| Services |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
| News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Channels |
| Home & Family |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Leisure |
|
|
|
|
| Technology |
|
|
|
|
|
| Business |
|
|
|
|
| Science |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Site Search  |
|
|
|
|
| Free email |
|
|
|
|
 |
| Biology articles |
The color of evolution: how one fish became two fish
Ever since Darwin discovered that species can evolve, scientists have wondered how new species form. Answering this question is the key to understanding the diversity of all of life. A group of colorful fishes in Africa's Lake Victoria have been the focus of scientific efforts to unravel how new species form. This lake contains more than 500 species of cichlids, which play a leading role because of their rapid speciation and remarkable diversity. Still, the mechanisms involved in the rapid appearance of new cichlid species have remained elusive to scientists.
New evidence: why flowers self-fertilize?
Studies on some Himalayan ginger flowers have contributed novel empirical evidence to Darwin's self-pollination theory, according to CAS researchers from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden.
Mysterious snippets of DNA withstand eons of evolution
Small stretches of seemingly useless DNA harbor a big secret, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. There's one problem: We don't know what it is. Although individual laboratory animals appear to live happily when these genetic ciphers are deleted, these snippets have been highly conserved throughout evolution.
When a light goes on during thought processes
Thought processes made visible: An international team of scientists headed by Mazahir Hasan of the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg has succeeded in optically detecting individual action potentials in the brains of living animals.
Scientists propose the creation of a new type of seed bank, will help understanding of evolution and climate change
While an international seed bank in a Norwegian island has been gathering news about its agricultural collection, a group of U.S. scientists has just published an article outlining a different kind of seed bank, one that proposes the gathering of wild species -- at intervals in the future -- effectively capturing evolution in action.
Caltech biologists spy on the secret inner life of a cell
The transportation of antibodies from a mother to her newborn child is vital for the development of that child's nascent immune system. Those antibodies, donated by transfer across the placenta before birth or via breast milk after birth, help shape a baby's response to foreign pathogens and may influence the later occurrence of autoimmune diseases. Images from biologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have revealed for the first time the complicated process by which these antibodies are shuttled from mother's milk, through her baby's gut, and into the bloodstream, and offer new insight into the mammalian immune system.
Important new hair-loss gene discovered
Scientists at Bonn and Düsseldorf Universities have discovered an important hair-loss gene. During their study, the researchers investigated over 500,000 positions in the human genome, and found a gene variant which occurs clearly more frequently in bald men than in control persons.
Genes hold secret of survival of antarctic 'antifreeze fish'
A genetic study of a fish that lives in the icy waters off Antarctica sheds light on the adaptations that enable it to survive in one of the harshest environments on the planet.
Researchers say tides can cut life short on planets orbiting smaller stars
Planet hunters searching for planets suitable for life will likely find them first around low-mass stars because it's technically easier than finding such planets around hotter, more massive stars, researchers predict.
It takes guts to build bone, Columbia scientists discover
Bone growth is controlled in the gut through serotonin, the same naturally present chemical used by the brain to influence mood, appetite and sleep, according to a new discovery from researchers at Columbia University Medical Center. Until now, the skeleton was thought to control bone growth, and serotonin was primarily known as a neurotransmitter acting in the brain. This new insight could transform how osteoporosis is treated in the future by giving doctors a way to increase bone mass, not just slow its loss.
|
|
Keeping chromosomes from cuddling up
If chromosomes snuggle up too closely at the wrong times, the results can be genetic disaster.
Replacing corn with perennial grasses improves carbon footprint of biofuels
Converting forests or fields to biofuel crops can increase or decrease greenhouse gas emissions, depending on where - and which - biofuel crops are used, University of Illinois researchers report this month.
UBC researcher reveals humpback whales dining habits and costs
A University of British Columbia researcher is revealing how one of the largest animals on earth feasts on the smallest of prey - and at what cost.
Whispering bats are 100 times louder than previously thought
Annemarie Surlykke from the University of Southern Denmark is fascinated by echolocation. She really wants to know how it works. Surlykke equates the ultrasound cries that bats use for echolocation with the beam of light from a torch: you won't see much with the light from a small bulb but you could see several hundred metres with a powerful beam. Surlykke explains that it's the same with echolocating bats. Some have big powerful calls for perception over a long range, while others are said to whisper; which puzzled Surlykke. How could 'whispering' bats echolocate with puny 70decibel cries that barely carry at all?
Cost of hatchling turtles' dash for freedom
A newly hatched sea turtle's first swim is the most critical of its life. Having run the gauntlet of air and land predators to make it to the sea, the tiny voyager must also evade hungry fish patrolling the beaches in its bid for freedom. For youngsters hatching on the Great Barrier Reef's coral cays the risks are high: as many as 30% perish as they head for safe deep waters. But how much does this headlong dash through the waves cost the intrepid hatchlings? Curious to know, David Booth from the University of Queensland decided to measure hatchling turtles' oxygen consumption rates as they swam for safety.
Orangutans spontaneous whistling opens new chapter in study of evolution of speech
Throughout history, human beings have used the whistle for everything from hailing a cab to carrying a tune. Now, an orangutan's spontaneous whistling is providing scientists at Great Ape Trust of Iowa new insights into the evolution of speech and learning.
Key to regulation of puberty discovered
A team of scientists from the University of Cambridge and the University of Cukurova in Turkey have taken a major step to understanding how the brain controls the onset of puberty.
Earth's original ancestor was Luca, not Adam nor Eve
Here's another argument against intelligent design. An evolutionary geneticist from the Université de Montréal, together with researchers from the French cities of Lyon and Montpellier, have published a ground-breaking study that characterizes the common ancestor of all life on earth, LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor). Their findings, presented in a recent issue of Nature, show that the 3.8-billion-year-old organism was not the creature usually imagined.
Why locusts abandon a solitary life for the swarm
By applying an old theory that has been used to explain water flow through soil and the spread of forest fires, researchers may have an answer to a perplexing ecological and evolutionary problem: why locusts switch from an innocuous, solitary lifestyle to form massive swarms that can devastate crops and strip fields bare.
Gibbon feet provide model for early human walking
Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that early humans could have walked successfully on a `flexible' flat foot, similar to modern day gibbons.
|
|
|
| Quotes | Ive always wanted to be a scientist. That way, I could get a bunch of grants and do research into whether money can really buy happiness.
Kyannke.
Ive always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin |
| Writers | | If you are a writer and want to see your article published at Theallineed.com, just click here to submit. |
|
