Rise in Biological News

After dinosaurs, mammals rise but their genomes get smaller

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Evidence buried in the chromosomes of animals and plants strongly suggests only one group -- mammals -- have seen their genomes shrink after the dinosaurs' extinction. What's more, that trend continues today, say Indiana University Bloomington scientists in the first issue of ...

Threats to biodiversity rise in the world's Mediterranean-climate regions

In the first systematic analysis of threats to the biodiversity of the world's mediterranean-climate regions, scientists at The Nature Conservancy and UC Davis report that these conservation hotspots are facing significant and increasing pressure. The study, which appears in this week's edition o...

Study identifies genetic variants giving rise to differences in metabolism

Common genetic polymorphisms induce major differentiations in the metabolic make-up of the human population, according to a paper published November 28 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics . An international team of researchers, led by Karsten Suhre, has conducted a genome-wide association s...

Global methane levels on the rise again

After eight years of near-zero growth in atmospheric methane concentrations, levels have again started to rise. "This is not good news for future global warming," says CSIRO's Dr Paul Fraser, who co-authored a paper to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geo...

New book brings upper US Gulf Coast climate change and sea-level rise into focus

Boulder, CO, USA - Climate change and sea-level rise in the upper U.S. Gulf Coast and across the globe are two of the greatest concerns of our time. This new Special Paper from The Geological Society of America addresses the response of upper U.S. Gulf Coast estuaries to Holocene climate change an...

Study shows rise in Cornwall's dolphin, whale and porpoise deaths

Four weeks on from the shocking incident that led to the death of 26 dolphins near Falmouth, research released today (7 July 2008) sheds new light on the extent of the problems facing Cornwall's marine mammals. A study by the University of Exeter and Cornwall Wildlife Trust, published in the j...

Atmel's FingerChip Biometric Sensor Selected by Rise Computer for its Robust Security

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Atmel(R) Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML), an inventor and leading provider of swipe sensor technology and solutions, announced today that its FingerChip(R) fingerprint sensor solution has been selected by Rise Computer, Inc. for its RX5622 LCD PC. Rise will ...

Study shows housing development on the rise near national forests

PORTLAND, Ore. October 25, 2007. Americas national forests and grasslands provide the largest single source of freshwater in the United States, habitat for a third of all federally listed threatened or endangered species, and recreation opportunities for people (about 205 million visits are made a...

Plants take a hike as temperatures rise

Plants are flowering at higher elevations in Arizona's Santa Catalina Mountains as summer temperatures rise, according to new research from The University of Arizona in Tucson. The flowering ranges of 93 plant species moved uphill during 1994 to 2003, compared to where the same species flowered...

20-year study shows significant rise in childhood obesity, especially among girls

Four-year-old girls are six times more likely to have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of more than 30 than they were 20 years ago and ten-year-olds are five times more likely, according to research published in the April issue of Acta Paediactrica. Swedish researchers who studied BMI figures for more tha...

Syphilis rate on rise in US gay, bisexual men

Armed with more than a decade’s worth of statistics, researchers are sounding a new alarm about growing rates of syphilis among gay and bisexual men. The overall number of syphilis cases in the United States fell from 50,578 in 1990 to just 7,177 in 2003 perhaps because of a nationwide prevention...

Dinosaur extinction didn't cause the rise of present-day mammals, claim researchers

A new, complete 'tree of life' tracing the history of all 4,500 mammals on Earth shows that they did not diversify as a result of the death of the dinosaurs, says new research published in Nature today. The study was undertaken in the UK by scientists at Imperial College London and the Zoological...

Nutrition a major factor in rise in twin pregnancies

The commonly held view that IVF is the only culprit in the steady increase in the numbers of twins born over the past thirty years was challenged by a scientist speaking at the 22nd annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Prague, Czech Republic, Wednesday 2...

