A Blog Around The Clock

Mouse Lemur Species Not Determined By Coat Color:

A team of researchers has found that nocturnal lemurs thought to belong to different species because of their strikingly different coat colors are not only genetically alike, but belong to the same species. The team, which includes Laurie R. Godfrey, professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and UMass graduate student Emilienne Rasoazanabary, has just published its findings in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.
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The lemurs they tested had three different coat colors and lived in different types of forest locations in southern Madagascar — classic characteristics of separate nocturnal species. Surprisingly, the researchers found that although the lemurs appeared to be different species because they were visually distinct, they did not differ genetically. According to the sequence of this specific gene, all belong to the same previously identified species, Microcebus griseorufus.
The authors also show that lemurs with each of the three different coat colors could be found in all three geographical locations in similar proportions. They note that lemurs are nocturnal animals and tend to depend on auditory cues, or smell, more than on visual cues to recognize each other. They say that this could explain why a certain amount of variation in coat color does not affect species recognition in the mouse lemurs.

Cool-Water Wash For Eggs Can Help Prevent Microbial Contamination:

Using cooler water to wash shell eggs during a second washing can help cool them quicker. This reduces the potential of foodborne pathogen growth both inside the eggs and on the eggshell surface, according to scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

To Catch A Pest, Scientists Fine-Tune Traps:

Airborne volatile compounds that attract plant-feeding insects to alfalfa could help growers control cotton pests with fewer pesticides.
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Another study combined the chemical cues with a green-light-emitting diode (LED), which imitated a visual cue that attracts plant-feeding insects. Alone, the LED drew several females, but when combined with volatile or synthetic cues, it attracted both males and females at all stages of maturity. In some tests, the LED-synthetic compound combination drew positive responses of 80 percent or higher.

Bisexual Fruit Flies Show New Role For Neurochemical:

Fruit flies’ ability to discern one sex from another may depend on the number of receptors on the surface of nerve cells, and the number of receptors is controlled by levels of a ubiquitous brain chemical, University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have found.
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A UIC research team led by David Featherstone, assistant professor of biological sciences, has discovered that receptor numbers are controlled by the brain’s level of glutamate. But it is not the same glutamate that most neuroscientists think about — the neurotransmitter that moves in message packets across the synapse. Instead, it is what Featherstone calls ambient extracellular glutamate, which just floats around the nervous system and has generally been ignored because no one knew where it came from or what it was doing.
For years, scientists failed to identify glutamate as a key neurotransmitter precisely because there was so much of it.
“It made no sense,” said Featherstone. “People figured you couldn’t use glutamate to send messages because there was too much glutamate background noise in the brain. It turns out that this background noise plays an important part in regulating information transfer.”
Featherstone and his lab team found that glia cells are the source of the excess ambient glutamate. Along with neurons, these poorly understood “support” cells fill the brain.

New Species Of Lizard Found In Borneo:

Chris Austin, assistant curator of herpetology at LSU’s Museum of Natural Science, or LSUMNS, and adjunct professor in biological sciences, recently discovered a new species of lizard while conducting field research in Borneo.

Sleep Disturbances, Nightmares Are Common Among Suicide Attempters:

In the first known report of its kind, a study published in the January 1st issue of the journal SLEEP finds that sleep disturbances are common among suicide attempters, and that nightmares are associated with suicidality.

Narcolepsy May Be Caused By Environmental Exposures:

In a possible contradiction to common belief that a person’s body mass index, immune responses and stressful life events are factors that may cause narcolepsy, a comprehensive review published in the January 1st issue of the journal SLEEP finds that, as with other diseases characterized by selective cell loss, narcolepsy may be caused by environmental exposures before the age of onset in genetically susceptible individuals.

High Aflatoxin Levels In Wild Bird Feed:

Wild birdseed contained higher levels of aflatoxins and other mycotoxins than any other kind of pet food analyzed in studies done around the world, a new review of those studies reports in an article scheduled for the Dec. 27 issue of ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Link Between Insomnia And Hypersomnia, Depression In Children:

According to a study published in the January 1st issue of the journal SLEEP, sleep-disturbed children are more severely depressed and have more depressive symptoms and comorbid anxiety disorders compared with children without sleep disturbance. To ensure the most effective care, parents of sleep-disturbed children are advised to first consult with the child’s pediatrician, who may issue a referral to a sleep specialist for comprehensive testing and treatment.

Zebrafish Study Yield Novel Genes Critical In Organ Development:

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have identified a group of novel genes that are critical in organ development. The scientists studied the roles of genes in the zebrafish secretome. This group of genes makes proteins that are located on the surface or outside of cells in the body, and are responsible for directing “patterning” in the body, or ensuring that cells divide, differentiate and migrate to properly form vital organs in the correct places during development.

