ratio in Biological News

U of T discovers environmental factors linked to sex ratio of plants

TORONTO, ON. Environmental factors can transform the ratio of females to males in plant populations according to new research out of the University of Toronto. The study conducted by Ivana Stehlik, a lecturer, Jannice Friedman, a PhD candidate, and Spencer Barrett, a professor, involved a ...

Osteoarthritis risk linked to finger length ratio

People whose index finger is shorter than their ring finger are at higher risk of osteoarthritis, a new University of Nottingham study has found. A study of more than 2,000 people, published in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism, suggests that people whose index finger is shorter than their r...

In vitro antibody production enables HIV infection detection in window period -- key to safer blood

...ies in the whole blood sample and to the detection of potentially infectious blood units which were missed by regular HIV serology. Interestingly, the ratio of missed infections among the total HIV infected blood donors was higher among the younger (high-school) donors versus adult donors. The research ...

Fujitsu PalmSecure Certified Under International Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 2

...in patterns. This advanced, vascular pattern recognition technology provides a highly reliable type of authentication -- PalmSecure's false acceptance ratio is just 0.00008 percent -- in a form factor that is non-intrusive, easy to use and generates extremely fast comparisons. The Common Criteria certifica...

Two dietary oils, two sets of benefits for older women with diabetes

...nificantly," Belury said. The dietary oils did not have significant effects on other health measurements, such as waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio and skinfold thickness measures of body fat, Belury noted. The CLA also did not appear to affect the variety of hormones involved in fat burning. ...

Female human embryos adjust the balance of X chromosomes before implantation

...said Ms van den Berg. "Early failure to perform correct XCI is likely to lead to the demise of the embryo. A recent publication showed that the sex ratio of children born after blastocyst transfer in IVF/ICSI treatments is altered in favour of males. As a result of our finding that XCI occurs at the pre...

Sediment yields climate record for past half-million years

...ented among marine records." Dating methods such as carbon-14 are useless beyond 30,000 years or so, he said, so Rashid and his colleagues used the ratio of the isotopes oxygen-16 to oxygen-18 as a proxy for temperature in the records. The isotopes were stored in the remains of tiny sea creatures that f...

Omega fatty acid balance can alter immunity and gene expression

...thropological evidence suggests that human ancestors maintained a 2:1 w6/w3 ratio for much of history, but in Western countries today the ratio has spiked to as high as 10:1. Since these omega fatty acids can be convert...

Genes that influence start of menstruation identified for first time

... stature and increased body weight. In general, girls who achieve menstruation earlier in life tend to have greater body mass index (BMI) and a higher ratio of fat compared to those who begin menstruation later. The study carried out an analysis of 17,510 women across eight different international popul...

Exhibition showcases the 'art of science'

...hose lovely projects with which we should never be finished." Cash prizes were given to the top three entrants in amounts calculated by the golden ratio (whose proportions have since antiquity been considered to be aesthetically pleasing): 1st Prize -- $250.00 2nd Prize -- $154.51 3rd Prize --...

Predators ignore peculiar prey

...al BMC Ecology found that birds will target salamanders that look like the majority even reversing their behavior in response to alterations in the ratio of a distinguishing trait. Benjamin Fitzpatrick, from the University of Tennessee, worked with Kim Shook and Reuben Izally to study the effects of...

Heart attacks: The tipping point

...resented a challenge to Dr. Zlochiver. Though a regular EKG could not give the information he sought, Dr. Zlochiver was determined to see how the cell ratio within the heart could be measured by electrical activity. Studying the electric coupling tiny electric signals between myocytes and fibroblast cell...

Sexual harassment from males prevents female bonding, says study

... of species" The research team worked with a population of wild guppies in Trinidad, isolating the females and introducing males to change the sex ratio and examining the effect of males on female social behaviour. They carried out a number of experiments on each group to test the females' ability to r...

6 young ASU faculty earn NSF Career awards

...als. Fiber reinforced composites provide higher strength per weight than other structural materials, such as metals. The improved strength-to-weight ratio typically is used in high-performance devices like military aircraft, high performance automobiles, golf clubs and tennis racquets. Sodano's method ...

