ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Martian clay contains chemical implicated in the origin of life, astrobiologists find
• Amount of dust blown across the Western U.S. is increasing
• African starlings: Dashing darlings of the bird world in more ways than one
• From hot springs to HIV, same protein complexes are hijacked to promote viruses
• Bridge species drive tropical engine of biodiversity
• China is outsourcing carbon: Key findings on regional, global impact of trade on environment
• Biotech crops vs. pests: Successes and failures from the first billion acres
• To germinate, or not to germinate, that is the question…
• How does inbreeding avoidance evolve in plants?
• Hairpin turn: Micro-RNA plays role in wood formation
• Potential new target to thwart antibiotic resistance: Viruses in gut confer antibiotic resistance to bacteria
• Whitebark pine trees: Is their future at risk?
• Flowering at the right age: Alpine rock cress uses a ribonucleic acid to measure its age and tell when it's the right time to flower
• Mysterious monument found beneath the Sea of Galilee
• River dredging reduced fish numbers, diversity
• Pollinators easily enhanced by flowering agri-environment schemes
• How cells get a skeleton
• Self-fertilizing plants contribute to their own demise
• Leakage of carbon from land to rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal regions revealed
• Catching individual molecules in a million with optical antennas inside nano-boxes
• British butterfly desperate for warm weather this summer
• How Archaea might find their food: Sensor protein characterized
• Potentially 'catastrophic' changes underway in Canada's northern Mackenzie River Basin
• New theory proposes solution to long-running debate as to how stable the Earth system is
• Ötzi the Iceman's dark secrets: Protein investigation supports brain injury theory

Martian clay contains chemical implicated in the origin of life, astrobiologists find Posted: 10 Jun 2013 07:01 PM PDT Researchers have discovered high concentrations of boron in a Martian meteorite. When present in its oxidized form (borate), boron may have played a key role in the formation of RNA, one of the building blocks for life.

Amount of dust blown across the Western U.S. is increasing Posted: 10 Jun 2013 04:30 PM PDT The amount of dust being blown across the landscape has increased over the last 17 years in large swaths of the West, according to a new study.

African starlings: Dashing darlings of the bird world in more ways than one Posted: 10 Jun 2013 04:30 PM PDT It's not going to happen while you're peering through your binoculars, but African glossy starlings change color more than 10 times faster than their ancestors and even their modern relatives, say researchers. The changes have led to new species of birds with color combinations previously unseen, according to a new study.

From hot springs to HIV, same protein complexes are hijacked to promote viruses Posted: 10 Jun 2013 04:26 PM PDT Biologists have discovered a striking connection between viruses such as HIV and Ebola and viruses that infect organisms called archaea that grow in volcanic hot springs. Despite the huge difference in environments and a 2 billion year evolutionary time span between archaea and humans, the viruses hijack the same set of proteins to break out of infected cells.

Bridge species drive tropical engine of biodiversity Posted: 10 Jun 2013 04:25 PM PDT New research sheds light on how the tropics came to be teeming with species while the poles harbor relatively few. Furthermore, it confirms that the tropics have been and continue to be the Earth's engine of biodiversity.

China is outsourcing carbon: Key findings on regional, global impact of trade on environment Posted: 10 Jun 2013 12:21 PM PDT In two different studies, researchers have published groundbreaking findings on the environmental impact of globalization, production and trade at both regional and international scales, and anticipate that their research will inform key environmental policies and consumer and corporate attitudes in the United States and around the world.

Biotech crops vs. pests: Successes and failures from the first billion acres Posted: 10 Jun 2013 12:21 PM PDT A landmark study analyzes why pest resistance to genetically modified crops evolved quickly in some cases, but not others. The global assessment could help to gauge the risk of resistance for new biotech crops before they are commercialized.

To germinate, or not to germinate, that is the question… Posted: 10 Jun 2013 12:20 PM PDT Scientists have uncovered new insights into the way seeds use gene networks to control when they germinate in response to environmental signals.

How does inbreeding avoidance evolve in plants? Posted: 10 Jun 2013 12:20 PM PDT Inbreeding is generally deleterious, even in flowering plants. Since inbreeding raises the risk that bad copies of a gene will be expressed, inbred progeny suffer from reduced viability. A case study of Leavenworthia suggests that loss of complex traits may be reversed.

Hairpin turn: Micro-RNA plays role in wood formation Posted: 10 Jun 2013 12:19 PM PDT Scientists have found the first example of how micro-RNA regulates wood formation inside plant cells and mapped out key relationships that control the process.

Potential new target to thwart antibiotic resistance: Viruses in gut confer antibiotic resistance to bacteria Posted: 10 Jun 2013 10:35 AM PDT Bacteria in the gut that are under attack by antibiotics have allies no one had anticipated, scientists have found. Gut viruses that usually commandeer the bacteria, it turns out, enable them to survive the antibiotic onslaught, most likely by handing them genes that help them withstand the drug.

Whitebark pine trees: Is their future at risk? Posted: 10 Jun 2013 10:31 AM PDT There's trouble ahead for the whitebark pine, a mountain tree that's integral to wildlife and water resources in the western United States and Canada. Over the last decade, some populations of whitebark pines have declined by more than 90 percent. But these declines may be just the beginning.

