affects in Biological News

Noise pollution negatively affects woodland bird communities, says CU-Boulder study

A new University of Colorado at Boulder study shows the strongest evidence yet that noise pollution negatively influences bird populations, findings with implications for the fate of ecological communities situated amid growing urban clamor. The study also is the first to indicate that at least...

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

Through a recent modeling experiment, a team of NASA-funded researchers have found that future concentrations of carbon dioxide and ozone in the atmosphere and of nitrogen in the soil are likely to have an important but overlooked effect on the cycling of water from sky to land to waterways. T...

Eating eggs when pregnant affects breast cancer in offspring

A stunning discovery based on epigenetics (the inheritance of propensities acquired in the womb) reveals that consuming cholinea nutrient found in eggs and other foodsduring pregnancy may significantly affect breast cancer outcomes for a mother's offspring. This finding by a team of biologists at ...

UC Riverside scientist to explore how vegetation affects urban heat islands

RIVERSIDE, Calif. Darrel Jenerette, a landscape ecologist at UC Riverside, is on a team led by Arizona State University researchers that will be investigating human vulnerability to deadly heat exposure. The three-year project will examine how variation in the "urban heat island" a metropolit...

Decline in Alaskan sea otters affects bald eagles' diet

Sea otters are known as a keystone species, filling such an important niche in ocean communities that without them, entire ecosystems can collapse. Scientists are finding, however, that sea otters can have even farther-reaching effects that extend to terrestrial communities and alter the behavior ...

Scientists learn how food affects the brain

In addition to helping protect us from heart disease and cancer, a balanced diet and regular exercise can also protect the brain and ward off mental disorders. "Food is like a pharmaceutical compound that affects the brain," said Fernando Gmez-Pinilla, a UCLA professor of neurosurgery and ph...

Saving face with a baby-face? Shape of CEO's face affects public perception

When a corporation has a public relations crisis, the news media splash photos of the company's CEO around the world. According to new research in the Journal of Consumer Research the shape of the CEO's face evokes judgments about the person and the situation. "A company can control what face i...

How what and how much we eat (and drink) affects our risk of cancer

SAN DIEGO A healthy diet and lifestyle protect against a wide range of diseases, and new research presented at the American Association for Cancer Research 2008 Annual Meeting, April 12-16, shows that cancer is no exception. Researchers demonstrate how excessive alcohol drinking could lead to an ...

T-cadherin affects blood vessel growth in breast cancer, hormone from fat cells may play a role

Researchers at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) may have found a new option for targeted breast cancer therapy by showing the link between a certain protein and the formation and development of blood vessels that feed breast tumors. Like mortar between bricks in a wall, T-cadhe...

Study finds pitching mound height affects throwing motion, injury risk

A study involving several Major League Baseball pitchers indicates that the height of the pitchers mound can affect the athletes throwing arm motion, which may lead to potential injuries because of stress on the shoulder and elbow. The study was led by William Raasch, M.D., associate professo...

Gene dose affects tumor growth

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and Ohio State University have found that the number of copies of a particular gene can affect the severity of colon cancer in a mouse model. Publishing in the Jan. 3 issue of Nature, the research team describes how trisomy 21, or Down syndrome in humans, can repress t...

Restless legs syndrome affects nearly 2 percent of US/UK children

Restless legs syndrome is a common problem in children 8 years of age and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, according to a new report from an international team of researchers. Nearly 2 percent of children aged 8 to 17 are affected, and a significant proportion of those experie...

Gender, coupled with diabetes, affects vascular disease development

Austin, TX - Diabetes is associated with the development of vascular (blood vessel) disease. As we age, vascular disease becomes more common. It has been thought that females may be more susceptible to the earlier development of vascular disease, as vascular changes are observed in females long b...

Growing nerve cells in 3-D dramatically affects gene expression

When it comes to growing cells in a lab, technique matters. A new Brown University study shows that nerve cells grown in three-dimensional cultures use 1,766 genes differently compared to nerve cells grown in standard two-dimensional petri dishes. The study, published in the May issue of Tiss...

Sleep quantity affects morning testosterone levels in older men

The testosterone levels of healthy men decline as they get older. As sleep quality and quantity typically decrease with age, objectively measured differences in the amount of sleep a healthy older man gets can affect his level of testosterone in the morning, according to a study published in the A...

Experience affects new neuron survival in adult brain; study sheds light on learning, memory

Experience in the early development of new neurons in specific brain regions affects their survival and activity in the adult brain, new research shows. How these new neurons store information about these experiences may explain how they can affect learning and memory in adults. A team of resea...

Soil nutrition affects carbon sequestration in forests

On December 11, USDA Forest Service (FS) scientists from the FS Southern Research Station (SRS) unit in Research Triangle Park, NC, along with colleagues from Duke University, published two papers in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) that provide a more precise understanding...

Changing length of days reverses how estrogen affects aggressiveness in mice

New research shows how simply varying the length of daylight to which mice are exposed to can change how aggressively they react to other mice. The study found that in the short days of winter, the class of hormones called estrogens acts to increase aggression in males of a particular type of mo...

Chemotherapy temporarily affects the structures of the human brain

Researchers have linked chemotherapy with short-term structural changes in cognitive areas of the brain, according to a new study. Published in the January 1, 2007 issue of CANCER ( http://www.interscience.wiley.com/cancer-newsroom ), a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the stud...

Memory loss affects more of the brain than previously thought

Memory loss associated with early Alzheimer's disease (AD) may be linked to altered activity in several areas of the brain, according to a study in the July issue of Radiology. For the first time, researchers at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., used a special, high-field- strength,...

