The EDGE: ScienceDaily Environment Headlines -- for Wednesday, October 19, 2011

ScienceDaily Environment Headlines

for Wednesday, October 19, 2011

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Two new bee species are mysterious pieces in the Panama puzzle (October 19, 2011) -- Scientists have discovered two new, closely related bee species: one from Coiba Island in Panama and another from northern Colombia. Both descended from of a group of stingless bees that originated in the Amazon and moved into Central America, the ancestors of Mayan honeybees. ... > full story

Why steroid treatment for COPD is ineffective (October 19, 2011) -- Corticosteroids do not improve survival nor alter the progression of COPD and may reduce lung symptoms as little as 20 percent. A new study found why corticosteroids do not work well for COPD patients and how additional treatment with sulforaphane -- an ingredient of broccoli and other vegetables -- can improve the effectiveness of corticosteroids. ... > full story

Scientists reveal surprising picture of how powerful antibody neutralizes HIV (October 19, 2011) -- Researchers have uncovered the surprising details of how a powerful anti-HIV antibody grabs hold of the virus. The findings highlight a major vulnerability of HIV and suggest a new target for vaccine development. ... > full story

Efficacy of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma vaccine demonstrated in dogs (October 19, 2011) -- An experimental vaccine is the first veterinary cancer vaccine of its kind that shows an increase in survival time for dogs with spontaneous non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The work shows for the first time the feasibility and therapeutic efficacy of this alternative cell-based vaccine, which could be employed in the treatment of a number of different cancer types. ... > full story

Industrial by-products upgraded into fuel (October 19, 2011) -- Researchers in Finland have achieved good results in using waste and other excess products from industry to develop new and innovative fuels for transport. The researchers have studied the processing of both biobutanol and biogas into transport fuels. ... > full story

First-ever sequence and structure of biologically important carbohydrate (October 18, 2011) -- Scientists have been unable to determine the structure of a biologically important so-called GAG proteoglycan -- or even to agree whether these remarkably complex molecules have well-defined structures. Medical researchers have now, for the first time, determined the sequence and structure of a glycosaminoglycan, or GAG, proteoglycan. ... > full story

Unexpected effect of climate change on body size for many different species (October 18, 2011) -- A new study by researchers in Singapore shows that organisms from primary producers to top predators are shrinking in size in response to climate change. Decreasing organism size could have adverse effect on society, for example crop harvests getting smaller or ecosystem services being compromised. ... > full story

Robotic bug gets wings, sheds light on evolution of flight (October 18, 2011) -- When engineers outfitted a six-legged robotic bug with wings in an effort to improve its mobility, they unexpectedly shed some light on the evolution of flight. The wings nearly doubled the running speed of the 25-gram robot, but was that good enough for takeoff? ... > full story

Chemical warfare on the reef: Molecules used by certain seaweed to harm corals (October 18, 2011) -- Scientists for the first time have identified and mapped the chemical structure of molecules used by certain species of marine seaweed to kill or inhibit the growth of reef-building coral. ... > full story

Omega-3 fatty acids shown to prevent or slow progression of osteoarthritis (October 18, 2011) -- New research has shown for the first time that omega-3 in fish oil could "substantially and significantly" reduce the signs and symptoms of osteoarthritis. ... > full story

Food without preservatives -- thanks to self-cleaning equipment (October 18, 2011) -- Éclairs and other pastries should taste light and fluffy. If the pastry dough contains too many microorganisms, though, it will not rise in the oven. Now, researchers have devised a system that cleans itself automatically after every batch of dough. This means the dough is sterile -- and for the first time, it can be made in large quantities off-site for delivery to bakeries. ... > full story

Goats could increase the risk of a rare lung cancer, researchers find (October 18, 2011) -- Exposure to goats could increase the risk of a certain type of lung cancer, according to French researchers. ... > full story

Future forests may soak up more carbon dioxide than previously believed (October 18, 2011) -- North American forests appear to have a greater capacity to soak up heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas than researchers had previously anticipated. ... > full story

Bioengineering to generate healthy skin (October 18, 2011) -- Scientists are participating in research to study how to make use of the potential for auto regeneration of stem skills from skin, in order to create, in the laboratory, a patient's entire cutaneous surface by means of a combination of biological engineering and tissue engineering techniques. ... > full story

Clustered hurricanes reduce impact on ecosystems, researchers find (October 18, 2011) -- New research has found that hurricane activity is "clustered" rather than random, which has important long-term implications for coastal ecosystems and human population. Tropical cyclones and hurricanes have a massive economic, social and ecological impact, and models of their occurrence influence many planning activities from setting insurance premiums to conservation planning. ... > full story

100,000-year-old ochre toolkit and workshop discovered in South Africa (October 18, 2011) -- An ochre-rich mixture, possibly used for decoration, painting and skin protection 100,000 years ago, and stored in two abalone shells, was discovered at Blombos Cave in Cape Town, South Africa. ... > full story