Flowering at the right age: Alpine rock cress uses a ribonucleic acid to measure its age and tell when it's the right time to flower Posted: 10 Jun 2013 10:30 AM PDT Perennial plants flower only when they have reached a certain age and been subjected to the cold. These two circumstances prevent the plant from starting to flower during winter. Botanists have now discovered that the Alpine rock cress determines its age based on the quantity of a short ribonucleic acid.

Mysterious monument found beneath the Sea of Galilee Posted: 10 Jun 2013 08:30 AM PDT Scientists have discovered a mysterious monument beneath the waves of the Sea of Galilee. The site resembles early burial sites in Europe and was likely built in the early Bronze Age.

River dredging reduced fish numbers, diversity Posted: 10 Jun 2013 08:30 AM PDT Comparing dredged and undredged sections of the Allegheny River, reduced populations of fish and less variety of aquatic life occurred in areas where gravel extraction took place, according to researchers.

Pollinators easily enhanced by flowering agri-environment schemes Posted: 10 Jun 2013 08:30 AM PDT European agri-environment schemes enhance wild pollinators on farmland, new research shows. The effects increased with the number of flowers brought back by the schemes. Recent studies have shown that wild pollinators are instrumental in providing pollination services to crops. Agri-environment schemes can therefore help counteract pollination loss.

How cells get a skeleton Posted: 10 Jun 2013 08:29 AM PDT Stress generated by nano-motors within animal cells can lead to the creation of a condensed layer of filaments beneath the outer cell membrane. The mechanism responsible for generating part of the skeletal support for the membrane in animal cells is not yet clearly understood.

Self-fertilizing plants contribute to their own demise Posted: 10 Jun 2013 06:51 AM PDT Many plants are self-fertilizing, meaning they act as both mother and father to their own seeds. This strategy -- known as selfing -- guarantees reproduction but, over time, leads to reduced diversity and the accumulation of harmful mutations. A new study shows that these negative consequences are apparent across a selfing plant's genome, and can arise more rapidly than previously thought.

Leakage of carbon from land to rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal regions revealed Posted: 10 Jun 2013 06:51 AM PDT When carbon is emitted by human activities into the atmosphere it is generally thought that about half remains in the atmosphere and the remainder is stored in the oceans and on land. New research suggests that human activity could be increasing the movement of carbon from land to rivers, estuaries and the coastal zone indicating that large quantities of anthropogenic carbon may be hidden in regions not previously considered.

Catching individual molecules in a million with optical antennas inside nano-boxes Posted: 10 Jun 2013 06:51 AM PDT Detecting one individual biomolecule amongst millions of other neighboring molecules has been technically impossible until now. Scientists have now devised the smallest optical device capable of detecting and sensing individual biomolecules at concentrations that are similar to those found in the cellular context.

British butterfly desperate for warm weather this summer Posted: 10 Jun 2013 06:51 AM PDT Butterflies are extremely sensitive to changes in temperature, and new research has revealed that when summer weather turns bad the silver-spotted skipper battles for survival.

How Archaea might find their food: Sensor protein characterized Posted: 10 Jun 2013 06:50 AM PDT Delicious dimethyl sulphide. The microorganism Methanosarcina acetivorans lives off everything it can metabolize into methane. How it finds its sources of energy, is not yet clear. Scientists have now identified a protein that might act as a "food sensor."

Potentially 'catastrophic' changes underway in Canada's northern Mackenzie River Basin Posted: 10 Jun 2013 05:43 AM PDT Canada's Mackenzie River basin -- among the world's most important major ecosystems -- is poorly studied, inadequately monitored, and at serious risk due to climate change and resource exploitation, a panel of international scientists warn. Largest single threat to the Basin: a potential breach in the tailings ponds at one of the large oil sands sites mining surface bitumen. A breach in winter sending tailings liquid under the ice "would be virtually impossible to remediate or clean-up."

New theory proposes solution to long-running debate as to how stable the Earth system is Posted: 10 Jun 2013 05:42 AM PDT Researchers have proposed an answer to the long-running debate as to how stable the Earth system is. Earth, with its core-driven magnetic field, oceans of liquid water, dynamic climate and abundant life is arguably the most complex system in the known Universe. Life arose on Earth over three and a half billion years ago and it would appear that despite planetary scale calamities such as the impacts of massive meteorites, runaway climate change and increases in brightness of the Sun, it has continued to grow, reproduce and evolve ever since. Has life on Earth simply been lucky in withstanding these events or are there any self-stabilizing processes operating in the Earth system that would reduce the severity of such perturbations? If such planetary processes exist, to what extent are they the result of the actions of life?

Ötzi the Iceman's dark secrets: Protein investigation supports brain injury theory Posted: 10 Jun 2013 05:41 AM PDT After decoding the Iceman's genetic make-up, a research team has now made another major breakthrough in mummy research: Using just a pinhead-sized sample of brain tissue from the world-famous glacier corpse, the team was able to extract and analyze proteins to further support the theory that Ötzi suffered some form of brain damage in the final moments of his life.

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