ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Long-term warming likely to be significant despite recent slowdown
• Scientists 'herd' cells in new approach to tissue engineering
• Solar policy pathways for U.S. states examined
• Ocean food web is key in the global carbon cycle
• Cellular alchemy: How to make insulin-producing cells from gut cells
• Free online software helps speed up genetic discoveries
• Land cover change over five years across North America revealed
• After major earthquake, silence: Dynamic stressing of a global system of faults results in rare seismic silence
• Restoring order in brain: Brain cell regeneration may alleviate symptoms of Alzheimer's disease
• Empathy chimpanzees offer is key to understanding human engagement
• Soil microbes shift as shrubs invade remnant hill prairies
• Cancer cells don't take 'drunken' walks through body
• Cosmetic treatment can open door to bacteria
• California and Arizona amaze with two new species of desert poppy
• Speed trap for fish catches domestic trout moving too slow
• Personality predicts social learning in wild monkeys: Bold or anxious baboons learn to solve tasks from other baboons
• Timid jumping spider uses ant as bodyguard
• Exotic plant species alter ecosystem productivity
• Feeding gut microbiota: Nutrition, probiotics key factors for digestive health
• Tricky balancing act: Antibiotics versus the gut microbiota
• Farm salmon pose clear reproductive threat to wild gene pools, researchers say
• IBS and bloating: When gut microbiota gets out of balance
• Could sticky cells cause drug resistance in chronic blood cancer?
• Making it easier to plan offshore wind farms: New tool to help development

Long-term warming likely to be significant despite recent slowdown Posted: 11 Mar 2014 03:47 PM PDT A new study shows Earth's climate likely will continue to warm during this century on track with previous estimates, despite the recent slowdown in the rate of global warming.

Scientists 'herd' cells in new approach to tissue engineering Posted: 11 Mar 2014 12:19 PM PDT An electrical current can be used to orchestrate the flow of a group of cells, engineers have discovered. This achievement sets the stage for more controlled forms of tissue engineering and for potential applications such as 'smart bandages' that use electrical stimulation to help heal wounds. "This is the first data showing that direct current fields can be used to deliberately guide migration of a sheet of epithelial cells," said the study's lead author.

Solar policy pathways for U.S. states examined Posted: 11 Mar 2014 11:15 AM PDT The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory has published a report that aligns solar policy and market success with state demographics. By organizing the 48 contiguous states into four peer groups based on shared non-policy characteristics, the research team was able to contextualize the impact of various solar policies on photovoltaic installations.

Ocean food web is key in the global carbon cycle Posted: 11 Mar 2014 11:15 AM PDT Nothing dies of old age in the ocean. Everything gets eaten and all that remains of anything is waste. But that waste is pure gold to an oceanographer. In a study of the ocean's role in the global carbon cycle, oceanographers used those nuggets to their advantage. They incorporated the lifecycle of phytoplankton and zooplankton -- small, often microscopic animals at the bottom of the food chain -- into a novel mechanistic model for assessing the global ocean carbon export.

Cellular alchemy: How to make insulin-producing cells from gut cells Posted: 11 Mar 2014 11:15 AM PDT Introducing three proteins that control the regulation of DNA in the nucleus -- called transcription factors -- into an immune-deficient mouse turned a specific group of cells in the gut lining into beta-like cells. "Our results demonstrate that the intestine could be an accessible and abundant source of functional insulin-producing cells," says the lead author of the study. "Our ultimate goal is to obtain epithelial cells from diabetes patients who have had endoscopies, expand these cells, add PMN to them to make beta-like cells, and then give them back to the patient as an alternate therapy."

Free online software helps speed up genetic discoveries Posted: 11 Mar 2014 11:14 AM PDT Microarray analysis -- a complex technology commonly used in many applications such as discovering genes, disease diagnosis, drug development and toxicological research -- has just become easier and more user-friendly. Scientists have created free software that makes detection of genetic components of disease faster and easier; could help speed up genetic discoveries.

