ScienceDaily Environment Headlines -- for Tuesday, July 5, 2011

ScienceDaily Environment Headlines

for Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Welcome to another edition of ScienceDaily's email newsletter. You can change your subscription options or unsubscribe at any time.

Biofuels from the sea: Seaweed may prove a viable future biofuel, especially if harvested in summer (July 4, 2011) -- The use of kelp as a biofuel could provide an important alternative to terrestrial grown biofuels; however the suitability of its chemical composition varies on a seasonal basis. Harvesting the kelp in July when carbohydrate levels are at their highest would ensure optimal sugar release for biofuel production. ... > full story

Design and print your own 3-D chocolate objects (July 4, 2011) -- Manufacturing and retail could get a much needed boost from a newly developed 3-D chocolate printer. In the long term the technology could be used by customers to design many different products themselves -- tailor-made to their needs and preferences. Using new digital technology the printer allows you to create your own designs on a computer and reproduce them physically in three dimensional form in chocolate. ... > full story

Tree frogs' self-cleaning feet could solve a sticky problem (July 4, 2011) -- Tree frogs have specially adapted self-cleaning feet which could have implications for new designs of medical bandages, tires, and even long lasting adhesives. Researchers have now discovered how tree frogs prevent their feet from picking up dirt while maintaining stickiness. ... > full story

'Megapixel' DNA replication technology promises faster, more precise diagnostics (July 4, 2011) -- Researchers have developed a DNA measurement platform that sets dramatic new performance standards in the sensitivity and accuracy of sample screening. ... > full story

Researchers map the physics of Tibetan singing bowls (July 4, 2011) -- Researchers have been investigating the connection between fifth century Himalayan instruments used in religious ceremonies and modern physics. ... > full story

Pre-pregnancy diet affects the health of future offspring, mouse study suggests (July 4, 2011) -- Poor maternal diet before conception can result in offspring with reduced birth weights and increased risk of developing type II diabetes and obesity. In a new study, mice that were fed a low protein diet before conception (but had a normal diet during pregnancy) gave birth to offspring that had lower birth weights and increased insulin sensitivity. ... > full story

Protein structure of key molecule in DNA transcription system deciphered (July 4, 2011) -- Scientists have deciphered the structure of an essential part of Mediator, a complex molecular machine that plays a vital role in regulating the transcription of DNA. ... > full story

Warming ocean layers will undermine polar ice sheets, climate models show (July 4, 2011) -- Warming of the ocean's subsurface layers will melt underwater portions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets faster than previously thought, according to new research. The research, based on 19 state-of-the-art climate models, proposes a new mechanism by which global warming will accelerate the melting of the great ice sheets during this century and the next. Such melting would increase the sea level more than already projected. ... > full story

First cookiecutter shark attack on a live human (July 4, 2011) -- A new study provides details on the first cookiecutter shark attack on a live human, a concern as warm summer waters attract more people to the ocean. ... > full story

Zinc and the zebrafish: Fluorescent fish could hold key to understanding diabetes and other diseases (July 4, 2011) -- Scientists have discovered a new way of detecting zinc in zebra fish, that could pave the way for furthering our understanding of diseases like Type 2 diabetes, prostate cancer and Alzheimer's. ... > full story

Sport performance follows a physiological law; Study suggests peak at 20-30 years of age, then irreversible decline (July 4, 2011) -- Researchers in France have published research describing the evolution of performances in elite athletes and chess grandmasters. Their findings suggest that changes in individual performance are linked to physiological laws structuring the living world. ... > full story

The smell of danger: Rats instinctively avoid compound in carnivore urine (July 3, 2011) -- Researchers have discovered a single compound found in high concentrations in the urine of carnivores that triggers an instinctual avoidance response in mice and rats. This is the first time that scientists have identified a chemical tag that would let rodents sense carnivores in general from a safe distance. ... > full story