Climate Experts Search For Answers In The Oceans:

By absorbing half of the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, the oceans have a profound influence on climate. However, their ability to take up this carbon dioxide might be impaired as a result of climate change. To determine their response to global warming, ESA has backed two projects that provide systematic data on key oceanic variables – colour and temperature.

What Crawls Beneath: Ground Spider Diversity Linked To Healthy Habitats:

None of Takesha Henderson’s discoveries are named Charlotte, but they are weaving a new chapter in Texas entomology. Her graduate studies at Texas A&M University have led to the discovery of 25 new spiders in Brazos County and one species found for the first time in Texas.

Do Galaxies Follow Darwinian Evolution?:

Using VIMOS on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, a team of French and Italian astronomers have shown the strong influence the environment exerts on the way galaxies form and evolve. The scientists have for the first time charted remote parts of the Universe, showing that the distribution of galaxies has considerably evolved with time, depending on the galaxies’ immediate surroundings. This surprising discovery poses new challenges for theories of the formation and evolution of galaxies.

U.S. Proposes Listing Polar Bears As Threatened Species:

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne has announced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act and initiating a comprehensive scientific review to assess the current status and future of the species.

To Elude Bats, A Moth Keeps Its Hearing In Tune:

Current understanding of the co-evolution of bats and moths has been thrown into question following new research reported in the journal Current Biology. Dr James Windmill from the University of Bristol, UK, has shown how the Yellow Underwing moth changes its sensitivity to a bat’s calls when the moth is being chased. And in case there is another attack, the moth’s ear remain tuned in for several minutes after the calls stop.

Adults Living With Children Eat More Fat Than Do Other Adults:

Adults living with children eat more saturated fat — the equivalent of nearly an entire frozen pepperoni pizza each week — than do adults who do not live with children, according to a University of Iowa and University of Michigan Health System study.

Sex Ends As Seasons Shift And Kisspeptin Levels Plummet:

A hormone implicated in the onset of human puberty also appears to control reproductive activity in seasonally breeding rodents, report Indiana University Bloomington and University of California at Berkeley scientists in the March 2007 issue of Endocrinology. The paper is now accessible online via the journal’s rapid electronic publication service. The researchers present evidence that kisspeptin, a recently discovered neuropeptide encoded by the KiSS-1 gene, mediates the decline of male Siberian hamsters’ libido and reproduction as winter approaches and daylight hours wane.

Research Upsetting Some Notions About Honey Bees:

Genetic research, based on information from the recently released honey bee genome, has toppled some long-held beliefs about the honey bee that colonized Europe and the U.S.
According to research published recently in Science, an international professional journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the four most common subspecies of honey bee originated in Africa and entered Europe in two separate migrations, said Dr. Spencer Johnston, entomologist with the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station and one of the authors of the article.
A large number of different bee species exist in Asia, where it had long been thought the honey bee originated, Johnston said.
“Their origin in Africa was suggested in other studies, but our result shows it dramatically to be true,” he said.

Researchers Discover New Species Of Fish In Antarctic:

What’s 34 centimeters (13.39 inches) long, likes the cold and has an interorbital pit with two openings? The answer is Cryothenia amphitreta, a newly discovered Antarctic fish discovered by a member of a research team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Complexity Constrains Evolution Of Human Brain Genes:

Despite the explosive growth in size and complexity of the human brain, the pace of evolutionary change among the thousands of genes expressed in brain tissue has actually slowed since the split, millions of years ago, between human and chimpanzee, an international research team reports in the December 26, 2006, issue of the journal, PLOS Biology.

How Many Genes Does It Take To Learn? Lessons From Sea Slugs:

Scientists analyzing the genomics of a marine snail have gotten an unprecedented look at brain mechanisms, discovering that the neural processes in even a simple sea creature are far from sluggish. At any given time within just a single brain cell of sea slug known as Aplysia, more than 10,000 genes are active, according to scientists writing in Friday’s (Dec. 29, 2006) edition of the journal Cell. The findings suggest that acts of learning or the progression of brain disorders do not take place in isolation – large clusters of genes within an untold amount of cells contribute to major neural events.

Watching With Intent To Repeat Ignites Key Learning Area Of Brain:

Watch and learn. Experience says it works, but how? University of Oregon researchers have seen the light, by imaging the brain, while test subjects watched films of others building objects with Tinker Toys. As detailed in the Dec. 20 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, found that when a person watches someone else perform a task with the intention of later replicating the observed performance, motor areas of the brain are activated in a fashion similar to that with accompanies actual movement.