Teacher Yvonne: December 2013

Tuesday 24 December 2013

Clues to How Plants Evolved to Cope With Cold

These are deciduous maple leaves, recently senesced as winter approaches in Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC.

Haemonchus contortus (Barber Pole) worms in situ in a sheep gut.

Brain Connections May Explain Why Girls Mature Faster

Dec. 19, 2013 — Newcastle University scientists have discovered that as the brain re-organizes connections throughout our life, the process begins earlier in girls which may explain why they mature faster during the teenage years.

You Are What Your Father Eats: Father's Diet before Conception Plays Crucial Role in Offspring's Health, Study Suggests

Dec. 10, 2013 — Mothers get all the attention. But a study led by McGill researcher Sarah Kimmins suggests that the father's diet before conception may play an equally important role in the health of their offspring. It also raises concerns about the long-term effects of current Western diets and of food insecurity.

Dog eye tracking human face

Clam Cleanup - Biologists Clam Up Waterways To Determine Sources Of Pollution

January 1, 2009 — Biologists are able to determine the sources of toxins in water by using clams as pollutant traps. Clams naturally clean water by feeding absorbing toxins in their tissues as they draw in water. By placing the clams downstream of industrial parks and highways, they can be analyzed for pollutants. Biologists open the clams after exposure to these waters and detach them from their shells-- various lab tests reveal contaminants in the waterway. Many of our streams and rivers are contaminated with pollutants like pesticides, lead, arsenic and PCBs. It's a problem that's costly to clean up. Scientists are using a new, inexpensive way to fix the problem.

A small portion of one of the fields from the Supernova Legacy Survey showing SNLS-06D4eu and its host galaxy (arrow). The supernova and its host galaxy are so far away that both are a tiny point of light that cannot be clearly differentiated in this image. The large, bright objects with spikes are stars in our own galaxy. Every other point of light is a distant galaxy.

Neanderthals Buried Their Dead, New Research of Remains Concludes

Skeleton of a prehistoric man (stock image). Neanderthals buried their dead, an international team of archaeologists has concluded after a 13-year study of remains discovered in southwestern France. Their findings confirm that burials took place in Western Europe prior to the arrival of modern humans.

National Geography - Deadliest Animals

Reference : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc9Z0aWEfIc

Monday 16 December 2013

Tripped Tongues Teach Speech Secrets

Dec. 4, 2013 — Tongue twisters are not just fun to say; it turns out that these sound-related slip-ups can also open windows into the brain's speech-planning processes.

In their study, the scientists discovered a heightened sensitivity to odors in the mice traumatized by shock. When these mice smelled the odor associated with the electrical shocks, the amount of neurotransmitter -- chemicals that carry communications between nerve cells -- released from the olfactory nerve into the brain was as big as if the odor were four times stronger than it actually was.

The Mystery of Lizard Breath: One-Way Air Flow May Be 270 Million Years Old

The upper image is a colorized CT scan showing different airways in the lung of a monitor lizard. The bottom image shows how air flows in a mostly one-way loop through the lizard’s lung, as measured by sensors implanted as part of a University of Utah study. Note how the air flows through adjacent lateral airways (blue and purple) by moving through perforations in the airways’ walls.

Research by UTHealth neurosurgeon Nitin Tandon, M.D., and his colleagues is furthering the understanding of how the brain brakes impulsive behavior.

Jet-Lagged and Forgetful? It's No Coincidence: Memory, Learning Problems Persist Long After Periods of Jet Lag

New research shows that chronic jet lag can cause long-term brain changes that lead to memory and learning problems for at least a month after return to a normal schedule

Differences in Educational Achievement Owe More to Genetics Than Environment, Finds Study of UK Students

Dec. 11, 2013 — The degree to which students' exam scores differ owes more to their genes than to their teachers, schools or family environments, according to new research from King's College London published today in PLOS ONE. The study, which took place in the UK, looked at students' scores for their GCSE's (General Certificate of Secondary Education), a UK-wide examination at the end of compulsory education at 16 years old.

Sleep loss causes changes to the system that regulates our immune defence. Some of these changes appear to be long-term, and may contribute to the development of cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes.

New Results from Inside the Ozone Hole

Suomi NPP

Heron at sunset. The color vision of birds stops working considerably earlier in the course of the day than was previously believed, in fact, in the twilight. Birds need between 5 and 20 times as much light as humans to see colors.

Chameleons and Language

Chameleons Use Colorful Language to Communicate: Chameleons' Body Regions Are 'Billboards' for Different Types of Information

Chameleon calyptratus

Bioaccumulation

When herbivores consume plants containing pesticide residues, some may be retained by the body and be stored in fatty tissues. Over time, this builds up the levels within its body. When consumers eat herbivores, they accumulate these residues from the many that they have eaten. This bioaccumulation continues as you go up the food chain. This may result in dangerous or lethal levels in the top consumers, normally carnivores. The top consumer could be a human. Heavy metals can also accumulate in this way.

Reference : http://www.beep.ac.uk/content/224.0.html

Monday 9 December 2013

The Heart's Own Stem Cells Play Their Part in Regeneration

Nov. 28, 2013 — Up until a few years ago, the common school of thought held that the mammalian heart had very little regenerative capacity. However, scientists now know that heart muscle cells constantly regenerate, albeit at a very low rate.

Stem cells play a part in heart regeneration. This image of the fluorescence microscope depicts a section of the heart tissue of a mouse. The green colouring of the cells in the middle shows that the cell originated from a so-called Sca1 stem cell. (Credit: © MPI for Heart and Lung Research)

Reference: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131128103957.htm

What would happen if long bones were solid?

Long bones are hollow and their cross sectional shape is a circle. Engineers will confirm that this structure is difficult to bend or twist. Under load walking, running and lifting, our bones do flex a little, but their basic shape helps to prevent them from grossly deforming or collapsing. If the central cavity of long bones were solid, bones would be considerably heavier, requiring much larger muscles to create movement. The added weight of extra muscle would compound the problem. If we could remodel long bones by using the same amount of bone to create a solid but thinner structure, the bone would have the same weight-bearing capacity, but its ability to resist twisting or bending would be reduced. Instead of flexing under load, thin bones would tend to fracture more easily. Another consequence would be that the fat store that currently exists in the central hollow area of long bones would need to be relocated. Blood production, however, would continue as now, since blood is produced in tiny cavities within the bony tissue itself at the ends of long bones, rather than in the central hollow marrow.

Reference: http://www.aphb.uwa.edu.au/research

Paper and more paper.....

Tuesday 3 December 2013

Strange but true..

Looking at the Sun Can Trigger a Sneeze

Have you ever emerged from a matinee movie, squinted into the sudden burst of sunlight and sneezed uncontrollably? Up to a third of the population will answer this question with an emphatic "Yes!" (whereas nearly everyone else scratches their head in confusion). Sneezing as the result of being exposed to a bright light is known as the photic sneeze reflex. It is a genetic quirk that is still unexplained by science, even though it has intrigued some of history's greatest minds.