News Articles

New work on fruit fly genomics suggests new ways to look at the much larger human genome, and gives insights into the role of adaptation in evolution.
In two recent papers, researchers led by David Begun and Charles Langley, professors of evolution and ecology at the UC Davis Center for Population Biology, compared the whole genomes of several individuals of the fly Drosophila simulans to close relatives D. melanogaster and D. yakuba.
The same approach could be extended to the much larger genomes of humans and our close relatives, Begun said, showing which changes in the genome are uniquely human.

Copper is an essential trace element found in many living organisms, but at high levels it is potentially harmful and when discharged at high concentration into natural water resources could pose a serious environmental threat to marine ecosystems.

An Israeli-Jordanian-U.S. cooperative project aimed at measuring air quality in the area between the neighboring southern cities of Aqaba in Jordan and Eilat in Israel has been launched by scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem together with scientists from the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Administration (ASEZA) and the Desert Research Institute of Reno, Nevada, in the US.
The one-month, intensive, transboundary regional air quality research study began earlier this month, with the Israeli team operating a mobile laboratory located north of Eilat, and the Jordanian researchers performing continuous measurements of air quality in Aqaba.

Babies driving robots. It sounds silly but it is actually the focus of innovative research being conducted at the University of Delaware to help infants with special needs.
Two researchers – James C. (Cole) Galloway, associate professor of physical therapy, and Sunil Agrawal, professor of mechanical engineering – have outfitted kid-size robots to provide mobility to children who are unable to fully explore the world on their own.
The work is important because much of infant development, both of the brain and behavior, emerges from the thousands of experiences each day that arise as babies independently move and explore their world.

The scientific community is progressively experiencing a greater interest in environmentally friendly energy generation technologies, and their suitable applications, such is the case of hydrogen fuel cells applied to aeronautics.
This contamination free technology has taken a crucial role in the development of modern aeronautics and the present objective is the realization of fully electrical planes. Hydrogen fuel cells are currently being tested as propulsion system in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles by companies like Boeing, where all the advantages it could offer are being taken into consideration, from its efficiency to the possibility to recycle the water generated as by-product, maybe for use in the plane’s toilets.

An appetite-suppressing chemical also improves glucose tolerance and lowers insulin levels in obese and diabetic mice, researchers report in the November issue of Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press. Importantly, the researchers found, those effects of the drug occurred at a low dose that had no influence on feeding behavior, body weight, activity level, or energy expenditure.
The decades-old drug compound, known as m-chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP), triggers serotonin receptors in the brain. The findings suggest a new strategy for treating the rising tide of people with type 2 diabetes via targeting the so-called serotonin 2C (5-HT2C) receptors.

Researchers at Harvard University and Pennsylvania State University have invented a technology, inspired by nature, to reduce the accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by human emissions.
By electrochemically removing hydrochloric acid from the ocean and then neutralizing the acid by reaction with silicate (volcanic) rocks, the researchers say they can accelerate natural chemical weathering, permanently transferring CO2 from the atmosphere to the ocean. Unlike other ocean sequestration processes, the new technology does not further acidify the ocean and may be beneficial to coral reefs.

Scientists can now measure how full or hungry a mouse feels, thanks to a new technique which uses imaging to reveal how neurons behave in the part of the brain which regulates appetite.
Researchers hope the technique, which uses magnetic resonance imaging, will enable a far greater understanding of why certain people become obese when others do not, and why different people have different appetites. The new study, led by researchers from Imperial College London, is described in a paper published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
It had previously been very difficult to measure satiety, which is the psychological feeling of being full and satisfied rather than physical fullness.

Why do people live in places like southern California where homes intermingle with wooded areas and the risk of wildfire is so great? Leading social scientists have a surprising answer: because the emotional benefits interfere with their ability to assess the risks.
Recent fire activity in the state of California supports this unusual theory offered by researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). According to the U.S.

Taking a page from nature, a team of researchers have developed a method to enhance removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and place it in the Earth's oceans for storage.
Unlike other proposed ocean sequestration processes, the new technology does not make the oceans more acid and may be beneficial to coral reefs. The process is a manipulation of the natural weathering of volcanic silicate rocks.
"The technology involves selectively removing acid from the ocean in a way that might enable us to turn back the clock on global warming," says Kurt Zenz House, graduate student in Earth and planetary sciences, Harvard University. "Essentially, our technology dramatically accelerates a cleaning process that Nature herself uses for greenhouse gas accumulation."

Obesity is a well known risk factor for prostate, breast and colon cancer, but recent studies have shown that a protein responsible for generating fat cells also plays an important role in cancer. Researchers at the Genome Institute of Singapore have conducted, for the first time, a genome-wide analysis of how the protein, called perixosome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARg), turns on various genes related to obesity.
Simply suppressing the protein entirely could prevent the generation of adipocytes – the precursors to fat cells – the researchers say, but it would decrease the protein’s beneficial properties.

Researchers at the University of Reading, School of Pharmacy have developed an important new technique to study one of the most common causes of premature birth and prenatal mortality.
Dr Che Connon, a Research Councils UK Fellow in Stem Cells and Nanomaterials, and his team used a powerful X-ray beam to examine tiny structures within the protective sac - amniotic membrane - which surrounds the developing baby.
This beam can resolve structures far smaller than a light or electron microscope.