Nature : Science World Report

Mar 28, 2012 03:45 PM EDT

Afghans Share Unique Genetic Heritage, DNA Analysis Shows

A study by The Genographic Project has found that the majority of all known ethnic Afghans share a unique genetic heritage derived from a common ancestral population that most likely emerged during the Neolithic revolution and the formation of early farming communities

Mar 28, 2012 01:11 PM EDT

Major Networking Opportunity

Like people bustling around busy cities, the thousands of molecules inside our cells are constantly interacting with each other: turning each other on or off, working together, splitting up and networking. Understanding the countless ways in which they do so is a major challenge in biology, but it i...

Mar 28, 2012 11:42 AM EDT

EU Project: Searching for Exotics in the Shrimp Nets

So far the shrimp fisherman Uwe Abken has had little interest in the bycatch in his nets. But recently the fisherman from the East Friesian town of Neuharlingersiel has been taking a closer look.

Mar 28, 2012 11:32 AM EDT

WHOI Researchers, Collaborators Receive $1.4 Million Grant to Study Life in Ocean's Greatest Depths

A team of scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), University of Hawaii, Whitman College and international colleagues will conduct the first systematic study of life in the deepest marine habitat on Earth-ocean trenches, which are regions of the sea floor ranging from 19,685 ...

Mar 28, 2012 11:02 AM EDT

Orangutans in Indonesia's Aceh Forest May Die Out in Weeks

Forest fires and land clearing by palm oil firms could kill off within weeks about 200 orangutans in a forest in western Indonesia, an environmental group said on Wednesday.

Mar 28, 2012 10:40 AM EDT

How to Save Europe's Most Threatened Butterflies

New guidelines on how to save some of Europe's most threatened butterfly species have been published by a team of scientists co-ordinated by Butterfly Conservation Europe. The report covers 29 threatened species listed on the EU Habitats Directive. Each Member State has a responsibility to conserve ...

Mar 28, 2012 10:29 AM EDT

Exploding Dinosaur Hypothesis Implodes

The pregnant ichthyosaur female from Holzmaden (Germany) that perished 182 million years ago puzzled researchers for quite some time: The skeleton of the extinct marine reptile is almost immaculately preserved and the fossilized bones of the mother animal lie largely in their anatomical position. Th...

Mar 27, 2012 04:17 PM EDT

Elusive Long-fingered Frog Found After 62 Years

Herpetologists from the California Academy of Sciences and University of Texas at El Paso discovered a single specimen of the Bururi long-fingered frog (Cardioglossa cyaneospila) during a research expedition to Burundi in December 2011. The frog was last seen by scientists in 1949 and was feared to ...

Mar 27, 2012 03:01 PM EDT

Chemical Microgradients Accelerate Coral Death at the Great Barrier Reef

Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology along with Australian colleagues, have examined corals from the Great Barrier Reef affected by the Black Band Disease and identified the critical parameters that allow this prevalent disease to cause wide mortality of corals around the ...

Mar 27, 2012 01:07 PM EDT

TARA OCEANS Completes 60,000-mile Journey to Map Marine Biodiversity

The two-and-a-half-year TARA OCEANS expedition finishes on 31 March when the ship and crew reach Lorient, France. The arrival completes a journey of 60 000 miles across all the world's major oceans to sample and investigate microorganisms in the largest ecosystem on the planet, reports Eric Karsenti...

Mar 27, 2012 11:32 AM EDT

Oceanographers Develop Method for Measuring the Pace of Life in Deep Sediments

Life deep in the seabed proceeds very slowly. But the slow-growing bacteria living many meters beneath the seafloor play an important role in the global storage of organic carbon and have a long-term effect on climate. A team of scientists from Aarhus University (Denmark) and the University of Rhode...

Mar 27, 2012 10:55 AM EDT

Hammerhead Shark Double Whammy

Identity confusion between a new, yet unnamed shark species, originally discovered off the eastern United States by Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center (NSU-OC) researchers, and its look-alike cousin-the endangered scalloped hammerhead shark-may threaten the survival of both species.