed on...

Scientists discover key patterns in the packaging of genes

Although every cell of our bodies contains the same genetic instructions, specific genes typically act only in specific cells at particular times. Other genes are "silenced" in a variety of ways. One mode of gene silencing depends upon the way DNA, the genetic material, is packed in the nucleus of...

Bodily breakdown explained: How cell differentiation patterns suppress somatic evolution

Natural selection can occur at the cellular level, where it is detrimental to health. Fortunately it is normally controlled by a well-known pattern of ongoing cell differentiation in the mature tissues of animals, according to a new study published December 14 in PLoS Computational Biology. Th...

Spatial patterns in tropical forests can help to understand their high biodiversity

The high biodiversity in tropical forests has both fascinated and puzzled ecologists for more than half a century. In the hopes of finding an answer to this puzzle, ecologists have turned their attention to the spatial patterns of such communities and mapped the location of each tree with a stem l...

Interaction of just 2 genes governs coloration patterns in mice

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Biologists at Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego, have found that a simple interaction between just two genes determines the patterns of fur coloration that camouflage mice against their background, protecting them from many predators. The work, publ...

NOAA researchers: Blue whales re-establishing former migration patterns

Scientists have documented the first known migration of blue whales from the coast of California to areas off British Columbia and the Gulf of Alaska since the end of commercial whaling in 1965. In the scientific journal Marine Mammal Science , researchers from Cascadia Research Collective in ...

Caloric intake negatively influences healthy adults' sleep patterns

WESTCHESTER, Ill. Caloric intake negatively influences sleep patterns in healthy adults, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Tuesday at SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS). The study, authored by Ion Zalcman, of Feder...

First nanoscale image of soil reveals an 'incredible' variety, rich with patterns

A handful of soil is a lot like a banana, strawberry and apple smoothie: Blended all together, it is hard to tell what's in there, especially if you have never tasted the fruits before. But when you look at soil's organic carbon closely, it has an incredible variety of known compounds. And look...

New study uncovers secrets behind butterfly wing patterns

Irvine, Calif., Oct. 25, 2007 -- The genes that make a fruit fly's eyes red also produce red wing patterns in the Heliconius butterfly found in South and Central America, finds a new study by a UC Irvine entomologist. Bob Reed, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, discovered...

Gene expression patterns predict rapid decline in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis patients

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic lung disease typically characterized by the slow but progressive onset of shortness of breath or cough. Most patients live about five years after diagnosis. However, according to a new study being published today in the online journal PLoS ONE, a su...

New imaging technique tracks traffic patterns of white blood cells

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have just developed an advanced imaging technique to capture the movement of the microdomains of leukocytes or white blood cells. Microdomains are restricted areas on the surface of the cells in which receptors and signaling molecules accumulate during ...

Global map shows new patterns of extinction risk

The most detailed world map of mammals, birds and amphibians ever produced shows that endangered species from these groups do not inhabit the same geographical areas, says new research published today. Contrary to conservationists' previous assumptions, the map shows conclusively that geographic...

Researchers offer clues to how leaves patterns are formed

Pick up a leaf and it is hard not to notice the pattern made by the veins. For years, biologists, mathematicians and even poets and philosophers have tried to decipher the rules and regulations behind those varied designs and now new research published in part at the University of Alberta offers a ...

A dichotomy in migration patterns found for sea turtles in east Atlantic

Studying members of a large population of loggerhead sea turtles that nest on the Cape Verde islands off of West Africa, researchers have found an unexpected dichotomy in turtle behavior: While some turtles leave the nesting grounds to feed on bottom-dwelling sea life in shallow coastal waters, oth...

Use of stone hammers sheds light on geographic patterns of chimpanzee tool use

In a finding that challenges a long-held belief regarding the cultural spread of tool use among chimpanzees, researchers report that chimpanzees in the Ebo forest, Cameroon, use stone hammers to crack open hard-shelled nuts to access the nutrient-rich seeds. The findings are significant because thi...

Drug-resistant bacteria patterns in intensive care units changing nationally

A dangerous drug-resistant bacterium is becoming more prevalent in many intensive care units, according to an article in the Feb. 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is responsible for a variety of infections that patie...

Viral 'fitness' explains different resistance patterns to aids drugs

Some HIV medications lead to the development of drug-resistant HIV when patients take as few as two percent of their medications. For other medications, resistance occurs only when patients take most of their pills. These differences appear to be explained by the different levels of viral "fitness"...

Gene patterns in white blood cells quickly diagnose disease

Researchers at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are developing a method to determine in a matter of hours if someone has been exposed to a bioterrorism agent just by looking at the pattern of active genes in that person's white blood cells. They report their findings today at the ASM Biodefe...

Shift of weather patterns necessitates rethinking of reforestation methods

Forest landowners can greatly increase the survival rate of pine tree seedlings by changing when and how they plant, according to research conducted here. "There's been too many (reforestation) failures over the last decade or so," said Dr. Eric Taylor, Texas Cooperative Extension forestry speci...

