A mass extinction is hard enough for Earth's biosphere to handle, but when you chase it with prolonged oxygen deprivation, the biota ends up with a hangover that can last millions of years.
Such was the situation with the greatest mass extinction in Earth's history 250 million years ago, when 90 percent of all marine animal species were wiped out, along with a huge proportion of plant, animal and insect species on land.
Aurora, Colo. (March 24, 2011)—A research team at the University of Colorado Cancer Center has identified an enzyme that could be used to diagnose colon cancer earlier. It is possible that this enzyme also could be a key to stopping the cancer.
Colon cancer is the third most common cancer in Americans, with a one in 20 chance of developing it, according to the American Cancer Society. This enzyme biomarker could help physicians identify more colon cancers and do so at earlier stages when the cancer is more successfully treated.
In a finding that has global implications for climate research, scientists have discovered that when icebergs cool and dilute the seas through which they pass for days, they also raise chlorophyll levels in the water that may in turn increase carbon dioxide absorption in the Southern Ocean.
An interdisciplinary research team supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) highlighted the research this month in the journal Nature Geosciences.
March 25, 2011 – Approximately five percent of prescriptions submitted by CVS Caremark Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM) members in a 30-day period during 2009 included a "dispense as written" (DAW) designation. This practice – whereby doctors or patients demand the dispensing of a specific brand-name drug and not a generic alternative – costs the health care system up to $7.7 billion annually, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard University, Brigham and Women's Hospital and CVS Caremark.
Despite decades of doctors' reluctance to recommend weight training to pregnant women, a new University of Georgia study has found that a supervised, low-to-moderate intensity program is safe and beneficial.
In some cases, less fit organisms may out-survive their in-shape counterparts, according to a study reported in the March 18 issue of Science. The finding surprised researchers who assumed less fit organisms would be the eventual losers in evolution's fight for survival.
Microbial Ecology professor Richard Lenski of Michigan State University conducted the study with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Using easy-to-understand terms in a revealing video accompanying this release, Lenski describes his results and explains why his study is so unique.
AURORA, Colo. (March 25, 2011) – In one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in partnership with the Harvard School of Global Health have found that people living at higher altitudes have a lower chance of dying from ischemic heart disease and tend to live longer than others.
Kudzu, the plant scourge of the U.S. Southeast. The long tendrils of this woody vine, or liana, are on the move north with a warming climate.
But kudzu may be no match for the lianas of the tropics, scientists have found. Data from sites in eight studies show that lianas are overgrowing trees in every instance.
If the trend continues, these "stranglers-of-the-tropics" may suffocate equatorial forest ecosystems.
Large-scale assessment of the Arctic Ocean: significant increase in freshwater content since 1990s
Many of the mapping and monitoring efforts associated with REDD focus on the big picture of carbon stock and of deforestation trends throughout the tropics. A research expedition just underway, led by scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center, is focusing on the third piece necessary to inform a global REDD mechanism – namely, how do people use the land?
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- In recent years, many airplane manufacturers have started building their planes from advanced composite materials, which consist of high-strength fibers, such as carbon or glass, embedded in a plastic or metal matrix. Such materials are stronger and more lightweight than aluminum, but they are also more difficult to inspect for damage, because their surfaces usually don't reveal underlying problems.
Contrary to popular belief, the biodiversity of a tropical forest may be conserved while its resources are used to support local household livelihoods, according to a new study published in the March 25 issue of Science. But biodiversity and resource use are most likely to successfully co-exist in forests that are managed under systems that receive inputs from local forest users or local communities.
New drugs that specifically target the mutated genes responsible for cancer growth have shown great success in extending the lives of patients, with far fewer side effects than conventional anti-cancer therapies. Unfortunately, many patients become resistant to these drugs due to secondary mutations.
Now, a multidisciplinary team of researchers at UCLA has developed a "roadmap" of the complex signaling processes involved in cancer that could lead to new methods for diagnosing and overcoming such drug resistance.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the cause of AIDS, makes use of the base excision repair pathway when inserting its DNA into the host-cell genome, according to a new study led by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. Crippling the repair pathway prevents the virus from completing this critical step in the retrovirus's life cycle.
In 1964 biologist William Hamilton introduced Inclusive Fitness Theory to predict and explain phenomena ranging from animal behavior to patterns of gene expression. With its many successes, the theory became a cornerstone for modern biology. In August, 2010, Harvard researchers challenged the theory in the prestigious journal, Nature. Now Nature has published sharp rebuttals from scores of scientists, including Edward Allen Herre and William Wcislo, staff scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.