ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Particles of crystalline quartz wear away teeth
• Mussels inspire innovative new adhesive for surgery
• Baby sharks stay still to avoid being detected by predators
• Invading species can extinguish native plants despite recent reports to the contrary
• Engineering alternative fuel with cyanobacteria
• Faulty behavior: New earthquake fault models show that 'stable' zones may contribute to the generation of massive earthquakes
• A history lesson from genes: Using DNA to tell us how populations change
• Magma in mantle has deep impact: Rocks melt at greater depth than once thought
• Scientists use marine robots to detect endangered whales
• Tree seeds offer potential for sustainable biofuels
• How does your garden glow?
• Nursing gerbils unravel benefit of multiple mothers in collective mammals
• Networking ability a family trait in monkeys
• Whales' foraging strategies revealed by new technology
• Chemical modules that mimic predator-prey and other behaviors devised
• Low extinction rates made California a refuge for diverse plant species
• The Teotihuacans exhumed their dead and dignified them with make-up
• Bugs need symbiotic bacteria to exploit plant seeds: Mid-gut microbes help insects in processing their food
• Mixed forests more productive than monocultures

Particles of crystalline quartz wear away teeth Posted: 09 Jan 2013 06:52 PM PST Dental microwear, the pattern of tiny marks on worn tooth surfaces, is an important basis for understanding the diets of fossil mammals, including those of our own lineage. Now nanoscale research has unraveled some of its causes.

Mussels inspire innovative new adhesive for surgery Posted: 09 Jan 2013 03:59 PM PST Mussels can be a mouthwatering meal, but the chemistry that lets mussels stick to underwater surfaces may also provide a highly adhesive wound closure and more effective healing from surgery.

Baby sharks stay still to avoid being detected by predators Posted: 09 Jan 2013 03:58 PM PST Baby sharks still developing in their egg cases can sense when predators are near, and keep very still to avoid being detected, according to new research.

Invading species can extinguish native plants despite recent reports to the contrary Posted: 09 Jan 2013 01:20 PM PST Evolutionary biologists have found that, given time, invading exotic plants will likely eliminate native plants growing in the wild despite recent reports to the contrary. A new study reports that recent statements that invasive plants are not problematic are often based on incomplete information, with insufficient time having passed to observe the full effect of invasions on native biodiversity.

Engineering alternative fuel with cyanobacteria Posted: 09 Jan 2013 01:09 PM PST Biologists have engineered two strains of cyanobacteria to produce free fatty acids, a precursor to liquid fuels. Micro-algal fuels might be one way to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign energy. Such fuels would be renewable since they are powered by sunlight. They also could reduce carbon dioxide emissions since they use photosynthesis, and they could create jobs in a new industry.

Faulty behavior: New earthquake fault models show that 'stable' zones may contribute to the generation of massive earthquakes Posted: 09 Jan 2013 12:12 PM PST In an earthquake, ground motion is the result of waves emitted when the two sides of a fault move rapidly past each other. Not all fault segments move so quickly, however -- some slip slowly and are considered to be "stable." One hypothesis suggests that creeping fault behavior is persistent over time, with stable segments acting as barriers to fast-slipping earthquakes. But a new study shows that this might not be true.

A history lesson from genes: Using DNA to tell us how populations change Posted: 09 Jan 2013 12:11 PM PST Researchers have developed a software model that can infer population history from modern DNA.

Magma in mantle has deep impact: Rocks melt at greater depth than once thought Posted: 09 Jan 2013 10:15 AM PST Magma forms far deeper in the Earth's interior than previously thought, and may solve several puzzles for geologists.

Scientists use marine robots to detect endangered whales Posted: 09 Jan 2013 09:42 AM PST Two robots equipped with instruments designed to "listen" for the calls of baleen whales detected nine endangered North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of Maine last month. The robots reported the detections to shore-based researchers within hours of hearing the whales, demonstrating a new and powerful tool for managing interactions between whales and human activities.

Tree seeds offer potential for sustainable biofuels Posted: 09 Jan 2013 09:42 AM PST Tree seeds, rather than biomass or fuel crop plants, could represent an abundant source of renewable energy, according to new research. The study suggests that seeds from the Indian mahua and sal trees have almost as good a thermal efficiency as biodiesel but would produce lower emissions of carbon monoxide, waste hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides.

How does your garden glow? Posted: 09 Jan 2013 09:41 AM PST Nature's ability to create iridescent flowers has been recreated by mathematicians. They have created a mathematical model of a plant's petals to help us learn more about iridescence in flowering plants and the role it may play in attracting pollinators.

Nursing gerbils unravel benefit of multiple mothers in collective mammals Posted: 09 Jan 2013 08:06 AM PST In mammals such as rodents that raise their young as a group, infants will nurse from their mother as well as other females. Ecologists have long thought this lets newborns stockpile antibodies to various diseases, but experimental proof has been lacking until now.

Networking ability a family trait in monkeys Posted: 09 Jan 2013 08:06 AM PST Two years of painstaking observation on the social interactions of a troop of free-ranging monkeys and an analysis of their family trees has found signs of natural selection affecting the behavior of the descendants.

Whales' foraging strategies revealed by new technology Posted: 09 Jan 2013 08:06 AM PST Despite the many logistical difficulties of studying large whales, multisensor tags attached to the animals with suction cups are revealing their varied foraging techniques in unprecedented detail. These can be related to the animals' anatomy and to the distribution and behavior of their prey.

Chemical modules that mimic predator-prey and other behaviors devised Posted: 09 Jan 2013 08:00 AM PST Scientists are reporting development of chemical modules that can reproduce, on an "unprecedented" molecular level, changes and interactions that occur in natural populations of plants and animals, including those of hunting and being hunted for food, conducting mutually beneficial relationships and competing for resources. These new "predator-prey biochemical oscillators" could become building blocks for molecular machines and computers.

Low extinction rates made California a refuge for diverse plant species Posted: 09 Jan 2013 07:59 AM PST The remarkable diversity of California's plant life is largely the result of low extinction rates over the past 45 million years, according to a new study. Although many new species have evolved in California, the rate at which plant lineages gave rise to new species has not been notably higher in California than elsewhere, researchers found.

The Teotihuacans exhumed their dead and dignified them with make-up Posted: 09 Jan 2013 07:58 AM PST Researchers have analyzed for the first time remains of cosmetics in the graves of prehispanic civilizations on the American continent. In the case of the Teotihuacans, these cosmetics were used as part of the after-death ritual to honor their city's most important people.

Bugs need symbiotic bacteria to exploit plant seeds: Mid-gut microbes help insects in processing their food Posted: 09 Jan 2013 05:11 AM PST Aggregations of the red and black coloured firebugs are ubiquitous under linden trees in Central Europe, where the bugs can reach astounding population densities. While these insects have no impact on humans, their African, Asian, and American relatives, the cotton stainers, are serious agricultural pests of cotton and other Malvaceous plants. Researchers recently discovered that these bugs need bacterial symbionts to survive on cotton seeds as their sole food source. By using high-throughput sequencing technologies, they found out that firebugs and cotton stainers share a characteristic bacterial community that colonizes a specific region of their mid-gut.

Mixed forests more productive than monocultures Posted: 09 Jan 2013 05:11 AM PST Forestry and nature conservation can benefit from promoting a diversity of tree species, new study finds. Modern forestry is largely based on monocultures mainly because it is considered more rational. However a forest contributes more ecosystem services than timber production, such as biological diversity, carbon storage, and berries. A new study shows that mixed forests, in comparison with monocultures, have many positive effects.

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