UMaine teams with fishermen to study affects of trawling on seafloor ecology

Working in cooperation with Maine trawler captain Cameron McLellan and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, UMaine graduate student Emily Knight and UMaine Marine Science professor Les Watling recently completed a long-term study that examines the effects of groundfish trawling on the complex ecol...

New discovery: Molecular variation in one gene affects the growth of natural populations

For the first time, ecologists have been able to show that molecular variation in one gene may affect the growth of a population in its natural habitat. Research Professor Ilkka Hanski, University of Helsinki, and Dr Ilik Saccheri, University of Liverpool, UK, discovered that the population growth ...

Gene variation affects tamoxifen's benefit for breast cancer

One of the most commonly prescribed drugs for breast cancer, tamoxifen, may not be as effective for women who inherit a common genetic variation, according to researchers at the University of Michigan and the Mayo Clinic. The genetic variation affects the level of a crucial enzyme that activates ta...

New study examines how sense of smell affects mating and aggression in mice

New research by scientists at UCSF sheds light on how the odor detecting system in mice sends signals that affect their social behavior. "Understanding how mice process cues from the olfactory system--which regulates the sense of smell--should provide insight into the fundamental principles that...

Tropical Deforestation affects rainfall in the U.S. and around the globe

Today, scientists estimate that between one-third and one-half of our planet's land surfaces have been transformed by human development. Now, a new study is offering insight into the long-term impacts of these changes, particularly the effects of large-scale deforestation in tropical regions on t...

Enzyme affects hypertension by controlling salt levels in body

An enzyme known to cause hypertension increases blood pressure by activating tiny pores, or channels, in kidney cells that allow increased levels of sodium to be reabsorbed into the blood, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found. The findings shed light on the underlying mechanisms...

Exercise training in ordinary people affects the activity of 500 genes

A new study from Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm shows that hundreds of genes in the thigh muscle are activated in regular cycle training. The study also reveals that great differences in training response may be due to the ability in some people to activate their genes much more forcefully. The...

Road salt affects mitigation wetlands

Sacrificing one wetland for the sake of five others may be the way to go when planning constructed wetlands to replace those destroyed during road building, but a Penn State Erie biologist is monitoring the salinity of the wetlands to see how the salt affects animals and insects. "I am currently ...

Clam embryo study shows pollutant mixture adversely affects nerve cell development

A scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) has published the results of an EPA-funded clam embryo study that supports her hypothesis that, when combined, the pollutants bromoform, chloroform, and tetrachloroethylene--a chemical cocktail known as BCE--can act synergistically to alter a ke...

Cytoplasm affects the number of vertebrae in carp-goldfish clones

The March 2005 issue of Biology of Reproduction contains a report of some intriguing findings in cloned offspring created when nuclei from one genus of fish were transplanted to enucleated eggs of another genus of fish. The seven offspring, cloned from nuclei of common carp and egg cytoplasm of ...

AGU journal highlights -- Aug. 6, 2009

...nd brightening, addressing a number of frequently asked questions such as how and when dimming and brightening originated, how dimming and brightening affects other global environmental processes, whether current climate models successfully replicate observed patterns in dimming and brightening, and how dimm...

Protein handlers should be effective treatment target for cancer and Alzheimer's

...dings will translate to patients," Dr. Mivechi says. "We need to know, not only how deleting or augmenting molecular chaperones and heat shock factors affects disease development, but also how it impacts disease progression." Their studies also will help researchers pinpoint which molecular chaperones and...

Holding breath for several minutes elevates marker for brain damage

... question of whether lengthy apnea (breath-holding) can damage the brain over the long term. "The results indicate that prolonged, voluntary apnea affects the integrity of the central nervous system, and may have cumulative effects," the Swedish researchers said. The release of S100B into the blood sugge...

Urban water ecology at the ESA annual meeting

...ncis, a post-doctoral researcher at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), wanted to know if the urbanization of lakeshores affects the amount of terrestrial insects available as food to the lake's fish inhabitants. To answer her question, she analyzed fish stomach contents over t...

Iron isotopes as a tool in oceanography

...erived iron in seawater." Current thesis research aims to improve our understanding of iron cycling between sediments and seawater and compares the affects of contrasting sediment geochemistry on iron flux generating processes. "In the future I would like to examine processes of sedimentary iron cyclin...

Little-known protein found to be key player

...g of hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP), the genetic disorder that atlastin has been linked with," Daga said. HSP is a rare genetic condition that affects fewer than one million people worldwide. It's marked by a partial paralysis of the lower extremities due to defects in the body's longest cells, the n...

Key OSU water research receives national funding

... on water cycles and the recharging of groundwater supplies. This, in turn, affects every aspect of water use, be it by people or wildlife." In the Great Pl...l issue, mainly because water-use efficiency by people, plants and wildlife affects everyone and everything in the long run," he said. "Water, by its very natu...

ISU researchers find possible treatment for spinal muscular atrophy

... . Their research (link to research) is the most downloaded story on the RNA Biology page of the Web site Landes Bioscience. Spinal Muscular Atrophy affects 1 in 6,000 to 1 in 10,000 children born every year. One in 40 people are carriers of the disease -- they don't have the symptoms, but could pass the d...

Scientists track impact of DNA damage in the developing brain

...Kinnon, Ph.D., a member of St. Jude Genetics and Tumor Cell Biology, said the work provides a new model for understanding how single-strand DNA damage affects the nervous system and offers a new focus for tracking the origins of neurological disease. The research also reflects growing scientific interest ...

The value of variation: Ecologists consider the causes and consequences

...ersity of Texas, Austin. "Very little is known about how niche variation affects the ecological dynamics of a species or a community, and yet it is importan...vior into ecological models that will determine how intraspecific variation affects ecological dynamics and community structure," Bolnick said. "At present,...