Study indicates dramatic rise in antibiotic-resistant community-acquired staph infections

Staph infections resistant to antibiotics, previously only associated with hospitalization or prior contact with the healthcare system, are now widespread in the community and coming home. A new study from Emory University School of Medicine and Grady Memorial Hospital, featured in the March 7, ...

Oceans turning to acid from rise in CO2

Editor : A 0.1 change over 200 years? I'd like to see how they calculated that, and their standard error - but as with the last article, don't panic just yet! Still, if it's a real trend, it could be alarming. Oceans are quite big... It takes a lot of acid to change its pH, I guess! A report i...

Two studies document rise of superbugs in the environment

As science gets wiser, so do the bugs. The rates of drug-resistant bacteria infecting patients in the community and in the hospital have been increasing steadily in recent years, according to two new studies in the June 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. Drug resistan...

Unprecedented water level rise in Somalia

In East Africa, where days of heavy rains and flooding have led to numerous deaths and entire villages being wiped out, locals are reporting an unprecedented rise in Somalia's Shabelle River and that a major water surge may be headed into the centre of the country, the United Nations said today. ...

Climate-caused biodiversity booms and busts in ancient plants and mammals

...the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (EECO), began about three million years later and included a long-term temperature increase coupled with a long-term rise in diversity. During that time, as mean annual temperature warmed from about 60 degrees Fahrenheit to 73 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius to...

Symposium to discuss geoengineering to fight climate change at the ESA Annual Meeting

...oceans with iron to increase carbon uptake from the atmosphere. Charles Miller of Oregon State University says that ocean fertilization could create a rise in iron-limited phytoplankton populations, which by dying and sinking would use enough oxygen to create extensive dead zones in the oceans. In additio...

Sustainable agriculture at the ESA Annual Meeting

...ntrol are only half of the equation and sources of the pests themselves must also be considered. In the absence of predators, pest levels would likely rise even more dramatically. "By having complexity, you're supplying a community of insects to that farm that will be waiting when and if more pests sh...

Stem cell 'daughters' lead to breast cancer

...s a major shift in the way scientists think breast cancer develops. Dr Visvader said it had been thought in recent years that breast stem cells gave rise to BRCA1 tumours. "However, research carried out at the institute by Drs Elgene Lim and Franois Vaillant has shown that breast tissue from women with ...

Opening a new window on daylight

... figures could be reduced significantly they say if daylighting were used instead. In Tropical regions, however, daylighting leads to a significant rise in temperature, which has to be countered by air-conditioning if the occupants are to remain cool and comfortable. This in turn consumes about 80% of ...

Structure of protective protein in the eye lens revealed

...the heart and muscle tissue. In the eye lens, they counteract diseases like cataracts. Malfunctions of the αB-crystallin in tissue cells can give rise to cancer and neurological defects, including Alzheimer's disease. Many research groups have focused their work on the α-crystallins due to t...

Stem cell research: From molecular physiology to therapeutic applications

...ial lineages, but also hepatocyte-like cells, and neural and erythroid cells. They remained in some tissues and organs during gestation and could give rise to different kinds of pluripotent stem cells and thus could potentially contribute to self-repair and self-renewal of tissues and organs. They generat...

Comprehensive look at rare leukemia finds relatively few genetic changes launch disease

...myeloid progenitors to convert them from a normal cell to AML," the authors noted, referring to several types of immature and maturing cells that give rise to this cancer. James Downing, M.D., St. Jude scientific director and the paper's senior author, said the findings highlight questions about what it t...

New windows opened on cell-to-cell interactions

...s within the immune system," Parthasarathy said. "At the surface of every cell is a forest of molecules to induce interactions. These proteins need to rise from the forest. What allows them to stick up or lie down? We've really had a poor idea of what's going on. Knowing the genome and what proteins are t...

A genetic basis for schizophrenia

...2009 online issue of the journal Development , followed the role of Disc1 in cranial neural crest (CNC) cells, which are multi-potent cells that give rise to multiple cell types including craniofacial cartilage and the peripheral nervous system during development. They also are similar to neurons in the...

