Nature : Science World Report

Mar 27, 2012 10:33 AM EDT

The Black Queen Hypothesis: A New Evolutionary Theory

Microorganisms can sometimes lose the ability to perform a function that appears to be necessary for their survival, and yet they still somehow manage to endure and multiply. How can this be? The authors of an opinion piece appearing in mBioÂ®, the online open-access journal of the American Societ...

Mar 27, 2012 09:50 AM EDT

Genetic Study Unravels Ancient Links Between African and European Populations

Large numbers of people moved between Africa and Europe during recent and well-documented time periods such as the Roman Empire, the Arab conquest, and the slave trade, and genetic evidence of these migrations lives on in Europeans today. But were there more ancient migrations? In a study published ...

Mar 27, 2012 06:41 AM EDT

Size Matters: Large Marine Protected Areas Work for Dolphins

Ecologists in New Zealand have shown for the first time that Marine Protected Areas - long advocated as a way of protecting threatened marine mammals - actually work. Their study, based on 21 years' monitoring and published today in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology, reveal...

Mar 26, 2012 04:27 PM EDT

Human Noise Has Ripple Effects on Plants

A growing body of research shows that birds and other animals change their behavior in response to human noise, such as the din of traffic or the hum of machinery.

Mar 26, 2012 03:21 PM EDT

New Synthetic Biology Technique Boosts Microbial Production of Diesel Fuel

Significant boosts in the microbial production of clean, green and renewable biodiesel fuel has been achieved with the development of a new technique in synthetic biology by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). This new technique - dubbed a dynamic...

Mar 26, 2012 10:47 AM EDT

The Hawai'i Undersea Research Laboratory Launches Online Deep-sea Animal Identification Guide

With over 30 years of diving to the deep-sea in manned submersibles, scientists at the Hawai'i Undersea Research Laboratory have seen a plethora of organisms most people will never have a chance to see. As one of the few institutions that creates detailed logs of all video produced with the submersi...

Mar 26, 2012 09:30 AM EDT

Desert Footprints Reveal Ancient Origins of Elephantsâ€™ Social Lives

A cluster of ancient footprints in the Arabian desert offers the clearest evidence yet for the early origins of modern elephants' social structure, according to a Yale-led research team.

Mar 25, 2012 01:53 PM EDT

Australian Mammal Extinctions Tied to Human Hunting, Not Climate Change

The disappearance roughly 40,000 years ago of dozens of large mammals in Australia - including rhinoceros-sized wombats and tapir-like marsupials - was caused by human hunting and not by climate change, according to a new study by Australian scientists.

Mar 23, 2012 04:35 PM EDT

A Shiny New Tool for Imaging Biomolecules

At the heart of the immune system that protects our bodies from disease and foreign invaders is a vast and complex communications network involving millions of cells, sending and receiving chemical signals that can mean life or death. At the heart of this vast cellular signaling network are interact...

Mar 23, 2012 03:21 PM EDT

Researchers Develop New Technique to Assess Diversity of Plant Species from Afar

By analyzing vegetation information collected by satellites over time instead of for just one day, scientists in the Michigan State University Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS) have developed a novel procedure to assess the composition of plant species in an area.

Mar 23, 2012 02:41 PM EDT

Researchers Discover Why Humans Began Walking Upright

Most of us walk and carry items in our hands every day. These are seemingly simple activities that the majority of us don't question. But an international team of researchers, including Brian Richmond at the George Washington University, have discovered that human bipedalism, or walking upright, may...

Mar 23, 2012 01:40 PM EDT

Huge Hamsters and Pint-Sized Porcupines Thrive on Islands

From miniature elephants to monster mice, and even Hobbit-sized humans, size changes in island animals are well-known to science. Biologists have long believed that large animals evolving on islands tend to get smaller, while small animals tend to get bigger, a generalization they call "the island r...