ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Scientists confirm limited genetic diversity in the extinct Tasmanian tiger
• Genetic similarity promotes cooperation
• Lactating tsetse flies models for lactating mammals?
• Deadly cat disease: Effective treatment for bobcat fever
• Nanoparticles may increase plant DNA damage, new evidence shows
• DDT linked to long-term decline of insect-eating birds in North America, through analysis of bird droppings
• Jellyfish on the rise in world's coastal ecosytems
• Unique adaptations to a symbiotic lifestyle reveal novel targets for aphid insecticides
• Evidence for a geologic trigger of the Cambrian Explosion
• Can behavior be controlled by genes? The case of honeybee work assignments
• Green-glowing fish provides new insights into health impacts of pollution
• First description of a triple DNA helix in vacuum

Scientists confirm limited genetic diversity in the extinct Tasmanian tiger Posted: 18 Apr 2012 05:49 PM PDT Scientists have confirmed the unique Tasmanian tiger or thylacine had limited genetic diversity prior to its extinction.

Genetic similarity promotes cooperation Posted: 18 Apr 2012 05:43 PM PDT In a dog-eat-dog world of ruthless competition and 'survival of the fittest,' new research reveals that individuals are genetically programmed to work together and cooperate with those who most resemble themselves.

Lactating tsetse flies models for lactating mammals? Posted: 18 Apr 2012 01:23 PM PDT An unprecedented study of intra-uterine lactation in the tsetse fly reveals that an enzyme found in the fly's milk functions similarly in mammals, making the tsetse a potential model for lipid metabolism during mammalian lactation. Better yet, reduced levels of this enzyme led to poor health in offspring, leading the authors to suggest that targeting it could help decrease the tsetse population in Africa and so reduce the incidence of sleeping sickness.

Deadly cat disease: Effective treatment for bobcat fever Posted: 18 Apr 2012 01:22 PM PDT University of Missouri veterinarian Leah Cohn, a small animal disease expert, and Adam Birkenheuer from North Carolina State University, have found an effective treatment for "bobcat fever" which is a deadly disease found in cats.

Nanoparticles may increase plant DNA damage, new evidence shows Posted: 18 Apr 2012 11:38 AM PDT Researchers have provided the first evidence that engineered nanoparticles are able to accumulate within plants and damage their DNA. Under laboratory conditions, cupric oxide nanoparticles have the capacity to enter plant root cells and generate many mutagenic DNA base lesions.

DDT linked to long-term decline of insect-eating birds in North America, through analysis of bird droppings Posted: 18 Apr 2012 11:37 AM PDT Analysis of 50 years' bird droppings inside a large decommissioned chimney on a university campus, provided evidence that DDT and bird diet may have played a role, in a long-term decline for populations of insect-eating birds in North America.

Jellyfish on the rise in world's coastal ecosytems Posted: 18 Apr 2012 10:53 AM PDT Jellyfish are increasing in the majority of the world's coastal ecosystems, according to the first global study of jellyfish abundance.

Unique adaptations to a symbiotic lifestyle reveal novel targets for aphid insecticides Posted: 18 Apr 2012 10:51 AM PDT Biologists have potential new targets for aphid-specific insecticides. Aphids' diet of plants' sugary sap is limited in nitrogenous essential amino acids. To solve this problem, the aphid must use a bacterial symbiont, Buchnera, that lives inside special insect cells and supplements the animal's diet with the required nutrients.

Evidence for a geologic trigger of the Cambrian Explosion Posted: 18 Apr 2012 10:14 AM PDT The oceans teemed with life 600 million years ago, but the simple, soft-bodied creatures would have been hardly recognizable as the ancestors of nearly all animals on Earth today. Then something happened. Over several tens of millions of years -- a relative blink of an eye in geologic terms -- a burst of evolution led to a flurry of diversification and increasing complexity, including the expansion of multicellular organisms and the appearance of the first shells and skeletons.

Can behavior be controlled by genes? The case of honeybee work assignments Posted: 18 Apr 2012 06:55 AM PDT Biologists have demonstrated that the division of labor among honeybees is correlated with the presence in their brains of tiny snippets of noncoding RNA, called micro-RNAs, or miRNAs, that suppress the expression of genes.

Green-glowing fish provides new insights into health impacts of pollution Posted: 18 Apr 2012 06:54 AM PDT Understanding the damage that pollution causes to both wildlife and human health is set to become much easier thanks to a new green-glowing zebrafish. The fish makes it easier than ever before to see where in the body environmental chemicals act and how they affect health. The fluorescent fish has shown that estrogenic chemicals, which are already linked to reproductive problems, impact on more parts of the body than previously thought.

First description of a triple DNA helix in vacuum Posted: 18 Apr 2012 06:53 AM PDT Scientists have managed for the first time to extract trustworthy structural information from a triple helix DNA in gas phase, that is to say in conditions in which DNA is practically in a vacuum. This research could bring the development of antigen therapy based on these DNA structures closer.

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