Group items tagged

Join Bill Nye as he delves into the Greatest Discoveries in Biology. This program explains how the early use of microscopes and Anton Van Leeuwenhock's accidental discovery set the stage for studying microorganisms. It explores 19th century research breakthroughs and covers cell division, sex cell division, and cell differentiation. Learn how the discovery of mitochondria has helped us understand reproduction, ancestral lines, and cancer; how cells convert sugars, fats, and proteins into energy in the Krebs Cycle; and how they communicate through neurotransmitters and hormones. Explore the process of photosynthesis and how the discovery of the ecosystem process bridged biology with physics, chemistry, and other fields of science that describe the environment.

Dna Molecular Biology Visualizations - Wrapping And Replication.mpg

According to a paper in PLoS Computational Biology, "PageRank" can be applied to the study of food webs.

"Certain trees are able to clone themselves, which raises the tantalising possibility that they could effectively "live forever". But a study published in the journal PLoS Biology has dashed that hope. "

"Greetings citizen scientists, budding biohackers, and backyard explorers! We think you'll find the Make: Science Room a fun and useful resource. We hope you'll use it as your DIY science classroom, virtual laboratory, and a place to share your projects, hacks, and laboratory tips with other amateur scientists. Your Make: Science Room host is Robert Bruce Thompson, author of Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture. (Make: Books, 2008) and Illustrated Guide to Forensics Investigations: Uncover Evidence in Your Home, Lab, or Basement (not yet published). We'll be drawing material from these titles first, but will soon branch out into biology, astrononmy, Earth sciences, and other disciplines."

"A new study on cellphone safety has found that carrying a phone in a shirt or pants pocket exceeds radiation exposure guidelines spelled out by the the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and that children absorb twice as much cellphone radiation as adults. The study published in the journal Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine criticizes the way phone manufacturers measure levels of microwave radiation, and calls for the industry standard to be scrapped."

PhysOrg.com™ is a leading web-based science, research and technology news service which covers a full range of topics. These include physics, earth science, medicine, nanotechnology, electronics, space, biology, chemistry, computer sciences, engineering, mathematics and other sciences and technologies. Launched in 2004, PhysOrg's readership has grown steadily to include 1.75 million scientists, researchers, and engineers every month. PhysOrg publishes approximately 100 quality articles every day, offering some of the most comprehensive coverage of sci-tech developments world-wide. Quancast 2009 includes PhysOrg in its list of the Global Top 2,000 Websites. PhysOrg community members enjoy access to many personalized features such as social networking, a personal home page set-up, RSS/XML feeds, article comments and ranking, the ability to save favourite articles, a daily newsletter, and other options.

Fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena from the PhET project at the University of Colorado.

"A survey of about 600 scientists published this week found that a majority think it's time to consider conservation triage - focusing resources on animals that can realistically be saved, and giving up on the rest. Those that fall into the too-expensive-to-save category, it has been suggested, might include the panda and the tiger."

"Todd Rider, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is developing an antiviral drug called Draco, which has proven successful against all 15 viruses to which it has been applied in lab trials with human tissue and mice. These include the common cold, H1N1 or swine flu, a polio virus, dengue fever and the notorious and fatal Ebola virus. To produce it, Mr Rider took an unusual approach, "wiring together" two natural proteins - one that detects virus entry, and another that acts as a suicide switch that kills the infected cell."

"Coffee addicts have an excuse for blaming their genes. According to new research, genetic factors could explain why some people consume large amounts of caffeine. US researchers scanned genetic variations in over 40,000 individuals to search for links with high caffeine intake."

"They think they are of a kind never before discovered. The well-preserved organisms from the Ordovician period, which began about 495m years ago, lived in what is now the town of Llandrindod Wells, which was partially under water. Scientists believe they shed new light on how ocean communities have evolved."

"Researchers from the University of Michigan discovered that a session of aerobic exercise increases storage of fat in muscle, which actually improves insulin sensitivity. Low insulin sensitivity, or insulin resistance, is an impaired ability of the body to take up sugar from the blood, which can lead to high blood sugar and diabetes."

"Dr. Levine, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator at the medical center, decided to focus on one specific health effect of exercise -- the ability of exercise to prevent blood sugar abnormalities in the face of a high-fat diet. Her mouse study provides the first evidence that exercise stimulates autophagy."

"In the few, limited tests conducted outside the United States, BPS shows estrogenic activity - not as strong as BPA, but not a good sign. BPS is now used in the United States to make PES (polyethersulfone) plastic. Some baby bottles marketed as BPA-free use PES plastic. Bisphenols are shaping up to be a dysfunctional family of chemicals. BPAF is BPA's fluorinated twin. It is used in electronic devices, optical fibers and more. New studies have found BPAF to be an even more potent endocrine disrupter than BPA. Bisphenol B and Bisphenol F are other variants used instead of BPA in various products. In the limited testing done on those chemicals in other countries, scientists found Bisphenol B to be more potent than BPA in stimulating breast cancer cells. "

"A dizzying array of research suggests alcohol can have both good and bad effects, but making sense of such studies all comes down to who you are and how much you drink. That point was driven across Tuesday with the release of a U.S. study suggesting women who consume three to six alcoholic beverages a week face a small increased risk of breast cancer, but it's not enough of a danger to stop drinking. The study in the Journal of the American Medical Association involved 105,986 nurses who were tracked for three decades."

"The onset of wrinkles, muscle wasting and cataracts has been delayed and even eliminated in mice, say researchers in the US. It was done by "flushing out" retired cells that had stopped dividing. They accumulate naturally with age. The scientists believe their findings could eventually "really have an impact" in the care of the elderly."

"In an enormous display of survival of the fittest, the forests of the future are taking a new shape. In a new report, scientists outline the impact that a changing climate will have on which tree species can survive, and where. The study suggests that many species that were once able to survive and thrive are losing their competitive footholds, and opportunistic newcomers will eventually push them out."

"The team from the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) surveyed the composition of plant species within five-metre SGS in 10 fields and found the set-aside land resulted in a "sharp decrease" in the number of weeds encroaching into the cropped area."

"Adults who ate canned soup daily showed a jump in levels of the plasticizer BPA in their urine, according to a small study. The study of 75 people in Tuesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association is one of the first to quantify BPA levels in humans after eating canned foods compared with eating freshly prepared ingredients. Bisphenol A is an industrial chemical used to make polycarbonate plastic for water bottles and food containers as well as the protective lining in metal cans."