Red wine: Exercise in a bottle? (July 3, 2011) -- As strange as it sounds, a new research study suggests that the "healthy" ingredient in red wine, resveratrol, prevents the negative effects that spaceflight and sedentary lifestyles have on people. The report describes experiments in rats that simulated the weightlessness of spaceflight, during which the group fed resveratrol did not develop insulin resistance or a loss of bone mineral density, as did those who were not fed resveratrol. ... > full story

Droplets for detecting tumoral DNA (July 3, 2011) -- New research suggests it may be possible, in the near future, to detect cancer by a simple blood or urine test. Biologists from France have developed a technique capable of detecting minute traces of tumoral DNA present in the biological fluids of patients suffering from cancer. ... > full story

Tongue makes the difference in how fish and mammals chew (July 3, 2011) -- New research shows that fish and mammals chew differently. Fish use tongue muscles to thrust food backward, while mammals use tongue muscles to position food for grinding. The evolutionary divergence is believed to have occurred with amphibians, though further research is needed to identify which species and when. ... > full story

Changes in specific dietary factors may have big impact on long-term weight gain (July 3, 2011) -- Researchers have found that modest changes in specific foods and beverages, physical activity, TV-watching, and sleep duration were strongly linked with long-term weight gain. ... > full story

Toward a more efficient use of solar energy (July 3, 2011) -- The exploitation and utilization of new energy sources are considered to be among today's major challenges. Solar energy plays a central role, and its direct conversion into chemical energy, for example hydrogen generation by water splitting, is one of its interesting variants. Titanium oxide-based photocatalysis is the presently most efficient, yet little understood conversion process. ... > full story

Nuclear waste requires cradle-to-grave strategy, study finds (July 3, 2011) -- After Fukushima, it is now imperative to redefine what makes a successful nuclear power program -- from cradle to grave. If nuclear waste management is not thought out from the beginning, the public in many countries will reject nuclear power as an energy choice, according to new research. ... > full story

Web weaving skills provide clues to aging, spider study reveals (July 2, 2011) -- Young house spiders weave webs with perfect angles and regular patterns, but as they reach old age their webs deteriorate, showing gaping holes and erratic weaving. By using spiders as a simple model, new research may provide insight into how age affects behavior in other organisms, including humans. ... > full story

Hawaii is not an evolutionary dead end for marine life, snail study finds (July 2, 2011) -- The question of why there are so many species in the sea and how new species form remains a central question in marine biology. Below the waterline, about 30% of Hawaii's marine species are endemic – being found only in Hawaii and nowhere else on Earth – one of the highest rates of endemism found worldwide. But where did this diversity of species come from? In a new study of limpets, cone-shaped marine snails, researchers have demonstrated that Hawaii is not an evolutionary dead end for marine species. ... > full story

New theory on origin of birds: Enlarged skeletal muscles (July 2, 2011) -- A new theory of the origin of birds, traditionally believed to be driven by the evolution of flight, is now being credited to the emergence of enlarged skeletal muscles in birds. Their upright two-leggedness, he says, led to the opportunity for other adaptive changes like flying or swimming. ... > full story

Flapping micro air vehicles inspired by swifts (July 2, 2011) -- A new design of micro air vehicle (MAV) will be able to flap, glide and hover. Researchers have been inspired by birds to design a MAV that combines flapping wings, which will allow it to fly at slow speeds and hover, with the ability to glide, ensuring good quality images from any on-board camera. ... > full story

'Goat plague' threat to global food security and economy must be tackled, experts warn (July 2, 2011) -- "Goat plague," or peste des petits ruminants, is threatening global food security and poverty alleviation in the developing world, say leading veterinarians and animal health experts. ... > full story

Foods with baked milk may help build tolerance in children with dairy allergies, study suggests (July 1, 2011) -- Introducing increasing amounts of foods that contain baked milk into the diets of children who have milk allergies helped a majority of them outgrow their allergies, according to a new study. ... > full story

Auto-pilots need a birds-eye view: Pigeons can inform navigation technology design (July 1, 2011) -- New research on how birds can fly so quickly and accurately through dense forests may lead to new developments in robotics and auto-pilots. Scientists trained pigeons to fly through an artificial forest with a tiny camera attached to their heads, literally giving a birds-eye view. ... > full story

