Global Warming New York | Search results for "identify"

Wandering the aisles of a supermarket several years ago, one of us (Hebert) marveled at how the store could keep track of the array of merchandise simply by examining the varying order of thick and thin lines that make up a product’s barcode. Why, he mused, couldn’t the unique ordering of the four nucleic acids in a short strand of DNA be mined in a similar way to identify the legions of species on earth? Ever since Carl Linnaeus began systematically classifying all living things 250 years ago, biologists have looked at various features--color, shape, even behavior--to identify animals and plants. In the past few decades, researchers have begun to apply the genetic information in DNA to the task. But both classical and modern genetic methods demand great expertise and eat up huge amounts of time. Using just a small section of the DNA--something more akin to the 12-digit barcode on products--would require far less time and skill. [More] The X Chromosome and the Case against Monogamy Researchers report genetic evidence bolstering the socially contentious idea that polygyny--the mating practice where some males dominate reproduction by fathering children with several women--was the norm for sexual behavior throughout human history and prehistory. Because polygyny means other men father few or no children, the study, published today in PLoS Genetics, also shows that, on average, women bequeath more genes to their offspring than men do.  [More]

Tags: dna, genetic, behavior, identify, barcode

“Wasteland” conjures up visions of dusty desolation where life is fleeting and harsh--if it exists at all. Oceans, too, have their inhospitable pockets. Scientists are discovering that climate change--and not just fertilizer from farm use--may be spurring the emergence of barren underwater landscapes in coastal waters. Expanding dead zones not only spell trouble for biodiversity, but they also threaten the commercial fisheries of many nations. Dead zones are not new; they form seasonally in economically vital ecoystems worldwide, including the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay. Agricultural runoff sparks many of these die-offs; increased use of nitrogen fertilizers has doubled the number of lifeless pockets every decade since the 1960s, resulting in 405 dead zones now dotting coastlines globally. [More] Bar Code of Life: DNA Tags Help Classify Animals Wandering the aisles of a supermarket several years ago, one of us (Hebert) marveled at how the store could keep track of the array of merchandise simply by examining the varying order of thick and thin lines that make up a product’s barcode. Why, he mused, couldn’t the unique ordering of the four nucleic acids in a short strand of DNA be mined in a similar way to identify the legions of species on earth? Ever since Carl Linnaeus began systematically classifying all living things 250 years ago, biologists have looked at various features--color, shape, even behavior--to identify animals and plants. In the past few decades, researchers have begun to apply the genetic information in DNA to the task. But both classical and modern genetic methods demand great expertise and eat up huge amounts of time. Using just a small section of the DNA--something more akin to the 12-digit barcode on products--would require far less time and skill. [More]

Tags: dna, dead, zones, pockets, identify

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Tom Friedman discusses his new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--And How It Can Renew America. Plus, we'll test your knowledge about some recent science in the news. Web sites mentioned in this episode include www.thomaslfriedman.com Podcast Transcription [More] Animal Intelligence and the Evolution of the Human Mind As far as we know, no dog can compose music, no dolphin can speak in rhymes, and no parrot can solve equations with two unknowns. Only humans can perform such intellectual feats, presumably because we are smarter than all other animal species--at least by our own definition of intelligence. Of course, intelligence must emerge from the workings of the three-pound mass of wetware packed inside our skulls. Thus, researchers have tried to identify unique features of the human brain that could account for our superior intellectual abilities. But, anatomically, the human brain is very similar to that of other primates because humans and chimpanzees share an ancestor that walked the earth less than seven million years ago. [More]

Tags: human, intelligence, intellectual, animal, tom

As far as we know, no dog can compose music, no dolphin can speak in rhymes, and no parrot can solve equations with two unknowns. Only humans can perform such intellectual feats, presumably because we are smarter than all other animal species--at least by our own definition of intelligence. Of course, intelligence must emerge from the workings of the three-pound mass of wetware packed inside our skulls. Thus, researchers have tried to identify unique features of the human brain that could account for our superior intellectual abilities. But, anatomically, the human brain is very similar to that of other primates because humans and chimpanzees share an ancestor that walked the earth less than seven million years ago. [More] Are Malthus's Predicted 1798 Food Shortages Coming True? (Extended version) In 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus famously predicted that short-term gains in living standards would inevitably be undermined as human population growth outstripped food production, and thereby drive living standards back toward subsistence. We were, he argued, condemned by the tendency of population to grow geometrically while food production would increase only arithmetically. [More]

