NewsTrust - Biology - Most Recent Stories: News (Mainstream)

Lynn Margulis, Trailblazing Theorist on Evolution, Dies at 73

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Bruce Weber - Nov. 24 (Special Report) - Dr. Margulis was a biologist whose work on the origin of cells helped transform the study of evolution.

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He ANT heavy, he’s my son: Mother shows her strength with a bit of child’s play

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Mail - Sep. 26 (News) - The mighty ant can lift food and building materials 20 times its own bodyweight. But these fascinating photos reveal the softer side of a bug's life.

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Peace of Mind: Near-Death Experiences Now Found to Have Scientific Explanations

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Charles Q. Choi - Sep. 12 (News Report) - Near-death experiences are often thought of as mystical phenomena, but research is now revealing scientific explanations for virtually all of their common features. The details of what happens in near-death experiences are now known widely--a sense of being dead, a feeling that one's "soul" has left the body, a voyage toward a bright light, and a departure to another reality where love and bliss are all-encompassing. Approximately 3 percent of the U.S. population says they have had a near-death experience, according to a Gallup poll. Near-death experiences are reported across cultures, with written records of them dating back to ancient Greece. Not all of these experiences actually coincide with brushes with death-- one study of 58 patients who recounted near-death experiences found 30 were not actually in danger of dying, although most of them thought they were. ...

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8.7 million species exist on Earth, study estimates

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Aug. 23 (News Report) - For centuries scientists have pondered a central question: How many species exist on Earth? Now, a group of researchers has offered an answer: 8.7 million. Although the number is still an estimate, it represents the most rigorous mathematical analysis ye

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Archaeopteryx Knocked From Roost as Original Bird

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Wired - By Danielle Venton - Jul. 28 (News) - Archaeopteryx’s status as the forerunner of modern birds is crumbling in the face of a new, closely-related fossil. The new discovery, a feathered, chicken-sized dinosaur named Xiaotingia, has prompted a fresh look at the dinosaur family tree, casting Archaeopteryx as a bird-like dinosaur rather than dinosaur-like bird.

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The Optimism Bias

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Ali Sharot - Jul. 02 (Special Report) - We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures. We watch our backs, weigh the odds, pack an umbrella. But both neuroscience and social science suggest that we are more optimistic than realistic. On average, we expect things to turn out better than they wind up being. People hugely underestimate their chances of getting divorced, losing their job or being diagnosed with cancer; expect their children to be extraordinarily gifted; envision themselves achieving more than their peers; and overestimate their likely life span (sometimes by 20 years or more). The belief that the future will be much better than the past and present is known as the optimism bias. It abides in every race, region and socioeconomic bracket. Schoolchildren playing when-I-grow-up are rampant optimists, but so are grownups: a 2005 study found that adults over 60 are just as likely to see the glass half full as young adults.

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‘Worms from hell’ unearth possibilities for extraterrestrial life

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Marc Kaufman - Jun. 02 (News Report) - Scientists have found complex, multi-celled creatures living a mile and more below the planetâ€™s surface â€“ raising new possibilities about life on Earth and other planets and moons.

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Environmental groups challenge Shell drilling plan

Tue, 31 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Harry R. Weber - May. 31 (News Report) - Environmental groups asked a federal appeals court Thursday to throw out a U.S. government decision to approve a Shell oil exploration plan that involves five proposed wells under more than 7,000 feet (2,133 meters) of water in the Gulf of Mexico. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement approved the plan in May. The plan also includes three previously approved wells 72 miles (115 kilometers) off Louisiana. Defenders of Wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council claim in a petition filed in the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta that the decision violates the law and that the environment would be harmed if it stands.

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Bubbling sea signals coral threat

Sun, 29 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - By Richard Black - May. 29 (News) - Findings from a "natural laboratory" in seas off Papua New Guinea suggest that acidifying oceans will severely hit coral reefs by the end of the century.

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Is It Ever OK To Drink Your Own Urine?

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Popular Science - By Ryan Bradley - Apr. 21 (Research) - Not really, but urine has been a faddish health drink for centuries nonetheless. Drinking urine for survival is even more harmful, since dehydration makes it less dilute and all those electrolytes and acids appear in greater concentration, making a bad situation worse. Also, it’s gross.

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How antidepressants boost growth of new brain cells

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Scientist - By Jessica Hamzelou - Apr. 17 (News Report) - The first clear evidence of how antidepressant drugs help to boost brain cell formation could lead to better treatments for depression. The hippocampus is one of just two brain regions known to grow new neurons throughout life - a process called neurogenesis. This process is disrupted in people with depression, although it is not known whether this is a cause or symptom of the condition. It is clear, however, that one of the ways that antidepressants work is by boosting neurogenesis in the hippocampus. Christoph Anacker and his colleagues at King's College London have now worked out how they do so. Previous research has shown a link between some antidepressants and stress hormones called glucocorticoids. So Anacker's team decided to test whether the antidepressant sertraline acts on the glucocorticoid receptors of brain cells. They grew human hippocampal progenitor cells in a dish and added sertraline. Ten days later, the cultures showed a 25 per cent greater than expected increase in the number of new neurons.

