ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Diving shrews: Heat before you leap
• Bees can 'turn back time,' reverse brain aging
• Motion sensors detect horse lameness earlier than veterinarians
• Genetic 911: Cells' emergency systems revealed
• Giraffes are living proof that cells' pressure matters
• Pakistan's national mammal makes comeback
• West coast of North America experiencing decreasing trends in salmon spawning
• Global warming favors proliferation of toxic cyanobacteria
• Hidden portals in Earth's magnetic field
• Fish learn to cope in a high carbon dioxide world, new study suggests
• Novel vaccine for strain of foot-and-mouth disease
• Social bats pay a price with new fungal disease: Study determines which bats are headed for extinction
• Two species fused to give rise to plant pest a few hundred years ago
• Searching for an ancient syphilis DNA in newborns
• The big sleep: How do you anesthetize a hippopotamus?
• Rare map related to America‘s 'birth certificate' discovered in Munich University Library
• Warmer Baltic Sea may promote harmful algal blooms

Diving shrews: Heat before you leap Posted: 03 Jul 2012 04:01 PM PDT How does the world's smallest mammalian diver survive icy waters to catch its prey? A recent study of American water shrews has surprised researchers by showing that the animals rapidly elevate body temperature immediately before diving into cold water.

Bees can 'turn back time,' reverse brain aging Posted: 03 Jul 2012 02:25 PM PDT Scientists have discovered that older honey bees effectively reverse brain aging when they take on nest responsibilities typically handled by much younger bees. While current research on human age-related dementia focuses on potential new drug treatments, researchers say these findings suggest that social interventions may be used to slow or treat age-related dementia.

Motion sensors detect horse lameness earlier than veterinarians Posted: 03 Jul 2012 01:26 PM PDT Equine veterinarians have developed a way to detect lameness using a motion detection system called the "Lameness Locator." Now, researchers have found that the Lameness Locator can detect lameness earlier than veterinarians using the traditional method of a subjective eye test.

Genetic 911: Cells' emergency systems revealed Posted: 03 Jul 2012 01:17 PM PDT Toxic chemicals wreak havoc on cells, damaging DNA and other critical molecules. A new study reveals how a molecular emergency-response system shifts the cell into damage-control mode and helps it survive such attacks by rapidly producing proteins that counteract the harm.

Giraffes are living proof that cells' pressure matters Posted: 03 Jul 2012 01:15 PM PDT A model that describes dividing cells within human tissues from the perspective of physicists could help further the understanding of cancer growth. Physicists have explored the relative impact of the mechanical pressure induced by dividing cells in biological tissues. This approach complements traditional studies on genetic and biochemical signalling mechanisms to explain experimental observations of how biological tissues evolve.

Pakistan's national mammal makes comeback Posted: 03 Jul 2012 01:14 PM PDT The markhor – a majestic wild goat species – is making a remarkable comeback in Pakistan due to conservation efforts.

West coast of North America experiencing decreasing trends in salmon spawning Posted: 03 Jul 2012 11:29 AM PDT The number of adult sockeye salmon produced per spawner has been decreasing over the last decade or more along the western coast of North America, from Washington state up through British Columbia and southeast Alaska.

Global warming favors proliferation of toxic cyanobacteria Posted: 03 Jul 2012 11:26 AM PDT Cyanobacterial populations, primitive aquatic microorganisms, are frequently-encountered in water bodies especially in summer. Their numbers have increased in recent decades and scientists suspect that global warming may be behind the phenomenon, and are particularly concerned by the increase in toxic cyanobacteria, which affect human and animal health.

Hidden portals in Earth's magnetic field Posted: 03 Jul 2012 11:05 AM PDT A favorite theme of science fiction is "the portal" -- an extraordinary opening in space or time that connects travelers to distant realms. A good portal is a shortcut, a guide, a door into the unknown. If only they actually existed. It turns out that they do, sort of, and a researcher has figured out how to find them.

Fish learn to cope in a high carbon dioxide world, new study suggests Posted: 03 Jul 2012 10:41 AM PDT Some coral reef fish may be better prepared to cope with rising carbon dioxide in the world's oceans -- thanks to their parents. Encouraging new findings show that some fish may be less vulnerable to high CO2 and an acidifying ocean than previously feared.

Novel vaccine for strain of foot-and-mouth disease Posted: 03 Jul 2012 10:41 AM PDT Agricultural researchers have developed a novel vaccine for one of the seven strains of foot-and-mouth disease, paving the way for the development of the others.

Social bats pay a price with new fungal disease: Study determines which bats are headed for extinction Posted: 03 Jul 2012 10:40 AM PDT The impact on bat populations of a deadly fungal disease known as white-nose syndrome may depend on how gregarious the bats are during hibernation. Species that hibernate in dense clusters even as their populations get smaller will continue to transmit the disease at a high rate, dooming them to continued decline, according to a new study.

Two species fused to give rise to plant pest a few hundred years ago Posted: 03 Jul 2012 10:37 AM PDT A fungal species native to Iran which attacks grasses is the result of natural hybridization that occurred just a few hundred years ago.

Searching for an ancient syphilis DNA in newborns Posted: 03 Jul 2012 09:06 AM PDT The ancient bones of newborns are very useful to recover the ancient DNA of the bacteria causing syphilis, the Treponema pallidum pallidum. Scientists were able to obtain the genetic material from the bacteria in more than one individual, in what is considered to be the oldest case known to date. Several previous attempts had only achieved to yield this material in one occasion and from only one individual.

The big sleep: How do you anesthetize a hippopotamus? Posted: 03 Jul 2012 09:06 AM PDT It may rank fairly low in most lists of pressing problems to be solved but an increasing number of zoos and wildlife collections as well as gamekeepers nevertheless need to come up with an answer:  How do you anaesthetize a hippopotamus? Difficulties are posed not only by the undesirability of approaching waking animals but also by hippos' unique skin morphology and by the animals' sensitivity to standard anesthetic methods. A new procedure has now been described.

Rare map related to America‘s 'birth certificate' discovered in Munich University Library Posted: 03 Jul 2012 09:05 AM PDT The American continent was "christened" by the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller. A previously unknown variant of the famous world map from the mapmaker's workshop has unexpectedly turned up in the collections in the University Library in Munich.

Warmer Baltic Sea may promote harmful algal blooms Posted: 03 Jul 2012 09:05 AM PDT Global warming affects ecosystems in complex ways. Now, a group of scientists have shown that there is an increasing danger of algal blooms and low oxygen levels in the Baltic when temperatures rise. Algal blooms already are a major problem in large parts of the Baltic, concomitant with spread of deoxygenated bottom conditions, without life, over large areas.

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