Tags: human, intelligence, food, living, brain

The accelerating pace of climate warming in the earth’s polar regions is spurring a new sense of scientific urgency. This past February 28 a camera onboard the NASA satellite Aqua caught a Manhattan-size floating piece of ice shelf in the act of disintegrating. Slabs continued to calve and break up throughout the next 10 days; by March 8 the Wilkins ice shelf, comprising some 5,000 square miles of floating ice off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, had lost 160 square miles of ice to the Pacific Ocean. The breakup is the latest of seven major Antarctic ice-shelf collapses in the past 30 years, after some 400 years of relative stability. They include the detachment of a 1,300-square-mile chunk from the Lars­en B ice shelf, the disintegration of giant ice shelves in the Prince Gustav Channel and the Larsen Inlet, and the disappearance of ice shelves known as Jones, Larsen A, Muller and Wordie. All of them corroborate temperature measurements showing that the western Antarctic Peninsula--now known to insiders as the Banana Belt--is warming up faster than anyplace else on earth. [More] News Bytes of the Week--On the Other Hand: The Scent of a Lemur Scientists solve mystery of patients with Alzheimer's plaques but no diseaseThe only way physicians can confirm that someone suffered from Alzheimer's disease is if an autopsy reveals a protein called amyloid beta (Aß) accumulated in a postmortem brain. But doctors occasionally find these plaques in the brains of deceased people who showed no Alzheimer's symptoms. Now Harvard Medical School researchers say they know why: Aß comes in several varieties, but apparently only one of them causes the memory-ravaging effects of Alzheimer's. The team writes in the journal Nature Medicine that they injected four varieties of the protein into the brains of rats to determine which versions cause Alzheimer's-like symptoms. Much to their surprise, only one did: a two-molecule form of the protein that is dissolvable in water. This type of Aß not only curtailed memory, but also destroyed about half of the cells in the rats' brains. By identifying the disease-causing variant of the protein, researchers can now refocus their efforts on a more specific target to fight Alzheimer's. [More]

Tags: ice, alzheimer, shelf, brain, protein

The accelerating pace of climate warming in the earth’s polar regions is spurring a new sense of scientific urgency. This past February 28 a camera onboard the NASA satellite Aqua caught a Manhattan-size floating piece of ice shelf in the act of disintegrating. Slabs continued to calve and break up throughout the next 10 days; by March 8 the Wilkins ice shelf, comprising some 5,000 square miles of floating ice off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, had lost 160 square miles of ice to the Pacific Ocean. The breakup is the latest of seven major Antarctic ice-shelf collapses in the past 30 years, after some 400 years of relative stability. They include the detachment of a 1,300-square-mile chunk from the Lars­en B ice shelf, the disintegration of giant ice shelves in the Prince Gustav Channel and the Larsen Inlet, and the disappearance of ice shelves known as Jones, Larsen A, Muller and Wordie. All of them corroborate temperature measurements showing that the western Antarctic Peninsula--now known to insiders as the Banana Belt--is warming up faster than anyplace else on earth. [More] News Bytes of the Week--On the Other Hand: The Scent of a Lemur Scientists solve mystery of patients with Alzheimer's plaques but no diseaseThe only way physicians can confirm that someone suffered from Alzheimer's disease is if an autopsy reveals a protein called amyloid beta (Aß) accumulated in a postmortem brain. But doctors occasionally find these plaques in the brains of deceased people who showed no Alzheimer's symptoms. Now Harvard Medical School researchers say they know why: Aß comes in several varieties, but apparently only one of them causes the memory-ravaging effects of Alzheimer's. The team writes in the journal Nature Medicine that they injected four varieties of the protein into the brains of rats to determine which versions cause Alzheimer's-like symptoms. Much to their surprise, only one did: a two-molecule form of the protein that is dissolvable in water. This type of Aß not only curtailed memory, but also destroyed about half of the cells in the rats' brains. By identifying the disease-causing variant of the protein, researchers can now refocus their efforts on a more specific target to fight Alzheimer's. [More]

