March 17, 2008, 10:22 PM CT

Hissing Cockroaches Are Popular

Their gentle nature, large size, odd sounds and low-maintenance care have made Madagascar hissing cockroaches popular educational tools and pets for years. But the giant insects also have one unfortunate characteristic: Their hard bodies and feces are home to a number of mold species that could be triggering allergies in the kids and adults who handle the bugs, as per a new study.

Scientists have identified 14 different types of mold on and around this species of cockroach, including several molds linked to allergies and others that can cause secondary infections if they enter the lungs or an open wound.

"This is mainly a point of public awareness," said Joshua Benoit, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate in entomology at Ohio State University. "We are not criticizing their use. We are just saying that if you handle these cockroaches, you should wash your hands when you're done.

"It's also best to maintain the cage. It's not a pet you can ignore," he said. "Without regular cleaning, feces will build up, and the old exoskeletons they shed will build up. And that's where a lot of the problems happen".

The research is reported in the recent issue of the journal Mycoses.

The natural life of the Madagascar hissing cockroach, or Gromphadorhina portentosa, is not well understood. But in captivity, the insects thrive on dog food and fruit, reproduce plentifully and do not bite. They grow to between 2 and 3 inches long and 1 inch wide, and will make their characteristic hissing sound if they are squeezed or otherwise feel threatened......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

March 17, 2008, 10:19 PM CT

Asia's odd-ball antelope faces migration crisis

Take a deers body, attach a camels head and add a Jimmy Durante nose, and you have a saiga the odd-ball antelope with the enormous schnoz that lives on the isolated steppes of Central Asia. Unfortunately, they are as endangered as they are strange-looking due to over-hunting. Now, as per a recent Wildlife Conservation Society study, their migration routes are in jeopardy as well.

The study, which appears in the latest issue of The Open Conservation Biology Journal, tracked saiga with GPS collars in Mongolia and discovered a migration bottleneck a narrow corridor of habitat that connects two populations. The authors say that the corridor, which spans just three miles wide, is threatened by herders with livestock, along with increased traffic from trucks and motorcycles.

Like other species of the steppes and deserts, saiga have avoided extinction by being able to migrate long distances as their habitat changed over time, said Dr. Joel Berger, a Wildlife Conservation Society conservationist, and professor at the University of Montana. Given the uncertainty of how global climate change might affect specific regions, and how and where species might persist, prudent conservation strategies must take into account the movements of highly mobile species like saiga......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

March 17, 2008, 10:15 PM CT

Like sweets?

As per scientists at the Monell Center, fruit flies are more like humans in their responses to a number of sweet tastes than are almost any other species.

The diverse range of molecules that humans experience as sweet do not necessarily taste sweet to other species. For example, aspartame, a sweetener used by humans, does not taste sweet to rats and mice.

However, fruit flies respond positively to most sweeteners preferred by humans, including sweeteners not perceived as sweet by some species of monkeys.

The findings, reported in the current issue of the journal Chemical Senses, demonstrate the critical role of environment in shaping the genetic basis of taste preferences and feeding behavior.

Humans and flies have similar taste responses because they share similar environments and ecological niches, not because their sweet receptors are similar genetically, notes senior author Paul A.S. Breslin, PhD, a Monell sensory geneticist. Both are African species, both are omnivorous, and both historically are primarily fruit eaters.

To compare how molecular structure is correlation to sweet taste perception in humans and flies, the Monell scientists reviewed how fruit flies respond to 21 nutritive and nonnutritive compounds of varying molecular structure, all of which taste sweet to humans......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

March 17, 2008, 10:10 PM CT

Zebrafish enables cell regeneration studies

One aquarium fish's uncanny ability to regenerate essentially any cell type has given researchers a way to mimic cell loss that occurs in diseases such as Parkinson's and diabetes then watch how the fish make more of them.

"What we are pinning everything on is the idea that humans also have this capacity, but it's sort of locked up," says Dr. Jeff S. Mumm, biologist at the Medical College of Georgia.

