Smithsonian scientists find the frog legs trade may facilitate spread of pathogens Most countries throughout the world participate in the $40-million-per-year culinary trade of frog legs in some way, with 75 percent of frog legs consumed in France, Belgium and the United States. view more (2009-11-20)
Proton's party pals may alter its internal structure A recent experiment at the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has found that a proton's nearest neighbors in the nucleus of the atom may modify the proton's internal structure. view more (2009-11-19)
How much water does the ocean have? The calculation of variations in the sea level is relatively simple. It is by far more complicated to then determine the change in the water mass. view more (2009-11-13)
Swift XMM-Newton Satellites Tune Into a Middleweight Black Hole While astronomers have studied lightweight and heavyweight black holes for decades, the evidence for black holes with intermediate masses has been much harder to come by. view more (2009-11-11)
Forget all about it: Traumatic memories can be erased It is well known that fear memories are permanent. However, a recent paper in Science, evaluated by three Faculty Members for F1000, reports an extraordinary finding that supports the use of a drug to control recollections of traumatic incidents. view more (2009-11-10)
Scientists visualize how bacteria talk to one another Using imaging mass spectrometry, researchers at the University of California, San Diego have developed tools that will enable scientists to visualize how different cell populations of cells communicate. view more (2009-11-09)
The last European hadrosaurs lived in the Iberian Peninsula Spanish researchers have studied the fossil record of hadrosaurs, the so-called 'duck-billed' dinosaurs, in the Iberian Peninsula for the purpose of determining that they were the last of their kind to inhabit the European continent before disappearing during the K/T extinction event that occurred 65.5 million years ago. view more (2009-11-06)
Losing your tongue Elder Tommy George has not spoken his aboriginal language of Kuku Thaypan for three years, since his brother died. "It might die in the throat, but it stays alive in the heart," he said to the Queensland Courier-Mail in June, 2009. view more (2009-11-02)
Getting on 'the GABA receptor shuttle' to treat anxiety disorders There are increasingly precise molecular insights into ways that stress exposure leads to fear and through which fear extinction resolves these fear states. view more (2009-10-22)
Clemson researchers say algae key to mass extinctionss Algae, not asteroids, were the key to the end of the dinosaurs, say two Clemson University researchers. Geologist James W. Castle and ecotoxicologist John H. Rodgers have published findings that toxin producing algae were a deadly factor in mass extinctions millions of years ago. view more (2009-10-20)
West Antarctic ice sheet may not be losing ice as fast as once thought New ground measurements made by the West Antarctic GPS Network (WAGN) project, composed of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, The Ohio State University, and The University of Memphis, suggest the rate of ice loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet has been slightly overestimated. view more (2009-10-20)
Catching a killer one spore at a time A workshop at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama has dramatically improved the ability of conservationists and regulatory agencies to monitor the spread of chytridiomycosis-one of the deadliest frog diseases on Earth. view more (2009-10-20)
Killer algae a key player in mass extinctions Supervolcanoes and cosmic impacts get all the terrible glory for causing mass extinctions, but a new theory suggests lowly algae may be the killer behind the world's great species annihilations. view more (2009-10-20)
Do 3 meals a day keep fungi away? The fact that they eat a lot - and often - may explain why most people and other mammals are protected from the majority of fungal pathogens, according to research from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. view more (2009-10-16)
Plant fossils give first real picture of earliest Neotropical rainforests A team of researchers including a University of Florida paleontologist has used a rich cache of plant fossils discovered in Colombia to provide the first reliable evidence of how Neotropical rainforests looked 58 million years ago. view more (2009-10-16)
Conservation targets too small to stop extinction Conservation biologists are setting their minimum population size targets too low to prevent extinction. view more (2009-10-14)
The first neotropical rainforest was home of the Titanoboa Smithsonian researchers working in Colombia's Cerrejón coal mine have unearthed the first megafossil evidence of a neotropical rainforest. view more (2009-10-13)
Ethnic background may be associated with diabetes risk Fat and muscle mass, as potentially determined by a person's ethnic background, may contribute to diabetes risk, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). view more (2009-10-06)
A new day dawned fast In 1980, Luis Alvarez and his collaborators stunned the world with their discovery that an asteroid impact 65 million years ago probably killed off the dinosaurs and much of the the world's living organisms. But ever since, there has been an ongoing debate about how long it took for life to return to the devastated planet and for ecosystems to... view more... (2009-10-05)
Coral bleaching increases chances of coral disease Mass coral bleaching has devastated coral colonies around the world for almost three decades. Now scientists have found that bleaching can make corals more susceptible to disease and, in turn, coral disease can exacerbate the negative effects of bleaching. view more (2009-10-02)
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