Allscripts Integrates Electronic Health Records with Innovative Patient Kiosk

...terns. This advanced, vascular-pattern recognition technology provides a highly accurate type of authentication -- The PalmSecure false acceptance ratio is just 0.00008 percent -- in a form factor that is non-intrusive, easy to use and that generates extremely fast comparisons. The system ensures that ...

Diet secrets of 'the Royals'

...grab with their trunks, elephant tail hair shows a ratio of carbon isotopes different forms of carbon tha...nthesis include trees and shrubs, which have a low ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12. Plants with C4 photosyn...tion of their hair," he adds. The hydrogen isotope ratio in elephant tail hair drops when rains fill the ri...

American Chemical Society Weekly PressPac -- April 8, 2009

...horylation, on 59 specific amino acids, suggesting that modification of these particular sites is essential for the capacitation process. The relative ratio of phosphorylation between the capacitated and noncapacitated samples were also reported, providing the first biochemical description of what puts spe...

Teeth of Columbus' crew flesh out tale of new world discovery

...ual's adult teeth emerge in childhood. For example, people who eat maize, as opposed to those who consume wheat or rice, have different carbon isotope ratio profiles locked in their tooth enamel. "Heavy carbon means you were eating tropical grasses such as maize, found only in the New World, or millet i...

Tree species composition influences nitrogen loss from forests

... soils under red oak and hemlock forests are better at retaining nitrogen and preventing leaching losses. This difference was partially related to the ratio of carbon to nitrogen in the soils. The microbes under the different tree species vary considerably in their production of nitrate, the form of nitrog...

Freezing kidney cancer: Hot treatment should be new gold standard for destroying small tumors

...on (or freezing) is a very effective option for patients who cannot or do not want to have surgery," noted Georgiades. Cryoablation's efficacy ratethe ratio of how many patients' renal cell carcinoma was destroyed completely for localized tumors by sizeis 100 percent up to 4 centimeters (about 2 inches) an...

A new way to assemble cells into 3-D microtissues

... cells together. Bertozzi and Gartner discovered three variables that determine how cells from different groups react with one another. One is the ratio of the two kinds of cells: if both cell populations are equal, every cell finds a single partner and no complex assemblies form. But if there are, say...

Detecting disease in greenhouse plants

... This image analysis allows for detection of these diseases early on. Color ratio was also affected by the age of the leaf in some cases. The ratios for sour...ew can contribute to sooty mold growth. As mold infestations increased, the ratio decreased into the unhealthy proportion for all sample plants. The study...

Will large amounts of soil carbon be released if grasslands are converted to energy crops?

...were collected at three different depths at the beginning and several times during the study and were analyzed for soil organic carbon. Carbon isotope ratio analyses made it possible to determine the amount of soil organic carbon that originated from bromegrass or corn. The results of this study were re...

Brupbacher prize to Nubia Munoz and Sir Richard Peto

...in the 20th century, more than 100 million people died early due to cigarette smoking, i.e. at the age of 30-69 years. He commented that the very high ratio of smokers in Asian countries will lead to sickness and mortality of extraordinary proportions. He estimates that in India in the year 2010, about 930...

World's largest snake discovered in fossilized rainforest

...lutionary biology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Head, with David Polly, associate professor of geosciences at Indiana University, used the ratio between vertebral size and the length of existing snakes to estimate that this boa-like snake must have reached 13 meters (42 feet) in length and weig...

U of T technique put to use to test clean up of contaminated groundwater

...Lollar. "When microbes degrade contaminants, they prefer the lighter isotope carbon 12 over the heavier isotope carbon 13. The resulting change in the ratio of these isotopes in the contaminant itself is a dramatic and definitive indicator that the biodegradation is successfully taking place." Beginning...

Plums poised to give blueberries run for the money

... said this type of research needs further study but is an indication that breeders ultimately will be able to produce new crop varieties with the best ratio of various phytochemicals to have an impact on disease prevention and inhibition. And these fruits will be available as fresh produce as well as in ex...