Dr. Mumm, along with his partner in science and life, Dr. Meera Saxena, founded the company, Luminomics, Inc., to help fellow researchers unlock that capacity. "The forefront of medicine is not what humans are limited to, but what biology can do," says Dr. Mumm. "This little fish is telling us what biology is capable of. With the same general set of genetic tools, these animals can do something we can't: regenerate lost cells and tissues. Our job is to figure out which tools in which combination or sequence afford fish this capacity, then apply this knowledge toward the creation of regenerative therapies for humans".

While working as a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. Mumm used the resilient zebrafish to study retinal development. As a student at the University of Iowa, he studied the regeneration of olfactory receptor neurons, which enable the sense of smell. They are one of the few neuronal populations that regenerate throughout life in mammals: the usual human response to lost neurons is scarring and disease......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

March 16, 2008, 9:48 PM CT

Nutrient regulation of biological clock in plants

Using a systems biological analysis of genome-scale data from the model plant Arabidopsis, an international team of scientists identified that the master gene controlling the biological clock is sensitive to nutrient status. The study will appear in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This hypothesis derived from multi-network analysis of Arabidopsis genomic data, and validated experimentally, has shed light on how nutrients affect the molecular networks controlling plant growth and development in response to nutrient sensing.

The study was conducted by a team of scientists at New York Universitys Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, Chiles Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile, Dartmouth College, and Cold Spring Harbor Labs. The studys lead authors are Rodrigo A. Gutirrez of the Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile and Gloria Coruzzi of NYUs Center for Genomics and Systems Biology. They note that the systems biology approach to uncovering nutrient regulated gene networks provides new targets for engineering traits in plants of agronomic interest such as increased nitrogen use efficiency, which could lead to reduced fertilizer cost and lowering ground water contamination by nitrates.

Researchers have previously studied how nitrogen nutrients affect gene expression as a way to understand the mechanisms that control plant growth and development. Nitrogen is an essential nutrient and a metabolic signal that is sensed and converted, resulting in the control of gene expression in plants. In addition, nitrate has been shown to serve as a signal for the control of gene expression in Arabidopsis, the first flowering plant to have its entire genome sequenced. There is current evidence, on a gene-by-gene basis, that products of nitrogen assimilation, the amino acids glutamate (Glu) or glutamine (Gln), might serve as signals of organic nitrogen status that are sensed and in turn regulate gene expression......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

March 16, 2008, 9:47 PM CT

Turtle nesting threatened by logging practices

Endangered sea turtles are victims of sloppy logging practices in the west central African country Gabon, as per a research studyled by William Laurance, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The study will be published online in the journal Oryx later this month.

Sea turtle nesting attempts are impeded by lost or abandoned logs that accumulate along the countrys coastal beaches. Logs are floated downriver from forests to coastal lumberyards in the Gabonese Republic, but some float out to sea and then wash ashore, where they form large tangles.

In an aerial survey, Laurances teamco-coordinated by J. Michael Fay of the Wildlife Conservation Societycounted more than 11,000 logs along Gabons beaches. In the most important area for turtle nesting, Pongara Beach, more than one-third of the beach was blocked by logs. In some places, researchers found up to 247 logs per kilometer of beach.

Its really sad to see what the logs are doing to the turtles, Laurance said. Sea turtles move very slowly on land. When a log blocks their path, sometimes they just give up and return to the sea. In other cases they lay their eggs too close to the waterline, where the eggs are killed by seawater. Turtles also become entangled among the logs and die......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

March 11, 2008, 10:42 PM CT

Why flamingos are in the pink of health

A University of Leicester ecologist is setting out to discover why flamingos are so in the pink of health - in the poo!

Dr David Harper, of the Department of Biology at the University of Leicester, has been studying lesser flamingos for nine years.

His research has been carried out in the lakes of East Africa but new investigations he has carried out for the first time in India have- by his own admission given him rather a shock.

He said: Lesser flamingos are graceful, majestic, birds. They are not the ones you can see at the zoo, because they are very difficult to maintain in captivity, but the ones that you see on television in their hundreds of thousands, crowded into a few specialist lakes in East Africa.

I have been studying them, on these lakes in Kenya and Tanzania, but earlier this month I returned from India, having carried out a preliminary investigation of the population there, and I had rather a shock.

In Africa the lesser flamingo, with its beautiful pink plumage, stands for everything that is pure and pristine. A number of of the lakes where it feeds, occasionally with a million birds crowded together when the food is good, are almost untouched by mans activities.