Tags: ice, alzheimer, shelf, brain, protein

As far as we know, no dog can compose music, no dolphin can speak in rhymes, and no parrot can solve equations with two unknowns. Only humans can perform such intellectual feats, presumably because we are smarter than all other animal species--at least by our own definition of intelligence. Of course, intelligence must emerge from the workings of the three-pound mass of wetware packed inside our skulls. Thus, researchers have tried to identify unique features of the human brain that could account for our superior intellectual abilities. But, anatomically, the human brain is very similar to that of other primates because humans and chimpanzees share an ancestor that walked the earth less than seven million years ago. [More] Are Malthus's Predicted 1798 Food Shortages Coming True? (Extended version) In 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus famously predicted that short-term gains in living standards would inevitably be undermined as human population growth outstripped food production, and thereby drive living standards back toward subsistence. We were, he argued, condemned by the tendency of population to grow geometrically while food production would increase only arithmetically. [More]

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The accelerating pace of climate warming in the earth’s polar regions is spurring a new sense of scientific urgency. This past February 28 a camera onboard the NASA satellite Aqua caught a Manhattan-size floating piece of ice shelf in the act of disintegrating. Slabs continued to calve and break up throughout the next 10 days; by March 8 the Wilkins ice shelf, comprising some 5,000 square miles of floating ice off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, had lost 160 square miles of ice to the Pacific Ocean. The breakup is the latest of seven major Antarctic ice-shelf collapses in the past 30 years, after some 400 years of relative stability. They include the detachment of a 1,300-square-mile chunk from the Lars­en B ice shelf, the disintegration of giant ice shelves in the Prince Gustav Channel and the Larsen Inlet, and the disappearance of ice shelves known as Jones, Larsen A, Muller and Wordie. All of them corroborate temperature measurements showing that the western Antarctic Peninsula--now known to insiders as the Banana Belt--is warming up faster than anyplace else on earth. [More] News Bytes of the Week--On the Other Hand: The Scent of a Lemur Scientists solve mystery of patients with Alzheimer's plaques but no diseaseThe only way physicians can confirm that someone suffered from Alzheimer's disease is if an autopsy reveals a protein called amyloid beta (Aß) accumulated in a postmortem brain. But doctors occasionally find these plaques in the brains of deceased people who showed no Alzheimer's symptoms. Now Harvard Medical School researchers say they know why: Aß comes in several varieties, but apparently only one of them causes the memory-ravaging effects of Alzheimer's. The team writes in the journal Nature Medicine that they injected four varieties of the protein into the brains of rats to determine which versions cause Alzheimer's-like symptoms. Much to their surprise, only one did: a two-molecule form of the protein that is dissolvable in water. This type of Aß not only curtailed memory, but also destroyed about half of the cells in the rats' brains. By identifying the disease-causing variant of the protein, researchers can now refocus their efforts on a more specific target to fight Alzheimer's. [More]

Tags: ice, alzheimer, shelf, brain, protein

The accelerating pace of climate warming in the earth’s polar regions is spurring a new sense of scientific urgency. This past February 28 a camera onboard the NASA satellite Aqua caught a Manhattan-size floating piece of ice shelf in the act of disintegrating. Slabs continued to calve and break up throughout the next 10 days; by March 8 the Wilkins ice shelf, comprising some 5,000 square miles of floating ice off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, had lost 160 square miles of ice to the Pacific Ocean. The breakup is the latest of seven major Antarctic ice-shelf collapses in the past 30 years, after some 400 years of relative stability. They include the detachment of a 1,300-square-mile chunk from the Lars­en B ice shelf, the disintegration of giant ice shelves in the Prince Gustav Channel and the Larsen Inlet, and the disappearance of ice shelves known as Jones, Larsen A, Muller and Wordie. All of them corroborate temperature measurements showing that the western Antarctic Peninsula--now known to insiders as the Banana Belt--is warming up faster than anyplace else on earth. [More] News Bytes of the Week--On the Other Hand: The Scent of a Lemur Scientists solve mystery of patients with Alzheimer's plaques but no diseaseThe only way physicians can confirm that someone suffered from Alzheimer's disease is if an autopsy reveals a protein called amyloid beta (Aß) accumulated in a postmortem brain. But doctors occasionally find these plaques in the brains of deceased people who showed no Alzheimer's symptoms. Now Harvard Medical School researchers say they know why: Aß comes in several varieties, but apparently only one of them causes the memory-ravaging effects of Alzheimer's. The team writes in the journal Nature Medicine that they injected four varieties of the protein into the brains of rats to determine which versions cause Alzheimer's-like symptoms. Much to their surprise, only one did: a two-molecule form of the protein that is dissolvable in water. This type of Aß not only curtailed memory, but also destroyed about half of the cells in the rats' brains. By identifying the disease-causing variant of the protein, researchers can now refocus their efforts on a more specific target to fight Alzheimer's. [More]

