ScienceDaily Environment Headlines -- for Monday, July 18, 2011

ScienceDaily Environment Headlines

for Monday, July 18, 2011

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Early talking doll recording discovered (July 17, 2011) -- Scientists recently recovered sound from an artifact that historians believe is the earliest surviving talking doll record. The artifact is a ring-shaped cylinder phonograph record made of solid metal, preserved by the National Park Service at Thomas Edison National Historical Park. Phonograph inventor Thomas Edison made the record during the fall or winter of 1888 in West Orange, New Jersey. ... > full story

Lymphoma drug shrinks dog tumors, could lead to human treatment (July 17, 2011) -- There are many kinds of cancers of the immune system, but one, activated B-cell diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, is particularly common and pernicious. Researchers have now shown that dogs that develop this disease spontaneously share the same aberrant activation of a critical intracellular pathway with humans. They also found that a drug designed to disrupt this pathway helps kill tumor cells in the dogs' lymph nodes. ... > full story

Fossil forensics reveals how wasps populated rotting dinosaur eggs (July 16, 2011) -- Exceptionally preserved fossils of insect cocoons have allowed researchers in Argentina to describe how wasps played an important role in food webs devoted to consuming rotting dinosaur eggs. ... > full story

NASA's Aura satellite measures pollution 'Butterfly' from fires in Central Africa (July 16, 2011) -- Fires raging in central Africa are generating a high amount of pollution that is showing up in data from NASA's Aura Satellite, with the ominous shape of a dark red butterfly in the skies over southern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and northern Angola. ... > full story

High social rank comes at a price, wild baboon study finds (July 15, 2011) -- Being at the very top of a social hierarchy may be more costly than previously thought, according to a new study of wild baboons. The findings have implications in the study of social hierarchies and of the impact of social dominance on health and well-being, a subject of interest among researchers who study human and other animal populations. ... > full story

The genome guardian's dimmer switch: Regulating p53 is a matter of life or death (July 15, 2011) -- Scientists have found clues to the functioning of an important damage response protein in cells. The protein, p53, can cause cells to stop dividing or even to commit suicide when they show signs of DNA damage, and it is responsible for much of the tissue destruction that follows exposure to ionizing radiation or DNA-damaging drugs such as the ones commonly used for cancer therapy. ... > full story

Strong El Niño could bring increased sea levels, storm surges to US East Coast (July 15, 2011) -- Coastal communities along the US East Coast may be at risk to higher sea levels accompanied by more destructive storm surges in future El Niño years, according to a new study. The study was prompted by an unusual number of destructive storm surges along the East Coast during the 2009-2010 El Niño winter. ... > full story

Dramatic climate swings likely as world warms: Ancient El Niño clue to future floods (July 15, 2011) -- Dramatic climate swings behind both last year's Pakistan flooding and this year's Queensland floods in Australia are likely to continue as the world gets warmer, scientists predict. Researchers have discovered that the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the sloshing of the warmest waters on the planet from the West Pacific towards the East Pacific every 2-7 years, continued during Earth's last great warm period, the Pliocene. Their results suggest that swings between the two climatic extremes, known as El Niño and La Niña, may even have occurred more frequently in the warmer past and may increase in frequency in the future. ... > full story

Novel compound selectively kills cancer cells by blocking their response to oxidative stress (July 15, 2011) -- Scientists have discovered a novel compound that selectively kills cancer cells by blocking their response to oxidative stress, with an effectiveness that surpassed a chemotherapy drug currently used to treat breast cancer. Their findings are based on experiments in cell culture and in mice. ... > full story

Virtual natural environments and benefits to health (July 15, 2011) -- Researchers have compared the benefits of interaction with actual and virtual natural environments and concluded that the development of accurate simulations are likely to be beneficial to those who cannot interact with nature because of infirmity or other limitations: but virtual worlds are not a substitute for the real thing. ... > full story

Separated for 20 million years: Blind beetle from Bulgarian caves clarifies questions (July 15, 2011) -- One of the smallest ever cave-dwelling ground beetles has recently been discovered in two caves in the Rhodopi Mountains, Bulgaria, and described under the name Paralovricia beroni. The beetle is completely blind and is only 1.8-2.2 mm long. ... > full story