C. difficile spores spread superbug

... that they shed low levels of spores and, crucially, they did not infect other mice." "But when we treated mice with antibiotics, we saw a dramatic rise in the levels of spores shed - leading to what we have described as a 'supershedder state' and transmission of C. difficile among mice. Importantly,...

Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology increases impact, international reach

...uclear medicine and medical imaging journals, according to results from the Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Report. As the journal continues to see a rise in its impact, the Society of Interventional Radiology is now offering an International Affiliate Program, online-only access to JVIR to nonmembers ou...

22nd Congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Sept. 12-16, 2009, Turkey

....3% of the population). The prevalence of Alzheimers disease is expected to rise dramatically with an ageing population, because it affects about 2% amongst...al mechanisms of mental disorders, i.e. the neuronal interactions that give rise to these disorders. For this purpose, neuropsychopharmacology investigates ...

SF State professor honored by President Obama for science mentoring

... of scientists passing on what they came to know and how they came to know it. You get a tremendous reward watching somebody with potential and talent rise above their history." The SEO has yielded significant results including higher retention and academic achievement of underrepresented minorities in...

New theory gives more precise estimates of large-scale biodiversity

...sed on fractals, which predicts that the number of species will increase with area, but increase more slowly for larger and larger areas - a power-law rise with the number of species proportional to the power of the area. "You can sample an area and count the number of species, and then double the are...

Ozone, nitrogen change the way rising CO2 affects Earth's water

...larger when nitrogen is limited and environments are exposed to high ozone levels," said Felzer. In fact, the team found an additional 7 to 10 percent rise in runoff when nitrogen was limited and ozone exposure increased. "Though this study focuses on Eastern U.S. forests, we know nitrogen and ozone e...

Arctic climate under greenhouse conditions in the Late Cretaceous

...e polar summer may also be a pointer to future trends in the modern ocean," say the researchers: "With increasing CO2 levels and global warming giving rise to increased ocean stratification, this style of (marine biological) production may become of increasing importance." However, thin accumulations o...

Explosive growth of life on Earth fueled by early greening of planet

...began to see a world that first greened up with primitive plants. "The greening of Earth made soils which sequestered carbon and allowed oxygen to rise and get dissolved into sea water," Knauth explained. "Early animals would have loved breathing it as they expanded throughout the ocean of this new wo...

Clean fuels could reduce deaths from ship smokestacks by 40,000 annually

...ated that about 60,000 people died prematurely around the world due to shipping-related emissions in 2002. The new study estimates that the toll could rise to 87,000 by 2012, assuming that the global shipping industry rebounds from the current economic slump and no new regulation occurs. Policymakers...

Genetic factors implicated in survival gap for breast, ovarian or prostate cancer

...With the incidence of cancer among minorities predicted to double in the next two decades while comparable incidence among whites is only expected to rise 31 percent this is a crucially important public health issue to understand all the factors that alter survival outcomes." ...

Study finds role for parasites in evolution of sex

...al snail populations remained much more stable over time. This, the authors say, is exactly the pattern predicted by the parasite hypothesis. "The rise and fall of these female-only lineages was surprisingly fast and consistent with the prediction of the parasite hypothesis for sex," Jokela said. "The...

Chemicals in common consumer products may play a role in pre-term births

...hthalates, which are present in many industrial and consumer products including everyday personal care items, may contribute to the country's alarming rise in premature births. Researchers at the University of Michigan School of Public Health found that women who deliver prematurely have, on average, ...

The sound of light: Innovative technology shatters the barriers of modern light microscopy

... which in turn result in tiny local volume expansions. This happens very quickly and creates small shock waves. In effect, the short laser pulse gives rise to an ultrasound wave that the researchers pick up with an ultrasound microphone. The real power of the technique, however, lies in specially devel...