March 5, 2008, 8:00 PM CT

Mysteries Of Oceanic Bacteria

Microbes living in the oceans play a critical role in regulating Earth's environment, but very little is known about their activities and how they work together to help control natural cycles of water, carbon and energy.

A team of MIT scientists led by Professors Edward DeLong and Penny Chisholm is trying to change that.

Borrowing gene sequencing tools developed for sequencing the human genome, the scientists have devised a new method to analyze gene expression in complex microbial populations. The work could help researchers better understand how oceans respond to climate change.

"This project can help us get a better handle on the specific details of how microbes affect the flux of energy and matter on Earth, and how microbes respond to environmental change," said DeLong, a professor of biological engineering and civil and environmental engineering.

"The new approach also has other potential applications, for example, one can now realistically consider using indigenous microbes as in situ biosensors, as well as monitor the activities of human-associated microbial communities much more comprehensively," DeLong said.

Their technique, which has already yielded a few surprising discoveries, is published in the March 3 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

March 5, 2008, 7:43 PM CT

Steal CO2 From Air

Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed a low-risk, transformational concept, called Green Freedom-, for large-scale production of carbon-neutral, sulfur-free fuels and organic chemicals from air and water.

Currently, the principal market for the Green Freedom production concept is fuel for vehicles and aircraft.

At the heart of the technology is a new process for extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and making it available for fuel production using a new form of electrochemical separation. By integrating this electrochemical process with existing technology, scientists have developed a new, practical approach to producing fuels and organic chemicals that permits continued use of existing industrial and transportation infrastructure. Fuel production is driven by carbon-neutral power.

"Our concept enhances U.S. energy and material security by reducing dependence on imported oil. Initial system and economic analyses indicate that the prices of Green Freedom commodities would be either comparable to the current market or competitive with those of other carbon-neutral, alternative technologies currently being considered," said F. Jeffrey Martin of the Laboratory's Decisions Applications Division, principal investigator on the project.

Martin will be presenting a talk on the subject at the Alternative Energy NOW conference in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, February 20, 2008......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

March 3, 2008, 10:04 PM CT

Unknown aspects of China's past

CHICAGOImagine future archaeologists trying to understand Illinois, California or New York based on a few excavations in each of those states. They might excavate small areas in city centers, since those sites would probably be the first ruins they would come across. Meanwhile, the archaeologists they might fail to notice or study farms, suburbs, shopping malls, canals and airports.

Eventhough still relatively unknown to the general public, an archaeological method that is being practiced at several locations around the world helps researchers overcome such bias toward large, readily noticeable sites. The method is called a regional settlement pattern survey. It involves walking systematically over a large landscape to find traces of archaeological sites on the surface of the ground. This field procedure can yield a holistic, integrated view of how settlement has shifted in a region over the course of history.

For the past 13 years, archaeologists from The Field Museum and Shandong University have used this method to develop a multifarious overview of an important but understudied region along the northeastern coast of The Peoples Republic of China. By the time the project is completed, the archaeologists expect to have walked systematically over 1,500 square kilometers around the coastal city of Rizhao in Shandong Province......... Posted by: William      Read more         Source

March 3, 2008, 10:00 PM CT

40,000 year old tooth and Neanderthal movement

A 40,000-year-old tooth has provided researchers with the first direct evidence that Neanderthals moved from place to place during their lifetimes. In a collaborative project involving scientists from the Gera number of, the United Kingdom, and Greece, Professor Michael Richards of the Max Planck institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Gera number of and Durham University, UK, and his team used laser technology to collect microscopic particles of enamel from the tooth. By analysing strontium isotope ratios in the enamel - strontium is a naturally occurring metal ingested into the body through food and water - the researchers were able to uncover geological information showing where the Neanderthal had been living when the tooth was formed (Journal of Archaeological Science, February 11th, 2008).

The tooth, a third molar, was formed when the Neanderthal was aged between seven and nine. It was recovered in a coastal limestone cave in Lakonis, in Southern Greece, during an excavation directed by Dr Eleni Panagopoulou of the Ephoreia of Paleoanthropology and Speleology (Greek Ministry of Culture). The strontium isotope readings, however, indicated that the enamel formed while the Neanderthal lived in a region made up of older volcanic bedrock. The findings, reported in the Journal of Archaeological Science, could help answer a long-standing debate about the mobility of the now extinct Neanderthal species......... Posted by: William      Read more         Source

February 28, 2008, 10:30 PM CT

What caused westward expansion in the United States?

Western Expansion during the nineteenth century was an important determinant of geographic distribution and economic activity in the United States today. However, while explanations abound for why the migration occurred from the low price of land to a pioneering spirit little empirical work has been done to determine which specific market forces were the most important drivers.

Applying quantitative analysis to historical explanations, a new study by economist Guillaume Vandenbroucke of the University of Southern California finds that the price of land was significantly less important to Westward Expansion than population growth and technological innovation leading to a decrease in transportation costs.

From 1800 to 1900, the United States tripled in size, from less than one million square miles to more than three million square miles. The geographic distribution of population also shifted, from about seven percent living in the West to roughly 60 percent. To examine what forces were most directly responsible for the magnitude of this movement and land accumulation, Vandenbroucke takes into account such factors as the amount of land available in the Eastern United States, wage and productivity growth in the East, and improvements in technologies and transportation infrastructures......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

February 28, 2008, 10:27 PM CT

Breakthroughs in nanotechnology

University of Missouri scientist Kattesh Katti recently discovered how to make gold nanoparticles using gold salts, soybeans and water. Kattis research has garnered attention worldwide and the environmentally-friendly discovery could have major applications in several disciplines.