Swarms of locusts use social networking to communicate (July 15, 2011) -- Social studies of Facebook and Twitter have been adapted to gain a greater understanding of the swarming behavior of locusts. The enormous success of social networking sites has vividly illustrated the importance of networking for humans; however for some animals, keeping informed about others of their kind is even more important. ... > full story

Link found between increased crops and deforestation in Amazon, but issue not so cut and dry (July 15, 2011) -- Geographers are out to prove what environmental scientists have suspected for years: Increasing the production of soybean and biofuel crops in Brazil increases deforestation in the Amazon. Although this cause-and-effect finding seems fairly straightforward, the issue of deforestation in the Amazon is more complex and more devastating than previously believed. ... > full story

First adenovirus to jump between monkeys and humans confirmed (July 15, 2011) -- A novel virus that spread through a California monkey colony in late 2009 also infected a human researcher and a family member, researchers have found -- the first known example of an adenovirus "jumping" from one species to another and remaining contagious after the jump. ... > full story

Protein switch controls how stem cells turn into new heart tissue (July 15, 2011) -- Researchers have identified a protein that can direct stem cells to become either new heart muscle or blood vessels. The research, which was carried out in zebrafish, offers insight into how it might be possible one day to generate tissues to repair the human heart after damage inflicted by a heart attack. ... > full story

Wood products part of winning carbon-emissions equation, researchers say (July 15, 2011) -- The amount of carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere by forests could be quadrupled in 100 years by harvesting regularly and using the wood in place of steel and concrete that devour fossil fuels during manufacturing, producing carbon dioxide, researchers say in a new study. ... > full story

Editing the genome: Scientists unveil new tools for rewriting the code of life (July 15, 2011) -- Researchers have unveiled genome-engineering technologies capable of fundamentally re-engineering genomes from the nucleotide to the megabase scale. Treating the chromosome as both an editable and an evolvable template, the researchers have demonstrated methods to rewrite a cell's genome through powerful new tools for biotechnology, energy and agriculture. ... > full story

Fast-shrinking Greenland glacier experienced rapid growth during cooler times (July 15, 2011) -- Large, marine-calving glaciers have the ability not only to shrink rapidly in response to global warming, but to grow at a remarkable pace during periods of global cooling, according to geologists working in Greenland. ... > full story

Brainy lizards pass test for birds (July 15, 2011) -- Tropical lizards may be slow. But they aren't dumb. They can do problem-solving tasks just as well as birds and mammals, a new study shows. A new experiment tested Puerto Rican anoles on several cognitive tasks and found they can learn and remember to solve a problem they've never faced before. ... > full story

'Dry rot' genome offers lessons for biofuel pretreatment processes: Breaking down cellulose without blasting lignin (July 15, 2011) -- Dry rot due to the fungus Serpula lacrymans causes millions of dollars worth of damage to homes and buildings around the world. Now a comparative analysis involving Serpula lacrymans, the second brown rot fungus to have its genome sequenced, sheds light on the mechanism by which Serpula breaks down cellulose and the role of brown rot fungi in the global carbon cycle. ... > full story

Enzymes for cell wall synthesis conserved across species barriers (July 14, 2011) -- Plants have neither supportive bone tissue nor muscles, and yet they can form rigid structures like stalks and even tree trunks. This is due to the fact that plant cells are enveloped by a stable cell wall. The main component of the plant cell wall is cellulose, which represents almost 50 percent of the total cell wall material and, at one billion tons per year, is the most frequently produced macromolecule in nature. Very little is known about the way in which cellulose is produced, and the knowledge that is available has mainly been obtained from the model plant thale cress which, although easy to study, is of no economic significance. Researchers have now succeeded in showing that knowledge obtained in thale cress can be applied to other plant species. ... > full story

Loss of large predators has caused widespread disruption of ecosystems (July 14, 2011) -- The decline of large predators and other "apex consumers" at the top of the food chain has disrupted ecosystems all over the planet, according to a review of recent findings conducted by an international team of scientists. The study looked at a wide range of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems and concluded that "the loss of apex consumers is arguably humankind's most pervasive influence on the natural world." ... > full story

Cancer gene therapy from camels (July 14, 2011) -- Nanobodies produced from camel blood have unique properties, which can be used in future drug development. New research confirms that camel blood can help scientists in the fight against cancer. ... > full story

