Biosentients - Science Biology… etc

The number of times that natural selection has pulled eyespots from its magic hat tells us that humans are not the only animals for whom a face is a ………

A report in Nature has announced that the first marsupial genome has been sequenced. Tarjei Mikkelsen of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass and team sequenced the 3,475 megabase genome of the South American grey short-tailed opossum, Monodelphis domestica. The opossum genome appears to contain about 20,000 protein-coding genes, the authors found, and the vast majority of these are also found in placental mammals. Apparently most of the differences between marsupial and placental mammals comes from junk….. ahem….. non-coding sequences, not proteins. It provides more evidence the main ………

A hundred years since Russian microbiologist Elie Metschnikow first discovered the invertebrate immune system, researchers are only just beginning to understand its complexity. Presenting their findings at a recent European Science Foundation (ESF) conference, researchers showed that invertebrates have evolved elaborate ways to fight disease……..

This is an extremely humorous print advertisement campaign lBuenos Aires Zoo announcing the arrival of kangaroos. This campaign was launched almost two years back in Argentina. The campaign aims at announcing the arrival of kangaroos using a light and indirect approach. The advertisements are showing lion and orangutan with their black eyes explaining the menacing arrival of the new guest. The advertisements are indicative in nature and to some extent a bit difficult to understand the message of the campaign. ………

A researcher for Washington University in St. Louis, along with colleagues at the Saint Louis Zoo and Saint Louis University are tracking timber rattlesnakes in west St. Louis County and neighboring Jefferson County. They are investigating how developing subdivisions invade the snakes’ turf and affect the reptiles……..

One of the world’s rarest, most secretive birds has emerged from the jungle with two loud calls. The Sumatran ground cuckoo, found only on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, was captured by a trapper and handed over to a team of Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) biologists. The biologists created the world’s first recording of the bird’s scream-like call……..

Forest researchers at Oregon State University have used genetic modification to successfully manipulate the growth in height of trees, showing that its possible to create miniature trees that look similar to normal trees but after several years of growth may range anywhere from 50 feet tall to a few inches……..

Here’s a pollution-control tip from nature: Deep inside a flooded mine in Wisconsin, researchers from several institutions including the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered a world in which bacteria emit proteins that sweep up metal nanoparticles into immobile clumps. Their finding may lead to innovative ways to remediate subsurface metal toxins……..

Not so long ago, the difficult-to-sequence, highly repetitive, gene-poor DNA found in regions of chromosomes known as heterochromatin was called “junk.” Like dark matter in the universe, the true nature of heterochromatin was unknown. Now members of the Drosophila Heterochromatin Genome Project (DHGP), headed by Gary Karpen of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, are approaching a complete assembly, mapping, and functional analysis of those portions (other than simple repeats) of the heterochromatic DNA of Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly. The results confirm that heterochromatin is far from mere junk……..

Scientists at the University of Leeds have warned that global warming is a major threat to the gannet, a species known for its stable populations and constant breeding success. In a paper published in Marine Ecology Progress Series, Dr Keith Hamer of the University’s Faculty of Biological Sciences reports that diminishing fish stocks around gannets’ natural habitats - caused partly by an increase in sea temperature - are forcing birds to search further afield in search of food for their young……..