AGU journal highlights -- Aug. 6, 2009

...g originated, how dimming and brightening affects other global environmental processes, whether current climate models successfully replicate observed patterns in dimming and brightening, and how dimming and brightening may evolve over the coming decades. Title: Global dimming and brightening: A review ...

Moving to the US increases cancer risk for Hispanics

...nity composed of Cubans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Central and South Americans. The results indicated that these population groups showed different patterns of cancer once they moved to the United States; Mexicans had the lowest rates of cancer overall and Puerto Ricans had the highest rates of cancer. Cub...

Venomous sea snakes play heads or tails with their predators

..., made by Dr Arne Redsted Rasmussen and Dr Johan Elmberg, showed that Yellow-lipped Sea Kraits ( Laticauda colubrina ) use skin markings and behaviour patterns to fool predators into thinking their tail is a second head, complete with lethal venom. There are over 65 species of sea snakes in the tropical...

Animal and plant communication at the ESA Annual Meeting

...flowers there's a general idea that insects like bright colors, especially reds and yellows. But thus far there is little evidence that these colorful patterns attract prey to pitcher plants. Aaron Ellison of Harvard University and his coauthor Katherine Bennett, a fifth grade teacher working under a Nati...

U of M study identifies risk factors of disordered eating in overweight youth

...oor eating patterns, including high fast food and sweetened beverage intake, increased their risk of disordered eating. These findings link different patterns of behaviors and different potential motivators for overweight male and female adolescents to developing eating disorders. "Further exploration of ...

Douglas-fir, geoducks make strange bedfellows in studying climate change

...erous individuals of the same species, however, the consistency of the ring patterns allows them to build a model and compare that to known climatic measurement... from the ocean floor," Black said, "and we hope we can append their growth patterns to chronology developed from live individuals. If so, it may be possible to...

Jet-propelled imaging for an ultrafast light source

...e atoms and reveal once these complex diffraction patterns have been converted into a 3-D image by computers ...allest protein nanocrystals from which diffraction patterns have ever been obtained, and the first from membra...bject the samples to radiation damage. Some of the patterns the researchers obtained come from nanocrystals ju...

Naming evolution's winners and losers

...owed them to persist. In species richness, these are losers, but in another sense, this highlights how unique they are. There are incredibly disparate patterns of species richness." Tuataras were a bit more diverse in their heyday; there may have been a few dozen species of them, most of which have beco...

Researchers develop 'brain-reading' methods

...n of activity across a half million points in the brain. Interestingly, the patterns of neural networks involved in each of the eight tasks on the surface appea...s and what information they would report back. "It's like looking at two patterns of identical flower arrangements," says Hanson. "They each may have the sam...

Smaller than expected, but severe, dead zone in Gulf of Mexico

...lais believes the smaller than expected dead zone is due to unusual weather patterns that re-oxygenated the waters, among other factors. "The winds and waves...r than expected area of hypoxia appears to be related to short-term weather patterns before measurements were taken, not a reduction in the underlying cause, ex...

Cancer's distinctive pattern of gene expression could aid early screening and prevention

... AUGUSTA, Ga. Distinctive patterns of genes turned off or left on in healthy versus...s and their cancerous counterpart to find telltale patterns that could one day be detected in the blood, urine or feces. The patterns could give patients a heads up that lifestyle chan...

PRS And EmSense Partner To Integrate Bio-Sensory Measures In Packaging Research Studies

...PRS Eye-Tracking and EmSense's EmGear(TM) EEG unit to link package viewing patterns with measures of cognition and emotion - and to identify the specific desig... years to understand shopper behavior at the shelf. Linking package viewing patterns to additional bio-sensory measures of emotion and cognition through our par...

Ethiopian government celebrates rinderpest eradication

...iopia. The CAHWs also demonstrated for Ethiopian government workers and the Tufts veterinarians their indigenous knowledge on rinderpest symptoms and patterns of transmission. Their ability to monitor for flare-ups following the vaccinations was crucial to conquering rinderpest. Similar tactics were used ...

A global model for the origin of species independent of geographical isolation

...win's birth. However, in recent years, consistent patterns of biodiversity have been identified over space, t...roles in an ecosystem. In a new study, "Global patterns of speciation and diversity," just published in N...rs, note showed the distribution of species formed patterns similar to those that have occurred with real orga...

Seals quickly respond to gain and loss of habitat under climate change

...ed that new habitat emerging within the species' migratory range could be quickly taken advantage of, but that the reverse was not true. The movement patterns of seals from this Antarctic breeding site would have been unlikely to take them near other potential breeding sites, and so when their breeding site ...

New theory gives more precise estimates of large-scale biodiversity

...ny, because the species overlap," Harte said. He and colleague Jessica Green showed in 2003 that the theory of fractals, which posits that physical patterns such as the distribution of plants look similar on small and large scales, does not explain species richness over large areas. In addition, experiment...