Life in 'inner space': Joint mission to film marine life three kilometers down (July 14, 2011) -- Undiscovered ‘alien’ life forms that thrive without sunlight in temperatures approaching boiling point may soon come to light, thanks to a groundbreaking Irish-led marine research mission aboard the national research vessel RV Celtic Explorer. In collaboration with scientists from the UK’s National Oceanography Centre, the researchers are due to sail from Galway for the mid-Atlantic Ridge July 13. The voyage is being filmed for the National Geographic Channel for inclusion in an upcoming series about the ocean. ... > full story

Print your own teeth: Rapid prototyping comes to dentistry (July 14, 2011) -- What if, instead of waiting days or weeks for a cast to be produced and prosthetic dental implants, false teeth and replacement crowns to be made, your dentist could quickly scan your jaw and "print" your new teeth using a rapid prototyping machine known as a 3-D printer? ... > full story

Brain network connections revealed (July 14, 2011) -- New research has revealed that the brain is characterized by a highly consistent, weighted network among the functional areas of the cortex, which are responsible for such functions as vision, hearing, touch, movement control and complex associations. The study in primates has revealed that such cortical networks and their properties are reproducible from individual to individual. ... > full story

Tsunami airglow signature could lead to early detection system (July 14, 2011) -- Researchers have recorded an airglow signature in the upper atmosphere produced by a tsunami using a camera system based in Maui, Hawaii. Coupling of the ocean surface to the upper atmosphere enables tsunami imaging. The first ionospheric signature precedes the modeled ocean tsunami by one hour. ... > full story

New way to store sun's heat: Modified carbon nanotubes can store solar energy indefinitely, then be recharged by exposure to the sun (July 14, 2011) -- A novel application of carbon nanotubes shows promise as an innovative approach to storing solar energy for use whenever it's needed. Storing the sun's heat in chemical form -- rather than converting it to electricity or storing the heat itself in a heavily insulated container -- has significant advantages, since in principle the chemical material can be stored for long periods of time without losing any of its stored energy. The problem with that approach has been that until now the chemicals needed to perform this conversion and storage either degraded within a few cycles, or included the element ruthenium, which is rare and expensive. ... > full story

Unsolved mystery of kava toxicity (July 14, 2011) -- A major new review of scientific knowledge on kava -- a plant used to make dietary supplements and a trendy drink with calming effects -- has left unsolved the mystery of why Pacific Island people can consume it safely, while people in the United States, Europe and other Western cultures sometimes experience toxic effects. ... > full story

Genetically modified Atlantic salmon mating study reveals danger of escape to wild gene pool (July 14, 2011) -- If genetically modified Atlantic salmon were to escape from captivity they could succeed in breeding and passing their genes into the wild, researchers have found. Their research explores the potential reproductive implications of GM salmon as they are considered for commercial farming. ... > full story

Soil microbes accelerate global warming (July 14, 2011) -- More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes soil to release the potent greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide, new research shows. ... > full story

Spread of fungus-farming beetles is bad news for trees (July 14, 2011) -- Researchers have found that a subset of fungus-farming ambrosia beetles may be in the early stages of a global epidemic threatening a number of economically important trees, including avocados, poplars and oaks. ... > full story

Breathing restored after spinal cord injury in rodent model (July 14, 2011) -- Researchers bridged a spinal cord injury and biologically regenerated lost nerve connections to the diaphragm, restoring breathing in an adult rodent model of spinal cord injury. The work restored 80 to more than 100 percent of breathing function. ... > full story

Colorful boundary trespassers: Burrowing parrots crossed the Andes 120,000 years ago (July 14, 2011) -- The different populations of the South American burrowing parrot originated in Chile. The Andes of southern South America form a hostile mountain range with glaciers, salty deserts and high elevation steppes. Birds from more moderate climate zones cross this mountain range only rarely. Nevertheless, many species live on both sides of the Andes, as in the case of the burrowing parrot Cyanoliseus patagonus. ... > full story

Loss of large predators disrupting multiple plant, animal and human ecosystems (July 14, 2011) -- The enormous decline of large, apex predators and "consumers" ranging from wolves to lions, sharks and sea otters may represent the most powerful impacts humans have ever had on Earth's ecosystems, a group of 24 researchers say. The decline of such species around the world is much greater than previously understood and now affects many other ecological processes through what scientists call "trophic cascades," in which the loss of "top down" predation severely disrupts many other plant and animal species. ... > full story