In complete contrast to Africa, where lesser flamingos only live on inland soda lakes and are never seen at the coast, in India I watched 20,000 lesser flamingos happily feeding on tidal mudflats in front of an oil refinery, a petrochemical plant and creeks bringing untreated waste from millions of people in the slums of Bombay......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

March 11, 2008, 10:38 PM CT

New twist on life's power source

A startling discovery by researchers at the Carnegie Institution puts a new twist on photosynthesis, arguably the most important biological process on Earth. Photosynthesis by plants, algae, and some bacteria supports nearly all living things by producing food from sunlight, and in the process these organisms release oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide. But two studies by Arthur Grossman and his colleagues*+ reported in Biochimica et Biophysica Acta and Limnology and Oceanography suggest that certain marine microorganisms have evolved a way to break the rulesthey get a significant proportion of their energy without a net release of oxygen or uptake of carbon dioxide. This discovery impacts not only researchers basic understanding of photosynthesis, but importantly, it may also impact how microorganisms in the oceans affect rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Grossmans team investigated photosynthesis in a marine Synechococcus, a form of photosynthetic bacteria called cyanobacteria (formerly blue-green algae). These single-celled organisms dominate phytoplankton populations over much of the worlds oceans and are important contributors to global primary productivity. Grossman and colleagues wanted to understand how Synechococcus could thrive in the iron-poor waters that cover large areas of the ocean, since certain activities of normal photosynthesis require high levels of iron. While others had suggested a potential role of oxygen as accepting electrons from the photosynthetic apparatus in place of carbon dioxide, the studies by Grossmans group show that this activity is significant in the oligotrophic (nutrient-poor) oceans, which cover about half the oceans area......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

March 11, 2008, 10:04 PM CT

Harlequin frog in remote region of Colombia

Bogot, Colombia, March 11, 2008After 14 years without having been seen, several young researchers supported by the Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP), have rediscovered the Carrikeri Harlequin Frog (Atelopus carrikeri) in a remote mountainous region in Colombia.

The critically endangered Carrikeri Harelquin frog was recently rediscovered by the Project Atelopus team in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Mountains in Colombias Magdalena department. Colombia is one of the worlds richest countries in amphibian diversity with more than 583 species. Unfortunately, in the past several years, there has been a decline in amphibian populations particularly in higher elevations in Colombia.

By discovering that the endangered frog still exists, we hope it will show how important conservation is, said Luis Alberto Rueda, scientist for the Project Atelopus team who led the expedition. And we plan to continue with our research so that we can better assist in helping to ensure that this frog will not become extinct.

In addition to Rueda, who is part of the GECOH (Grupo de Ecofisiologa, Comportamiento y Herpetologia) of the University of the Andes, the individuals who are part of the Atelopus team of scientist include: Oswaldo Cortes, Giovanni Chaves, Erika Salazar, Jose Gil, Sergio Pulido, Astrid Nossa, Fabian Tavera, Jenny Gallo, Ximena Villagrn and Nidia Rodriguez members of the Ecodiversidad Colombia Foundation (www.ecodiversidad.org)......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

March 11, 2008, 9:54 PM CT

Arctic climate models in polar bear decision

The pending federal decision about whether to protect the polar bear as a threatened species is as much about climate science as it is about climate change.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is currently considering a proposal to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, a proposal largely based on anticipated habitat loss in a warming Arctic.

Climate models - mathematical representations of the natural processes affecting climate - factored heavily in the scientific information requested by the FWS to guide its official recommendation, which was due Jan. 9. While researchers have used such models for decades, their use in this decision demonstrates the growing recognition of the value of modeling to predict future climate conditions and inform policymaking.

Eric DeWeaver, the physical climatologist on the International Polar Bear Science Team and a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences in the University of Wisconsin-Madison, reviewed existing climate models to identify those that best represent observed changes in sea ice - a crucial component of polar bear habitat - and which are expected to best predict future conditions in the Arctic.

His findings, detailed in a U.S. Geological Survey report provided to the FWS, were applied in subsequent reports to predict how Arctic sea ice changes over the next 100 years will likely affect polar bear populations......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source