Norwegian prawns to spice up Chinese noodles (October 18, 2011) -- Bioprospecting is opening up international markets for Norwegian seafood companies. Essences extracted from a prawn or octopus off the west coast of Norway could end up as flavoring in noodle packages in China. ... > full story

Google Earth typhoid maps reveal secrets of disease outbreaks (October 18, 2011) -- In the mid-nineteenth century, John Snow mapped cases of cholera in Soho, London, and traced the source of the outbreak to a contaminated water pump. Now, in a twenty-first century equivalent, scientists working in Kathmandu, Nepal, have combined the latest in gene sequencing technology and global positioning system case localization to map the spread of typhoid and trace its source. ... > full story

Severe drought, other changes can cause permanent ecosystem disruption (October 17, 2011) -- An eight-year study has concluded that increasingly frequent and severe drought, dropping water tables and dried-up springs have pushed some aquatic desert ecosystems into "catastrophic regime change," from which many species will not recover. ... > full story

New approach to treating Listeria infections (October 17, 2011) -- Research underway could lead to new treatments for people sickened by Listeria and other sepsis-causing bacteria. Research supports a new approach to treating these infections. ... > full story

Children, not chimps, prefer collaboration: Humans like to work together in solving tasks -- chimps don't (October 17, 2011) -- Recent studies have shown that chimpanzees possess many of the cognitive prerequisites necessary for humanlike collaboration. Cognitive abilities, however, might not be all that differs between chimpanzees and humans when it comes to cooperation. Children, but not chimpanzees, prefer to collaborate. ... > full story

Possible link between bacterium and colon cancer discovered (October 17, 2011) -- Scientists have found strikingly high levels of a bacterium in colorectal cancers, a sign that it might contribute to the disease and potentially be a key to diagnosing, preventing, and treating it. ... > full story

New record voltage for organic solar cells opens the tech to consumer electronics (October 17, 2011) -- Scientists have achieved a significant breakthrough in the performance of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells. They have achieved and demonstrated a record voltage for organic photovoltaic cells that means these highly flexible, low cost solar cells can now be devolved for commercial uses in a wide range of consumer electronics. ... > full story

Archaeologists find blade 'production lines' existed as much as 400,000 years ago (October 17, 2011) -- Archaeologists report that large numbers of long, slender cutting tools were discovered at the Qesem Cave outside Tel Aviv. They report that every element of the system points to a sophisticated tool "production line" to rival technologies used hundreds of thousands of years later. ... > full story

Eating green veggies improves immune defenses (October 17, 2011) -- Researchers have found another good reason to eat your green vegetables, although it may or may not win any arguments with kids at the dinner table. ... > full story

New role for RNA interference during chromosomal replication discovered (October 17, 2011) -- Scientists have described a new role for RNAi during chromosomal replication. They have now shown that RNAi allows the DNA replication fork to progress smoothly without resulting in DNA damage. ... > full story

Sea levels to continue to rise for 500 years? Long-term climate calculations suggest so (October 17, 2011) -- Rising sea levels in the coming centuries is perhaps one of the most catastrophic consequences of rising temperatures. Massive economic costs, social consequences and forced migrations could result from global warming. But how frightening times are we facing? Researchers have now calculated the long-term outlook for rising sea levels in relation to the emission of greenhouse gases and pollution of the atmosphere using climate models and have some startling predictions. ... > full story

Precise gene therapy without a needle (October 17, 2011) -- For the first time, researchers have found a way to inject a precise dose of a gene therapy agent directly into a single living cell without a needle. The technique uses electricity to "shoot" bits of therapeutic biomolecules through a tiny channel and into a cell in a fraction of a second. ... > full story

Plastic fantastic: The future of biodegradables (October 17, 2011) -- Poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) is a thermoplastic polyester which occurs naturally in bacteria as Ralstonia eutropha and Bacillus megaterium. Even though PHB is biodegradable and is not dependent on fossil resources, this bioplastic has been traditionally too expensive to produce to replace petroleum-based plastics. New research describes an alternative method of producing PHB in microalgae. ... > full story

Super-sized muscle made twin-horned dinosaur a speedster (October 17, 2011) -- A meat-eating dinosaur that terrorized its plant-eating neighbors in South America was a lot deadlier than first thought, a researcher has found. Carnotaurus was a seven-meter-long predator with a huge tail muscle that paleontologists say made it one of the fastest running hunters of its time. ... > full story

Plankton's shifting role in deep sea carbon storage explored (October 17, 2011) -- The tiny phytoplankton Emiliania huxleyi, invisible to the naked eye, plays an outsized role in drawing carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it deep in the seas. But this role may change as ocean water becomes warmer and more acidic, according to a research team. ... > full story

Cichlid male nannies help out, especially if they've been sneaking (October 17, 2011) -- Subordinate male cichlid fish who help with the childcare for the dominant breeding pair are occasionally actually the fathers of some of the offspring they help to rear, according to new research. This sneaky paternity increases the subordinate fish's investment in the offspring in their care. ... > full story