Tags: ice, alzheimer, shelf, brain, protein

Scientists solve mystery of patients with Alzheimer's plaques but no diseaseThe only way physicians can confirm that someone suffered from Alzheimer's disease is if an autopsy reveals a protein called amyloid beta (Aß) accumulated in a postmortem brain. But doctors occasionally find these plaques in the brains of deceased people who showed no Alzheimer's symptoms. Now Harvard Medical School researchers say they know why: Aß comes in several varieties, but apparently only one of them causes the memory-ravaging effects of Alzheimer's. The team writes in the journal Nature Medicine that they injected four varieties of the protein into the brains of rats to determine which versions cause Alzheimer's-like symptoms. Much to their surprise, only one did: a two-molecule form of the protein that is dissolvable in water. This type of Aß not only curtailed memory, but also destroyed about half of the cells in the rats' brains. By identifying the disease-causing variant of the protein, researchers can now refocus their efforts on a more specific target to fight Alzheimer's. [More] Updates: Whatever Happened to Protecting Cells from Radiation? Ozone Recovery, Warmer AntarcticaThe Antarctic ozone hole that forms every spring has kept that continent's interior cold even as the rest of the world has warmed over the past few decades [see "A Push from Above"; SciAm, August 2002]. Thanks to the global ban on chlorofluorocarbons, stratospheric ozone levels there are slowly recovering. A repaired hole, however, could speed Antarctic ice melting and change weather patterns, according to a computer model by Judith Perlwitz of the University of Colorado at Boulder and her colleagues. With more ozone, the lower stratosphere would absorb more ultraviolet light and warm up by as much as nine degrees Celsius. That in turn would break down circulation patterns that trap cold air over Antarctica's interior, making the continent heat up. The changed patterns would also make Australia warmer and drier, and South America could get wetter. Such ozone details may need to be worked into global climate models, most of which have neither incorporated such effects nor included enough of the stratosphere. The journal Geophysical Research Letters published the study on April 26. [More]

Tags: alzheimer, ozone, protein, brain, patterns

Scientists solve mystery of patients with Alzheimer's plaques but no diseaseThe only way physicians can confirm that someone suffered from Alzheimer's disease is if an autopsy reveals a protein called amyloid beta (Aß) accumulated in a postmortem brain. But doctors occasionally find these plaques in the brains of deceased people who showed no Alzheimer's symptoms. Now Harvard Medical School researchers say they know why: Aß comes in several varieties, but apparently only one of them causes the memory-ravaging effects of Alzheimer's. The team writes in the journal Nature Medicine that they injected four varieties of the protein into the brains of rats to determine which versions cause Alzheimer's-like symptoms. Much to their surprise, only one did: a two-molecule form of the protein that is dissolvable in water. This type of Aß not only curtailed memory, but also destroyed about half of the cells in the rats' brains. By identifying the disease-causing variant of the protein, researchers can now refocus their efforts on a more specific target to fight Alzheimer's. [More] Updates: Whatever Happened to Protecting Cells from Radiation? Ozone Recovery, Warmer AntarcticaThe Antarctic ozone hole that forms every spring has kept that continent's interior cold even as the rest of the world has warmed over the past few decades [see "A Push from Above"; SciAm, August 2002]. Thanks to the global ban on chlorofluorocarbons, stratospheric ozone levels there are slowly recovering. A repaired hole, however, could speed Antarctic ice melting and change weather patterns, according to a computer model by Judith Perlwitz of the University of Colorado at Boulder and her colleagues. With more ozone, the lower stratosphere would absorb more ultraviolet light and warm up by as much as nine degrees Celsius. That in turn would break down circulation patterns that trap cold air over Antarctica's interior, making the continent heat up. The changed patterns would also make Australia warmer and drier, and South America could get wetter. Such ozone details may need to be worked into global climate models, most of which have neither incorporated such effects nor included enough of the stratosphere. The journal Geophysical Research Letters published the study on April 26. [More]

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