Biosentients - Science Biology… etc

World Wildlife Fund researchers have just announced the discovery of 11 new animal and plant species in a remote area in central Vietnam. They say this underscores the importance of conservation efforts in the ancient tropical forests of the region. Within the ancient tropical forests of a region known as Vietnam’s “Green Corridor,” researchers found a snake, five orchids, and two butterflies as well as three other plants new to science and exclusive to the Annamites Mountain Range. Ten other plant species, including four orchids, are still under examination but also appear to be new species……..

New protocol and software developments are helping farmers put the precision back in precision agriculture by making it easier for growers to use previously ineffectual soil and environmental data to manage their crops. Historically, gaps between scientists and producers, as well as lack of capacity to transform data into relevant decisions, have all contributed to data languishing on hard drives rather than being used to inform growing decisions……..

Variation in plants and animals gives us a rich and robust assemblage of foods, medicines, industrial materials and recreation activities. But human activities are eliminating biological diversity at an unprecedented rate. A new UC Davis study offers clues to how these losses relate to one another — information that is essential as researchers and land managers strive to protect the remaining natural variation……..

While prescription medications work successfully to cure an ailment in some people, in others the same dose of the same drug can cause an adverse reaction or no response at all. As per a research team led by Sean Cutler, an assistant professor of plant cell biology at UC Riverside, such variation in drug responses can be analyzed by studying much simpler organisms like plants……..

Stephan C. Schuster and Webb Miller of Penn State, working with Thomas Gilbert from Copenhagen and a large international consortium, discovered that hair shafts provide an ideal source of ancient DNA — a better source than bones and muscle for studying the genome sequences of extinct animals. Their research achievement, described in a paper would be reported in the journal Science on Sept. 28, includes the sequencing of entire mitochondrial genomes from 10 individual woolly mammoths……..

Scientists at the University of Illinois have used an innovative approach to reveal the molecular basis of altruistic behavior in wasps. The research team focused on the expression of behavior-related genes in Polistes metricus paper wasps, a species for which little genetic data was available when the study was begun. Their findings appear today online in Science Express……..

High levels of nutrients used in farming and ranching activities fuel parasite infections that have caused highly publicized frog deformities in ponds and lakes across North America, as per a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. The study showed increased levels of nitrogen and phosphorus cause sharp hikes in the abundance and reproduction of a snail species that hosts microscopic parasites known as trematodes, said Pieter Johnson of the University of Colorado, Boulder. The nutrients stimulate algae growth, increasing snail populations and the number of infectious parasites released by snails into ponds and lakes. The parasites subsequently form cysts in the developing limbs of tadpoles causing missing limbs, extra limbs and other severe malformations, Johnson said……..

Interbreeding between the California Tiger Salamander–which is a native, endangered species–and the invasive Barred Tiger Salamander has produced a swarm of hybrid salamanders that is more likely to survive than either parent species, as per a new study. Found in Salinas, California, the swarm of hybridized salamanders may comprise the first population of sustainable hybrids created by an interbreeding involving an endangered species, and is among the first known sustainable populations of a hybrid animal……..

A new UC Davis study not only has important findings for the future of California tiger salamanders, but also contradicts prevailing scientific thought about what happens when animal species interbreed. The study, by former UC Davis doctoral student Benjamin Fitzpatrick (now on the faculty of University of Tennessee, Knoxville) and professor Bradley Shaffer, was published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ online edition……..

The Smithsonians National Zoo recently acquired 12,000 new animalsmicroscopic Elkhorn coral larvae harvested by National Zoo researchers in Puerto Ricoas part of an international collaborative program to raise the threatened species. National Zoo researchers hope to one day return the animals, once they are grown, to their wild ocean habitat……..