ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Bats may hold clues to long life and disease resistance
• Hawaiian Islands are dissolving from within, study says
• Ups and downs of biodiversity after mass extinction
• Meteorite triggered scientific 'Gold Rush'
• Discovery of Africa moth species important for agriculture, controlling invasive plants
• Genetically enhanced biofuel crops? Plants engineered to have increased levels of beta-1,4-galactan may enhance biofuel production
• Death of hemlock trees yields new life for hardwood trees, but at what cost to the ecosystem?
• Can observations of a hardy weed help feed the world?
• Italian wolves prefer pork to venison
• Poison for cancer cells: New method identifies active agents in mixtures of hundreds of substances
• Origin of life: Hypothesis traces first protocells back to emergence of cell membrane bioenergetics
• Unlocking new talents in nature: Protein engineers create new biocatalysts
• Wallace's century-old map of natural world updated

Bats may hold clues to long life and disease resistance Posted: 21 Dec 2012 08:41 AM PST The genes of long-living and virus resistant bats may provide clues to the future treatment and prevention of infectious diseases and cancer in people, researchers have found.

Hawaiian Islands are dissolving from within, study says Posted: 21 Dec 2012 08:40 AM PST Most of us think of soil erosion as the primary force that levels mountains but geologists have found that Oahu's mountains are dissolving from within due to groundwater.

Ups and downs of biodiversity after mass extinction Posted: 21 Dec 2012 05:16 AM PST The climate after the largest mass extinction so far 252 million years ago was cool, later very warm and then cool again. Thanks to the cooler temperatures, the diversity of marine fauna ballooned, as paleontologists have reconstructed. The warmer climate, coupled with a high carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere, initially gave rise to new, short-lived species. In the longer term, however, this climate change had an adverse effect on biodiversity and caused species to become extinct.

Meteorite triggered scientific 'Gold Rush' Posted: 20 Dec 2012 11:41 AM PST A meteorite that exploded as a fireball over California's Sierra foothills this past spring was among the fastest, rarest meteorites known to have hit the Earth, and it traveled a highly eccentric orbital route to get here.

Discovery of Africa moth species important for agriculture, controlling invasive plants Posted: 20 Dec 2012 11:41 AM PST In the rain forests of the Congo, where mammals and birds are hunted to near-extinction, an impenetrable sound of buzzing insects blankets the atmosphere. Because it is a fairly inaccessible region with political unrest, much of the Congo's insect biodiversity remains largely undiscovered. In a new monographic book, researchers provide insect biodiversity information for this area in Central Africa that increasingly undergoes habitat destruction.

Genetically enhanced biofuel crops? Plants engineered to have increased levels of beta-1,4-galactan may enhance biofuel production Posted: 20 Dec 2012 11:39 AM PST Given that fermenting bacteria readily convert six-carbon sugars into the biofuel ethanol, it would be advantageous to generate biofuel crops with increased levels of these sugars. A new study identifies a family of enzymes responsible for the production of beta-1,4-galactan, a polymer of six-carbon sugars, in the model plant Arabidopsis. Increasing the activity of one of these enzymes dramatically enhances the production of beta-1,4-galactan without damaging the plant.

Death of hemlock trees yields new life for hardwood trees, but at what cost to the ecosystem? Posted: 20 Dec 2012 11:39 AM PST Due to the introduction of exotic pests and pathogens, tree species are being eliminated one by one from forest ecosystems. In some cases, scientists can observe immediately how their loss affects the environment, whereas in other cases, creative puzzle solving and analysis reveal unexpected repercussions. In the case of the loss of the hemlock tree, a landscape and ecosystem ecologist uncovered a surprising benefit to hardwood species.

Can observations of a hardy weed help feed the world? Posted: 20 Dec 2012 11:39 AM PST Scientists have explored how the responses to environmental stresses by one small, genetically diverse plant species might illuminate possible approaches to addressing growing human demand for crop products amid decreasing resources.

Italian wolves prefer pork to venison Posted: 20 Dec 2012 11:37 AM PST Some European wolves have a distinct preference for wild boar over other prey, according to new research. Scientists found that the diet of wolves was consistently dominated by the consumption of wild boar which accounted for about two thirds of total prey biomass, with roe deer accounting for around a third.

Poison for cancer cells: New method identifies active agents in mixtures of hundreds of substances Posted: 20 Dec 2012 11:37 AM PST A highly effective poison kills the larvae of the garden chafer when the threadworm Heterorhabditis lays its eggs in it. Until now it was a mystery why the larvae die, while the threadworms survive the poison unharmed. Scientists have now succeeded in uncovering the secret.

Origin of life: Hypothesis traces first protocells back to emergence of cell membrane bioenergetics Posted: 20 Dec 2012 11:35 AM PST A coherent pathway -- which starts from no more than rocks, water and carbon dioxide and leads to the emergence of the strange bio-energetic properties of living cells -- has been traced for the first time in a major hypothesis article.

Unlocking new talents in nature: Protein engineers create new biocatalysts Posted: 20 Dec 2012 11:35 AM PST Protein engineers have tapped into a hidden talent of one of nature's most versatile catalysts. The enzyme cytochrome P450 is nature's premier oxidation catalyst -- a protein that typically promotes reactions that add oxygen atoms to other chemicals. Now the researchers have engineered new versions of the enzyme, unlocking its ability to drive a completely different and synthetically useful reaction that does not take place in nature.

Wallace's century-old map of natural world updated Posted: 20 Dec 2012 11:35 AM PST Until today, Alfred Russell Wallace's century old map from 1876 has been the backbone for our understanding of global biodiversity. Thanks to advances in modern technology and data on more than 20,000 species, scientists have now produced a next generation map depicting the organization of life on Earth. The new map provides fundamental information regarding the diversity of life on our planet and is of major significance for future biodiversity research.

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