Ancient DNA Identifies Donkey Ancestors, People Who Domesticated Them From Today's Issue Genetic investigators say the partnership between people and the ancestors of today’s donkeys was sealed not by monarchs trying to establish kingdoms, but by mobile, pastoral people who had to recruit animals to help them survive the harsh Saharan landscape in northern Africa more than 5,000 years ago.
Biologists Find That Red-blooded Vertebrates Evolved Twice, Independently From the 07.29.10 Issue Biologists have found convergent evolution of a key physiological innovation that traces back through the two deepest branches of the vertebrate family tree.
In The 'Neck' Of Time: Scientists Unravel Another Key Evolutionary Trait From the 07.28.10 Issue Scientists now believe that the neck gave humans so much freedom of movement that it played a surprising and major role in the evolution of the human brain.
Shade-grown Coffee Supports Native Bees, Helps Maintain Biodiversity From the 07.27.10 Issue Shade-grown coffee farms support native bees that help maintain the health of some of the world's most biodiverse tropical regions, according to a study by a University of Michigan biologist and a colleague at the University of California, Berkeley.
Study Reveals A Secret To The Success Of Notorious, Disease-Causing Microbes From the 07.26.10 Issue A new study identifies the mechanism used by several types of common, virulent microbes to infect plants and cause devastating blights. Microbes using this infection mechanism include fungi that are currently causing wheat rust epidemics in Africa and Asia, and a class of parasitic algae, called oomycetes, that resulted in the Irish potato blight of the 19th Century. These microbes remain an agricultural scourge today.
Researchers Discover Water On The Moon Is Widespread, Similar To Earth's From the 07.23.10 Issue Scientists have discovered that water on the moon is more widespread than previously thought--on the outside and inside of the moon--with some similarities to water in volcanic systems on Earth.
Long-lived Salamanders Offer Clues To Aging From the 07.22.10 Issue Blind salamanders once thought to be baby dragons can live at least as long as most people, scientists now find. Adults of this species live nearly 69 years on average, with a predicted maximum age of more than 100 years.
Frog Killer Caught In The Act From the 07.21.10 Issue A killer has been caught in the act: the first before-and-after view of an infectious disease that led to an amphibian die-off has been released by the scientists who tracked it. Like a wave, incidence of the fungal disease that wipes out Central American frogs--chytridiomycosis--advances through the region's highlands at a rate of about 30 kilometers per year.
Mayan King's Tomb Discovered In Guatemala From the 07.20.10 Issue A well-preserved tomb of an ancient Mayan king has been discovered in Guatemala by a team of archaeologists. The tomb is packed with carvings, ceramics, textiles, and the bones of six children, who may have been sacrificed at the time of the king’s death.
Tiny Marine Microbes Exert Influence On Global Climate From the 07.19.10 Issue New research indicates that the interactions of microscopic organisms around a particular organic material may alter the chemical properties of the ocean-influencing global climate by affecting cloud formation in the atmosphere.
New Primate Fossil Found In Saudi Arabia From the 07.16.10 Issue A new Catarrhine primate fossil discovered in Saudi Arabia suggests the evolutionary spilt between Old World monkeys and humans occurred older than previously thought, around 29 million years ago. The discovery challenges the theory that the groups diverged around 5 million years earlier than the date of the recent fossil find.
Sea Levels Rising In Parts Of Indian Ocean From the 07.15.10 Issue A new study finds that sea levels in parts of the Indian Ocean, including the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java, appear to be at least partly a result of human-induced increases of atmospheric greenhouse gases.
Expecting The Unexpected Does Not Improve One's Chances Of Seeing It From the 07.14.10 Issue What if you knew that an unexpected event was likely to occur? A new study finds that those who have this kind of information are no better than others (they may be even worse) at noticing other unexpected events.
What if you knew that an unexpected event was likely to occur? A new study finds that those who have this kind of information are no better than others (they may be even worse) at noticing other unexpected events.
High-performance Engineering Used To Design Facial Bone Replacements From the 07.13.10 Issue Scientists are using the engineering technology behind the creation of high-performance aircraft components to design 3-D models for the replacement of delicate and complex facial bones lost to cancer surgery or trauma.
Humans First Acquired Malaria Parasites 2.5 Million Years Ago From the 07.12.10 Issue Scientists have determined the evolutionary timeline for the microscopic parasites that cause one of the world's most widespread infectious diseases: malaria. Having an understanding of the origins of the lineages of such pathogens, or disease-causing organisms, is fundamental to understanding emerging diseases, according to the researchers.
Geoscientists Find Clues To Why First Sumatran Earthquake Was Deadlier Than Second From the 07.09.10 Issue An international team of geoscientists has uncovered geological differences between two segments of an earthquake fault that may explain why the 2004 Sumatra Boxing Day Tsunami was so much more devastating than a second earthquake-generated tsunami three months later. This could help solve what has been a lingering mystery for earthquake researchers.
Lone Whales Shout To Overcome Noise From the 07.08.10 Issue Just like people in a bar or other noisy location, North American right whales increase the volume of their calls as environmental noise increases; and just like humans, at a certain point, it may become too costly to continue to shout, according to marine and acoustic scientists.
Borne On The Wing: Avian Influenza Risk In U.S. Wild Songbirds Mapped From the 07.07.10 Issue Scientists have discovered that 22 species of passerines--songbirds and perching birds--in the contiguous U.S. are carriers of low-pathogenicity avian influenza.
A Star Is Born ... But How? From the 07.06.10 Issue Created in the first three minutes after the Big Bang, hydrogen and helium gave rise to all other elements in the universe. Stars made this possible. Through nuclear fusion, stars generated elements such as carbon, oxygen, magnesium and all the other raw materials necessary for making planets and ultimately life. But how did the first stars come to be? It all hinges on hydrogen atoms coming together to form hydrogen molecules. New research sheds light on this process.
Tibetan Adaptation To High Altitude Occurred In Less Than 3,000 Years From the 07.02.10 Issue A comparison of the genomes of 50 Tibetans and 40 Han Chinese shows that ethnic Tibetans split off from the Han less than 3,000 years ago and since then rapidly evolved a unique ability to thrive at high altitudes and low oxygen levels. The genome-wide comparison uncovered more than 30 genes with DNA mutations that have become more prevalent in Tibetans than Han Chinese, nearly half of which are related to how the body uses oxygen.
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