Loss of top animal predators has massive ecological effects (July 14, 2011) -- A new study concludes that the decline of large predators and herbivores in all regions of the world is causing substantial changes to Earth's terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. The paper claims that the loss of apex consumers from ecosystems "may be humankind's most pervasive influence on nature." ... > full story

Latin American blueberries found to be 'extreme superfruits' (July 14, 2011) -- With antioxidant levels two to four times higher than the blueberries available in the US, two species native to Central and South America may challenge one of summer's favorite treats as a source of these disease-fighting substances. ... > full story

New clues to the structural dynamics of BK channels (July 14, 2011) -- BK channels (large-conductance, Ca2+-dependent K+ channels) are essential for the regulation of important biological processes such as smooth muscle tone and neuronal excitability. New research shows that BK channel activation involves structural rearrangements formerly not understood. ... > full story

Dust storms: New way to undercut dust emissions (July 14, 2011) -- There is literally a way to undercut dust emissions in the very driest parts of the Pacific Northwest's Columbia Plateau region, according to an agricultural scientist. ... > full story

Snow leopard population discovered in Afghanistan (July 13, 2011) -- Biologists have discovered a surprisingly healthy population of rare snow leopards living in the mountainous reaches of northeastern Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor, according to a new study. ... > full story

Insight into new drug resistance in hospital microbes (July 13, 2011) -- Hospitals struggle to prevent the infections that complicate treatment for cancer, joint replacement, heart surgery and other conditions. Hospital-acquired infections are often resistant to multiple antibiotics, leading to approximately 100,000 deaths and more than billion in additional health care costs yearly. New drugs are being developed to combat these infections, but resistance invariably emerges to these last-line drugs. Daptomycin, a new antibiotic approved by the FDA in 2003, is used to treat infections caused by multi-drug resistant bacteria, including staph and microbes known as enterococci. ... > full story

Twin ARTEMIS probes to study moon in 3-D (July 13, 2011) -- Almost 2 years ago, two of five THEMIS satellites were boosted from their orbits around Earth toward the moon. The first transitioned into a lunar orbit on June 27, while the second is destined to arrive on Sunday, July 17, to begin mapping the moon's surface magnetic fields and magnetic environment in 3-D. The probes, renamed the ARTEMIS mission, will also look for evidence of plasmoids produced by magnetic reconnection in Earth's magnetotail. ... > full story

Atomic structure discovered for a sodium channel that generates electrical signals in living cells (July 13, 2011) -- Scientists have determined the atomic structure of a sodium channel, a pore in membranes of excitable cells, such as brain or heart cells, that emit electrical signals. They gate charged particles crossing the cell membrane to generate electrical currents. These encode information in the brain and make heart muscle contract. Many medications and neurotoxins act on sodium channels. Never before have researchers obtained a high resolution crystal structure of all atoms of this complex protein molecule and their three dimensional relationships. ... > full story

Climate adaptation of rice (July 13, 2011) -- Rice -- which provides nearly half the daily calories for the world's population -- could become adapted to climate change and some catastrophic events by colonizing its seeds or plants with the spores of tiny naturally occurring fungi, new research shows. ... > full story

Molasses extract decreases obesity caused by a high-fat diet, research suggests (July 13, 2011) -- Experimental results suggests that dietary supplementation with molasses extract may provide a novel approach for weight management in humans. ... > full story

African and non-African populations intermixed well after migration out of Africa 60,000 years ago, genome studies show (July 13, 2011) -- Researchers have probed deeper into human evolution by developing an elegant new technique to analyze whole genomes from different populations. One key finding is that African and non-African populations continued to exchange genetic material well after migration out of Africa 60,000 years ago. This infers that interbreeding between these groups continued long after the original exodus. ... > full story

New understandings of circadian rhythms (July 13, 2011) -- A tiny plant called Arabidopsis thaliana just helped scientists unearth new clues about the daily cycles of many organisms, including humans. ... > full story

Popular fungicides failing, may cause hard choices for apple growers (July 13, 2011) -- Orchard growers have started finding that some of the most commonly used fungicides are no longer effective at controlling apple scab, according to a new study. ... > full story