Cutting salt isn't the only way to reduce blood pressure

...ium, which has the opposite effect to sodium. Researchers found that the ratio of sodium-to-potassium in subjects' urine was a much stronger predictor of ...nificant. By contrast, participants with the highest sodium-to-potassium ratio in urine were 50 percent more likely to experience cardiovascular disease t...

The heart disease mutation carried by 60 million

...ed. Scientists express this genetic risk as an odds ratio, where 1.2 would be a small effect and 2.0 a large one. For the MYBPC3 mutation, the odds ratio is almost off-scale, a staggering 7.0. Carriers usually show few symptoms until middle age, but after that age most are symptomatic and suffer from a ...

Athletes not spared from health risks of metabolic syndrome

... information than a total cholesterol reading. The ratio refers to how the total cholesterol measurement re...terol. The heart association's goal is to keep the ratio below 5:1; the optimum ratio is 3.5:1. Thirty-two of the athletes studied had r...

Mayo: Variants in gene on X chromosome associated with increased susceptibility to Alzheimer's

...isease group," Dr. Younkin says. "Compared to female non-carriers, the odds ratio was 1.75 for women with two copies of the variant and 1.26 for women with o...mpared to male non-carriers." To put these findings in context, the odds ratio for two copies of the well-established, high-risk APOE 4 allele was 11.5 in...

New World post-pandemic reforestation helped start Little Ice Age, say Stanford scientists

... us right away," Nevle said. "We saw a conspicuous increase in the isotope ratio of heavy carbon to light carbon. That gave us a sense that maybe we were lo...t a century after carbon dioxide in the atmosphere began to decline and the ratio of heavy to light carbon isotopes in atmospheric carbon dioxide begins to i...

Boy or girl? It's in the father's genes

...ore X sperm compared to the number of men with more Y sperm affects the sex ratio of children born each year. Sons or daughters? A gene consists of t...e, which results in three possible combinations in a gene that controls the ratio of X and Y sperm; Men with the first combination, known as mm, produ...

Why the 'perfect' body isn't always perfect

...dical studies have shown that a curvy waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7 or lower is associated with higher fertilit...disease. Studies have also shown that men prefer a ratio of 0.7 or lower when looking for a mate. The prefe...ing to evolutionary psychologists, because the low ratio is a reliable signal of a healthy, fertile woman. ...

December 2008 Geology and GSA Today media highlights

... calcite, but these were replaced by lineages with low-magnesium calcite mineralogies. These changes were controlled by the changing magnesium-calcium ratio of seawater, and probably also by increasing partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere as a result of the onset of greenhouse conditions. Newly r...

Futronic Launches FS22 Fingerprint Access Control Device

...ts and return the fingerprint that has the highest score. This is the most accurate way of fingerprint recognition and can reduce the False Acceptance ratio (FAR) to almost zero. It is a perfect solution for application that needs to do 1-to-many matching with a large fingerprint database. Like oth...

Shifts in soil bacterial populations linked to wetland restoration success

...can use to evaluate restoration success, he added. "We found that one of the simplest and most promising indicators of restoration success was the ratio of Proteobacteria, which have the highest affinity for nutrient-rich environments, to Acidobacteria, which have the highest tolerance for poor conditi...

Unusual use of toys in infancy a clue to later autism

... infants from families who had either an older child diagnosed with autism or an older child developing typically. To approximate the skewed gender ratio of autism in the real world, 62 percent of the infants enrolled were male. The children in the study were presented with four objects a metal lid, a ...

Loggerhead release to provide vital information to scientific community

...n River Lagoon near Sebastian Inlet. The loggerheads, dubbed Milton and FeeBee, hatched on Boca Raton's beaches in July 2002 and were part of a sex ratio study conducted by Dr. Jeanette Wyneken of Florida Atlantic University. The gender of sea turtles is determined mostly by the temperature of the sand....

Repair in the developing heart

... other half not." Up until birth, the fetal heart manages to improve the ratio of healthy cells to defective cells from the original 50:50 ratio. The defe... Their percentage in the heart increases so that, at the time of birth, the ratio is large enough to allow the heart of the newborn mouse to beat normally. "...