Land cover change over five years across North America revealed Posted: 11 Mar 2014 10:36 AM PDT A new set of maps featured in the CEC's North American Environmental Atlas depicts land cover changes in North America's forests, prairies, deserts and cities, using satellite images from 2005 and 2010.

After major earthquake, silence: Dynamic stressing of a global system of faults results in rare seismic silence Posted: 11 Mar 2014 09:43 AM PDT In the global aftershock zone that followed the major April 2012 Indian Ocean earthquake, seismologists noticed an unusual pattern -- a dynamic 'stress shadow,' or period of seismic silence when some faults near failure were temporarily rendered incapable of a large rupture. Why did this rare period of quiet occur?

Restoring order in brain: Brain cell regeneration may alleviate symptoms of Alzheimer's disease Posted: 11 Mar 2014 09:42 AM PDT Researchers have discovered that when they re-established a population of new cells in the part of the brain associated with behavior, some symptoms of Alzheimer's disease significantly decreased or were reversed altogether. While memory loss is a common symptom of Alzheimer's, other behavioral manifestations -- depression, loss of inhibition, delusions, agitation, anxiety, and aggression -- can be even more challenging for victims and their families to live with. The research was conducted on mouse models; it provides a promising target for Alzheimer's symptoms in human beings as well.

Empathy chimpanzees offer is key to understanding human engagement Posted: 11 Mar 2014 09:42 AM PDT New findings show that chimpanzees exhibit flexibility in their empathy, just as humans do. This may help explain the evolution of how and when humans engage with others and choose to offer flexibility, and how we can do so more.

Soil microbes shift as shrubs invade remnant hill prairies Posted: 11 Mar 2014 09:40 AM PDT Perched high on the bluffs of the big river valleys in the Midwest are some of the last remnants of never-farmed prairie grasslands. These patches, edged by forest, are slowly being taken over by shrubs. A recent study examined the soil microbes on nine patches, also called "balds," that had varying degrees of shrub invasion and found an interesting shift in the composition of the microbial community.

Cancer cells don't take 'drunken' walks through body Posted: 11 Mar 2014 09:38 AM PDT Biologists have believed that cancers cells spread through the body in a slow, aimless fashion, resembling a drunk who can't walk three steps in a straight line. They now know that's true in a flat petri dish, but not in the three-dimensional space of an actual body. This finding is important because it should lead to more accurate results for scientists studying how cancer spreads through the body, often leading to a grim prognosis. To address this dimensional disagreement, the study's authors have produced a new mathematical formula that they say better reflects the behavior of cells migrating through 3D environments.

Cosmetic treatment can open door to bacteria Posted: 11 Mar 2014 07:49 AM PDT Many people have 'fillers' injected into their facial tissue to give them 'bee-stung lips' or to smooth out their wrinkles. Unfortunately, a lot of cosmetic treatment customers experience unpleasant side effects in the form of tender subcutaneous lumps that are difficult to treat and which -- in isolated cases -- have led to lesions that simply will not heal. Research recently published now supports that, despite the highest levels of hygiene, this unwanted side effect is caused by bacterial infection.

California and Arizona amaze with two new species of desert poppy Posted: 11 Mar 2014 07:49 AM PDT Not quite desert roses, two new species of desert poppies from North America amaze with their simple beauty. The newly described plants are found in the deserts of California and Arizona and have a vibrant yellow colored flowers, typical for all the desert dwellers from the Eschscholzia genus of the poppy family.

Speed trap for fish catches domestic trout moving too slow Posted: 11 Mar 2014 07:49 AM PDT Researchers have documented dramatic differences in the swimming ability of domesticated trout and their wilder relatives. The study calls into question the ability of hatcheries to mitigate more than a century of disturbances to wild fish populations.