Cells have early-warning system for intruders (October 17, 2011) -- When a thief breaks into a bank vault, sensors are activated and the alarm is raised. Cells have their own early-warning system for intruders, and scientists have discovered how a particular protein sounds that alarm when it detects invading viruses. The study is a key development in our understanding of the innate immune response, shedding light on how cells rapidly respond to a wide range of viruses including influenza, rabies and hepatitis. ... > full story

Mobile electrons multiplied in quantum dot films (October 17, 2011) -- Researchers have demonstrated that several mobile electrons can be produced by the absorption of a single light particle in films of coupled quantum dots. These multiple electrons can be harvested in solar cells with increased efficiency. ... > full story

Oranges and mandarins are inspected using artificial vision (October 17, 2011) -- Scientists have created a machine that detects and separates rotten oranges, another that classifies mandarin segments according to their quality and another that helps citrus fruit pickers out in the field. All prototypes use computer vision to automatically inspect the fruits. ... > full story

New technique unlocks secrets of ancient ocean (October 17, 2011) -- Earth's largest mass extinction event occurred some 252 million years ago. An estimated 90 percent of Earth's marine life was eradicated. To better understand the cause of this "mother of all mass extinctions," researchers used a new geochemical technique. The team measured uranium isotopes in ancient carbonate rocks and found that a large, rapid shift in the chemistry of the world's ancient oceans occurred around the extinction event. ... > full story

How to punish corporate wrongdoers to deter bad behavior (October 17, 2011) -- If courts were able to award appropriate punitive damages that punish wrongdoers at a level tied to a company's financial worth, then businesses big and small would be at risk of being put out of business by punitive damages unconscionable offenses and would be deterred from bad behavior in the first place, according to one expert. ... > full story

Pecan pest information: Harnessing the Internet for stakeholders in production agriculture (October 17, 2011) -- A new article examines the Pecan Pest Information Platform for Extension and education (PIPE). ... > full story

Uncharted territory: Scientists sequence the first carbohydrate biopolymer (October 15, 2011) -- For the first time ever, a team of researchers has announced the sequence of a complete complex carbohydrate biopolymer. The surprising discovery provides the scientific and medical communities with an important and fundamental new view of these vital biomolecules, which play a role in everything from cell structure and development to disease pathology and blood clotting. ... > full story

How touch and movement contribute to the development of the brain (October 15, 2011) -- Neuroscientists have uncovered in an animal model the neuronal processes that underlay the development of sensory maps in the developing brain. ... > full story

How the zebra gets its stripes: A simple genetic circuit (October 14, 2011) -- Developmental processes that create stripes and other patterns are complex and difficult to untangle. To sort it out, a team of scientists has designed a simple genetic circuit that creates a striped pattern that they can control by tweaking a single gene. This genetic loop is made two linked modules that sense how crowded a group of cells has become and responds by controlling their movements. ... > full story

Polar bears ill from accumulated environmental toxins (October 14, 2011) -- Industrial chemicals are being transported from the industrialized world to the Arctic via air and sea currents. Here, the cocktail of environmental toxins is absorbed by the sea's food chains, of which the polar bear is the top predator. ... > full story

New study finds 400,000 farmers in southern Africa using 'fertilizer trees' to improve food security (October 14, 2011) -- On a continent battered by weather extremes, famine and record food prices, new research documents an exciting new trend in which hundreds of thousands of poor farmers in Southern Africa are now significantly boosting yields and incomes simply by using fast growing trees and shrubs to naturally fertilize their fields. ... > full story

'Robot biologist' solves complex problem from scratch (October 14, 2011) -- Scientists have taken a major step toward developing robot biologists. They have shown that their system, the Automated Biology Explorer, can solve a complicated biology problem from scratch. ... > full story

Carbon nanotube muscles generate giant twist for novel motors (October 14, 2011) -- Artificial muscles, based on carbon nanotubes yarn, that twist like the trunk of an elephant, but provide a thousand times higher rotation per length, have been developed by a team of researchers. ... > full story

Preventing dangerous nonsense in human gene expression (October 14, 2011) -- Human genes are preferentially encoded by codons that are less likely to be mistranscribed (or "misread") into a STOP codon, according to a new study. ... > full story

Why many cells are better than one: Limited decision-making ability of individual cells is bolstered in masses (October 14, 2011) -- Researchers have quantified the number of possible decisions that an individual cell can make after receiving a cue from its environment, and surprisingly, it's only two. ... > full story

Tiny fossil fragment reveals giant-but-ugly truth: Part of biggest-ever toothed pterosaur from dinosaur era (October 14, 2011) -- New research has identified a small fossil fragment at the Natural History Museum, London as being part of a giant pterosaur -- setting a new upper limit for the size of winged and toothed animals. ... > full story