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Monday, July 15, 2013

ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

ScienceDaily: Top Environment News


Artificial cells to study molecular crowding and gene expression created

Posted: 14 Jul 2013 01:09 PM PDT

Scientists have approximated molecular crowding in an artificial cellular system and found that tight quarters help the process of gene expression, especially when other conditions are less than ideal.

Scientists solve a 14,000-year-old ocean mystery

Posted: 14 Jul 2013 01:09 PM PDT

At the end of the last Ice Age, as the world began to warm, a swath of the North Pacific Ocean came to life. During a brief pulse of biological productivity 14,000 years ago, this stretch of the sea teemed with phytoplankton, amoeba-like foraminifera and other tiny creatures, who thrived in large numbers until the productivity ended -- as mysteriously as it began -- just a few hundred years later.

Continuous satellite monitoring of ice sheets needed to better predict sea-level rise

Posted: 14 Jul 2013 01:08 PM PDT

The length of the satellite record for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is currently too short to tell if the recently reported speed-up of ice loss will be sustained in the future or if it results from natural processes, according to a new study.

Boldly illuminating biology's 'dark matter'

Posted: 14 Jul 2013 01:08 PM PDT

Microbial dark matter comprises the invisible infrastructure of life that can have profound influences on the most significant environmental processes. By employing next generation DNA sequencing of single cell genomes, researchers are systematically filling in the bacterial and archaeal tree of life's uncharted branches.

Sexual reproduction only second choice for powdery mildew

Posted: 14 Jul 2013 01:06 PM PDT

Genetically, powdery mildew is perfectly adapted to its host plants. Evidently, sexual reproduction and new combinations of genetic material usually prove disadvantageous for the fungus. Asexual reproduction, however, is considerably more successful for mildew, as plant biologists demonstrate. Nonetheless, the fungus still allows itself a sexual reproduction cycle.

Kill-switch controls immune-suppressing cells, scientists discover

Posted: 14 Jul 2013 01:06 PM PDT

Scientists have uncovered the mechanism that controls whether cells that are able to suppress immune responses live or die.

Some volcanoes 'scream' at ever-higher pitches until they blow their tops

Posted: 14 Jul 2013 01:05 PM PDT

Swarms of small earthquakes can precede a volcanic eruption, sometimes resulting in "harmonic tremor" resembling sound from some musical instruments. A new analysis shows tremor during a 2009 sequence at Alaska's Redoubt Volcano glided to substantially higher frequencies, then stopped abruptly just before six of the eruptions.

Key step in molecular 'dance' that duplicates DNA deciphered

Posted: 14 Jul 2013 01:05 PM PDT

Scientists have captured new details of the biochemical interactions necessary for cell division. The research may suggest ways for stopping cell division when it goes awry.

New theory uncovers cancer's deep evolutionary roots

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 07:28 AM PDT

A new way to look at cancer -- by tracing its deep evolutionary roots to the dawn of multicellularity more than a billion years ago -- has been proposed. If their theory is correct, it promises to transform the approach to cancer therapy, and to link the origin of cancer to the origin of life and the developmental processes of embryos.

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