NASA's Aura Satellite measures pollution from New Mexico, Arizona fires (July 1, 2011) -- NASA's Aura Satellite has provided a view of nitrogen dioxide levels coming from the fires in New Mexico and Arizona. Detecting nitrogen dioxide is important because it reacts with sunlight to create low-level ozone or smog and poor air quality. ... > full story

Loudest animal is recorded for the first time (July 1, 2011) -- The loudest animal on Earth, relative to its body size, is a tiny water boatman, scientists have shown. The sound is within human hearing range and at 99.2 decibels it represents the equivalent of listening to an orchestra play loudly while sitting in the front row. ... > full story

Variation in susceptibility to a virus is the key to understanding infection biology (July 1, 2011) -- A new study shows that differences in the vulnerability of animals to a virus are crucial to understanding patterns of infection, and that variation in susceptibility to two marginally different viruses increases the number of infections when the two virus variants are present in the same animal. ... > full story

At the feet of the pharaohs: Capturing the majesty of Luxor in 3-D (July 1, 2011) -- For a while, it seemed the revolution in Egypt would end his mission before it had even begun. Thomas A. DeFanti, an expert in data visualization, had been planning for months to capture spectacular 3-D surround images of Egypt's temples at Luxor on his way to Saudi Arabia early in April. It would be a proof-of-concept expedition to see if the 3-D CAVEcam -- two Lumix GF1 cameras carefully calibrated to take simultaneous right and left images -- would be functional in the super bright, hot and dusty conditions of the Nile River Valley. But for DeFanti, an avid traveler and lover of photography, it would also be a way to bring the splendors of one of the primary world heritage sites back to his state-of-the-art visualization facility in California. ... > full story

Preventing diabetes damage: Zinc's effects on a kinky, two-faced cohort (July 1, 2011) -- In type 2 diabetes, a protein called amylin forms dense clumps that shut down insulin-producing cells, wreaking havoc on the control of blood sugar. But zinc has a knack for preventing amylin from misbehaving. ... > full story

Scientists use 'optogenetics' to control reward-seeking behavior (July 1, 2011) -- The findings suggest that therapeutics targeting the path between two critical brain regions, the amygdala and the nucleus accumbens, represent potential treatments for addiction and other neuropsychiatric diseases. ... > full story

La Niña's exit leaves climate forecasts in limbo (July 1, 2011) -- It's what Bill Patzert, a climatologist and oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, likes to call a "La Nada" -- that puzzling period between cycles of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean when sea surface heights in the equatorial Pacific are near average. ... > full story

Social networking -- 400 years ago (July 1, 2011) -- Renaissance specialists in the UK have discovered that the art of social networking pre-dates the Twitter and Facebook generations by more than 400 years. ... > full story

New approach to link genome-wide association signals to biological function (July 1, 2011) -- Researchers have identified a new strategy to improve the outcome of genome-wide association (GWA) studies. This will lead to a better understanding of the function of affected genes and the biological pathways involved, potentially translating these findings into clinical benefits. It is estimated that this approach, which finds the open chromatin regions in human cells, could be used in one in four GWA studies. ... > full story

Plastic found in nine percent of 'garbage patch' fishes: Tens of thousands of tons of debris annually ingested (July 1, 2011) -- The first scientific results from an ambitious voyage led by a group of graduate students from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego offer a stark view of human pollution and its infiltration of an area of the ocean that has been labeled as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch." ... > full story

Scientists hope to get glimpse of adolescent universe from revolutionary instrument-on-a-chip (July 1, 2011) -- Thanks to technological advances,scientists hope to provide a picture of how the cosmos developed into the kind of place that could support life like that found on Earth. ... > full story

Transmission lines for nanofocusing of infrared light (July 1, 2011) -- Researchers in Spain report an innovative method to focus infrared light with tapered transmission lines to nanometer-size dimensions. This device could trigger the development of novel chemical and biological sensing tools, including ultra-small infrared spectrometers and lab-on-a-chip integrated biosensors. ... > full story