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How the Penis Lost Its Spikes: Scientific American

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Zoë Corbyn - Mar. 16 (News) - Humans ditched DNA to evolve smooth penises and bigger brains.

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Flu breakthrough promises a vaccine to kill all strains

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Alok Jha - Feb. 07 (News) - Scientists at Oxford University have successfully tested a universal flu vaccine that could work against all known strains of the illness, taking a significant step in the fight against a disease that affects billions of people each year.

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Mass Extinction of Scientists Who Study Species

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Wired - By Craig McClain - Jan. 19 (News Analysis) - Scientists who classify, describe and examine the relationships between organisms are themselves going extinct. The millions of dollars spent globally on technology to catalog species may actually be pushing out the people we rely upon: taxonomists and systematists.

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NASA Reveals Astrobiology Finding in Press Conference

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - By Brad Sylvester - Dec. 02 (News Report) - ContributorNetwork - A NASA astrobiology team, this afternoon, released the details of the breakthrough astrobiology finding in a press conference broadcast over the web on NASA TV. The NASA press conference was first cryptically announced on Monday, saying only that the announcement related to the field of astrobiology and would affect the search for extraterrestrial life.. A team of NASA astrobiologists have discovered a novel form of life that is able to use arsenic in place of phosphorus in its chemical building blocks. In other words, the astrobiologists say, the DNA of this newly discovered organism is completely foreign, or alien, if you will, to every other living thing on Earth, despite the fact that it was discovered in Mono Lake in California.

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Copenhagen Repeat?: Failure Looms for Global Biodiversity Conference

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Der Spiegel - By Christoph Seidler - Oct. 18 (News) - The world is gathered in Japan this week in an effort to put an end to the extinction of plant and animal species across the globe. But while everyone agrees that biodiversity is important, the conference may fail anyway -- partially because the Americans don't seem interested.

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Why do we eat chilli?

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Jason Goldman - Sep. 14 (Special Report) - Chillies burn our tongues, make our eyes water and bring us out in a sweat. Jason Goldman looks at a peculiarly human form of masochism.

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Digital Overload: Your Brain On Gadgets

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

NPR - Aug. 24 (Special Report) - The average person today consumes almost three times as much information as what the typical person consumed in 1960, according to research at the University of California, San Diego. And The New York Times reports that the average computer user checks 40 websites a day and can switch programs 36 times an hour. "It's an onslaught of information coming in today," says Times technology journalist Matt Richtel. "At one time a screen meant maybe something in your living room. But now it's something in your pocket so it goes everywhere — it can be behind the wheel, it can be at the dinner table, it can be in the bathroom. We see it everywhere today." Richtel has spent the past several months researching the toll technology and "information juggling" are taking on our lives — and our brains. His series "Your Brain On Computers" describes how multitasking on computers and digital gadgets affects the way people process information — and how quickly they can then become distracted.

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New microbe discovered eating Gulf oil spill

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - Aug. 24 (News Report) - A newly discovered type of oil-eating microbe is suddenly flourishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists discovered the new microbe while studying the underwater dispersion of millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf following the explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

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Deepwater Horizon oil plume more than twice all natural seeps in the northern Gulf of Mexico

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The New Orleans Times-Picayune - By Mark Schleifstein - Aug. 19 (News Report) - A Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute research team found an extensive plume of droplets of oil about four-fifths of a mile below the surface and stretching 22 miles southwest of the Deepwater Horizon well site deep below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico during a 10-day research cruise at the end of June.

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Giant Underwater Oil Plume Found in Gulf of Mexico :

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Discovery News - By Larry O'Hanlon - Aug. 19 (News Report) - * Scientists have found an enormous plume of hydrocarbons in the deep waters around BP's blown out well. * The finding highlights how little is known about how long oil could linger in the gulf. * Microbial activity appears low, suggesting bacteria have been slow to consume the oil.

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Mississippi River pours as much dispersant into the Gulf of Mexico as BP

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The New Orleans Times-Picayune - By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune - Aug. 11 (News Report) - Every day during the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, contractors sprayed an average 140,000 pounds of Corexit dispersant onto oil slicks on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and into the oil being released a mile below.

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Why Johnny Can't Name His Colors

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Scientific American - By Melody Dye - Jul. 17 (News Report) - No, the kid's probably not color blind. A trick for teaching children colors at a younger age -- and why it is otherwise so hard for them.

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Alpha, beta, gamma: The language of brainwaves

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New Scientist - By Helen Thomson - Jul. 12 (Special Report) - So what exactly is a brainwave? Despite the way it is bandied about in everyday chit-chat, the term "brainwave" has a specific meaning in neuroscience, referring to rhythmic changes in the electrical activity of a group of neurons. Each neuron has a voltage, which can change when ions flow in or out of the cell. This is normally triggered by stimulation from another cell, and once a neuron's voltage has reached a certain point, it too will fire an electrical signal to other cells, repeating the process. When many neurons fire at the same time, we see these changes in the form of a wave, as groups of neurons are all excited, silent, then excited again, at the same time.

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Oil spill hits world's biggest fish

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - Jul. 03 (News Report) - Whale sharks, the biggest fish in the sea, may be the latest victims of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported this week that four of the polka-dotted creatures, stretching about 12m long, had been spotted swimming alongside oil in search of food.

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