Personality predicts social learning in wild monkeys: Bold or anxious baboons learn to solve tasks from other baboons Posted: 11 Mar 2014 07:11 AM PDT Baboons learn from other baboons about new food sources -- but only if they are bold or anxious. The results suggest that personality plays a key role in social learning in animals, something previously ignored in animal cognition studies. Researchers examined how personality influenced whether baboons solved foraging tasks and whether they then demonstrated to others how to solve the tasks. They found bolder baboons did both.

Timid jumping spider uses ant as bodyguard Posted: 11 Mar 2014 07:06 AM PDT Ants are the unlikely guardians of jumping spiders in their battle against aggressive spitting spiders. A timid jumping spider uses the scent of ants as a secret weapon to save itself from becoming the somewhat soggy prey of the predatory spitting spider. The downside to this plan is that jumping spiders are also a favorite snack of its very own saviors. To overcome this additional hazard, the spider has made yet another plan in the form of an ant-proof nest.

Exotic plant species alter ecosystem productivity Posted: 11 Mar 2014 07:06 AM PDT Biologists have reported an increase in biomass production in ecosystems colonized by non-native plant species. In the face of climate change, these and other changes to ecosystems are predicted to become more frequent, according to the researchers.

Feeding gut microbiota: Nutrition, probiotics key factors for digestive health Posted: 10 Mar 2014 08:15 AM PDT A healthy and balanced diet, as well as probiotics, have been known to be helpful in preserving gastrointestinal health for quite a long time. But it is only recently that the underlying mechanisms have become somewhat clearer. A rapidly increasing body of knowledge promises to further clarify the effects of our daily food on the gut microbiota and to indicate more targeted applications of probiotics in the near future.

Tricky balancing act: Antibiotics versus the gut microbiota Posted: 10 Mar 2014 08:15 AM PDT Antibiotics are valuable, potentially life-saving tools that have significantly reduced human morbidity and mortality. Unfortunately, antibiotics may also have unintended consequences from their off-target effects that may increase the risk of many long-term conditions. Recent epidemiologic studies have detected a possible link between antibiotic use in childhood and weight gain -- with disruption to the normal gut microbiota considered the most likely cause.

Farm salmon pose clear reproductive threat to wild gene pools, researchers say Posted: 10 Mar 2014 06:09 AM PDT While farmed salmon are genetically different to their wild counterparts, they are just as fertile. This is important information because millions of farmed salmon escape into the wild -- posing threats to wild gene pools. The research team of a new study says farmed salmon should be sterilized to protect wild gene pools.

IBS and bloating: When gut microbiota gets out of balance Posted: 10 Mar 2014 06:09 AM PDT Irritable bowel syndrome belongs to the most widespread diseases in Western countries, causing up to 60 percent of the workload of gastrointestinal physicians. One of the most frequent symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome is bloating, which reduces quality of life considerably as patients perceive it as particularly bothersome. For quite a long time, irritable bowel syndrome was believed to be a primarily psychological condition.

Could sticky cells cause drug resistance in chronic blood cancer? Posted: 10 Mar 2014 06:07 AM PDT Chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) is associated with a specific genetic mutation that results from DNA on different chromosomes breaking off and swapping places. This disrupts genes at the breakpoint and the rejoining point. One of these disrupted genes is called BCR-ABL and drugs that target this mutation have transformed the treatment of CML. However, patients can develop resistance to these drugs, which causes their cancer to return. Now scientists have measured the levels of the BCR-ABL genetic mutation in a cell model of CML. In particular, they separated cells into those that stuck to plastic – "sticky", or adherent, cells – and those non-adherent ones that did not, and looked for differences between the two groups of cells.

Making it easier to plan offshore wind farms: New tool to help development Posted: 10 Mar 2014 06:06 AM PDT When planning an offshore wind farm, it is important to consider the wind, waves and the seabed at the location where the turbines will stand. Researchers have now developed a dedicated tool that gives a combined overview of all the challenges that need to be considered by developers.

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