Takeoffs and landings cause more precipitation near airports, researchers find (July 1, 2011) -- Researchers have found that areas near commercial airports sometimes experience a small but measurable increase in rain and snow when aircraft take off and land under certain atmospheric conditions. The new study is part of ongoing research that focuses on so-called hole punch and canal clouds that form when planes fly through certain mid-level clouds, forcing nearby air to rapidly expand and cool. ... > full story

Time to make more out of waste (July 1, 2011) -- Dumping all our household waste on landfill is bad for the environment. Engineers are working to find the best way to ensure more of our organic rubbish is turned into biogas and compost. ... > full story

Big hole filled in cloud research (July 1, 2011) -- Under certain conditions, private and commercial propeller planes and jet aircraft may induce odd-shaped holes or canals into clouds as they fly through them. These holes and canals have long fascinated the public and now new research shows they may affect precipitation in and around airports with frequent cloud cover in the wintertime. ... > full story

Scientists study earthquake triggers in Pacific Ocean (June 30, 2011) -- New samples of rock and sediment from the depths of the eastern Pacific Ocean may help explain the cause of large, destructive earthquakes similar to the Tohoku Earthquake that struck Japan in mid-March. Nearly 1,500 meters (almost one mile) of core collected from the ocean floor near the coast of Costa Rica reveal detailed records of approximately two million years of tectonic activity along a seismic plate boundary. ... > full story

Moving microscopic vision into another new dimension (June 30, 2011) -- Scientists who pioneered a revolutionary 3-D microscope technique are now describing an extension of that technology into a new dimension that promises sweeping applications in medicine, biological research, and development of new electronic devices. ... > full story

Tranquillity formula could increase health benefits of visiting urban and country parks (June 30, 2011) -- Researchers have developed a toolkit for measuring tranquillity that could enable neglected or overlooked urban parks to flourish and become a haven for stressed city workers. ... > full story

X-rays reveal patterns in the plumage of the first birds (June 30, 2011) -- Researchers report in Science Express that they have taken a big step in determining what the first birds looked like more than 100 million years ago, when their relatives, the dinosaurs, still ruled the Earth. At the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, they discovered chemical traces of a pigment, an important component of color, that once formed patterns in the feathers of the fossilized birds. ... > full story

Evolutionary kings of the hill use good, bad and ugly mutations to speed ahead of competition (June 30, 2011) -- Evolutionary adaptation is often compared to climbing a hill, and organisms making the right combination of multiple mutations -- both good and bad -- can become the king of the mountain, according to new research. Through computer simulations, researchers were able to watch evolution play out and see how populations use these combinations to evolve from one adaptive state to another. ... > full story

New fossils demonstrate that powerful eyes evolved in a twinkling (June 30, 2011) -- Palaeontologists have uncovered half-a-billion-year-old fossils demonstrating that primitive animals had excellent vision. Scientists found exquisite fossils, which look like squashed eyes from a recently swatted fly. ... > full story

Genetic alterations in pig tissue may allow for human transplantation (June 30, 2011) -- A sizzling genetic discovery may one day allow pig tissue to be transplanted successfully into humans. Scientists have taken a step forward toward filling the shortage of vital organs for human transplantation. Research has shown that altering or overexpressing human programmed death ligand-1 molecule in endothelial cells of pig arteries reduces conditions that cause rejection. This suggests humans could receive altered porcine organs with fewer complications. ... > full story

MicroRNAs in the songbird brain respond to new songs (June 30, 2011) -- Whenever it hears an unfamiliar song from a male of the same species, a zebra finch stops chirping, hopping and grooming. Once it becomes familiar with the song, it goes back to its busy routine. Researchers have now found that levels of microRNAs -- short lengths of ribonucleic acid -- go up or down in the songbird brain after it hears a new song. These microRNAs likely represent a new class of regulatory agents that fine-tune the brain's response to social information. ... > full story