Gold nanoparticles are tiny pieces of gold, so small they cannot be seen by the naked eye. Scientists believe gold nanoparticles will be used in cancer detection and therapy, the production of smart electronic devices, the therapy of certain genetic eye diseases and the development of green automobiles.

While the nanotechnology industry is expected to produce large quantities of nanoparticles in the near future, scientists have been worried about the environmental impact of typical production methods. Commonly, nanoparticles have been produced using synthetic chemicals. Kattis process, which uses only naturally occurring elements, could have major environmental implications for the future. Since some of the chemicals currently used to make nanoparticles are toxic to humans, Kattis discovery also could open doors for additional medical fields. Having a 100-percent natural green process could allow medical scientists to expand the use of the nanoparticles.

Typically, a producer must use a variety of synthetic or man-made chemicals to produce gold nanoparticles, said Katti, professor of radiology and physics in the School of Medicine and College of Arts and Science at MU, senior research scientist at the MU Research Reactor (MURR) and director of the University of Missouri Cancer Nanotechnology Platform. To make the chemicals necessary for production, you need to have other artificial chemicals produced, creating an even larger, negative environmental impact. Our new process only takes what nature has made available to us and uses that to produce a technology already proven to have far-reaching impacts in technology and medicine......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

February 28, 2008, 9:42 PM CT

The rain-making bacteria

LSU professor of biological sciences, in partnership with colleagues in Montana and France, recently found evidence that rain-making bacteria are widely distributed in the atmosphere. These biological particles could factor heavily into the precipitation cycle, affecting climate, agricultural productivity and even global warming. Christner and colleagues will publish their results in the prestigious journal Science on Feb. 29.

Christners team examined precipitation from global locations and demonstrated that the most active ice nuclei a substrate that enhances the formation of ice are biological in origin. This is important because the formation of ice in clouds is mandatory for snow and most rainfall. Dust and soot particles can serve as ice nuclei, but biological ice nuclei are capable of catalyzing freezing at much warmer temperatures. If present in clouds, biological ice nuclei may affect the processes that trigger precipitation.

The concept of rain-making bacteria isnt far-fetched. Cloud seeding with silver iodide or dry ice has been done for more than 60 years. A number of ski resorts use a commercially available freeze-dried preparation of ice-nucleating bacteria to make snow when the temperature is just a few degrees below freezing.

My colleague David Sands from Montana State University proposed the concept of bioprecipitation over 25 years ago and few researchers took it seriously, but evidence is beginning to accumulate that supports this idea, said Christner......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

February 26, 2008, 10:15 PM CT

Destruction of Sumatra forests driving global climate

Turning just one Sumatran province's forests and peat swamps into pulpwood and palm oil plantations is generating more annual greenhouse gas emissions than the Netherlands and rapidly driving the province's elephants into extinction, a new study by WWF and partners has found.

The study observed that in central Sumatra's Riau Province nearly 10.5 million acres of tropical forests and peat swamp have been cleared in the last 25 years. Forest loss and degradation and peat decomposition and fires are behind average annual carbon emissions equivalent to 122 percent of the Netherlands total annual emissions, 58 percent of Australia's annual emissions, 39 percent of annual UK emissions and 26 percent of annual German emissions.

Riau was chosen for the study because it is home to vast peatlands estimated to hold Southeast Asias largest store of carbon, and contains some of the most critical habitat for Sumatran elephants and tigers. It also has Indonesia's highest deforestation rate, substantially driven by the operations of global paper giants Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Limited (APRIL).

At last December's Bali Climate Change Conference, the Indonesian minister of Forestry pledged to provide incentives to stop unsustainable forestry practices and protect Indonesia's forests. The governor of Riau province has also made a public commitment to protect the province's remaining forest......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

February 26, 2008, 10:05 PM CT

Voyage to Southern Ocean

Researchers will embark this week from Punta Arenas, Chile, on the tip of South America, to spend 42 days amid the high winds and waves of the Southern Ocean. Here they hope to make groundbreaking measurements to explain how huge fluxes of climate-affecting gases move between atmosphere and sea, and vice-versa.

The cruise, which departs Feb. 28, should provide important information on how the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide moves between the ocean and atmosphere, said the cruises chief scientist, David Ho of Columbia Universitys Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Comprising 30 percent of global seas, the Southern Ocean is a source of great uncertainty, he said. So its potentially important to our understanding of the global system.

Humans put about 6 billion metric tons of CO2 into the air each year, mainly by fossil-fuel burning and deforestation. About a third is believed to be absorbed by oceans, and a third by plants or other components of land. The rest stays in the airmuch of the reason why atmospheric CO2 is now building and climate is warming. However, there are huge uncertainties in the calculationsmade so far mostly through indirect means--and fluxes seem highly variable from year to year, with some parts of the oceans habitually giving up CO2 while others absorb it. (The Southern Ocean commonly absorbs it.) "Understanding how atmospheric carbon dioxide reacts with these cold surface waters is important for determining how the ocean uptake of carbon dioxide will respond to future climate change, said Christopher Sabine, an oceanographer at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA, NASA and the National Science Foundation are cosponsoring the cruise......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

February 26, 2008, 8:00 PM CT

Nanoemulsion vaccines show increasing promise

A novel technique for vaccinating against a variety of infectious diseases using an oil-based emulsion placed in the nose, rather than needles has proved able to produce a strong immune response against smallpox and HIV in two new studies.

The results build on prior success in animal studies with a nasal nanoemulsion vaccine for influenza, reported by University of Michigan scientists in 2003.

Nanoemulsion vaccines developed at the Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine and the Biological Sciences at U-M are based on a mixture of soybean oil, alcohol, water and detergents emulsified into ultra-small particles smaller than 400 nanometers wide, or 1/200th the width of a human hair. These are combined with part or all of the disease-causing microbe to trigger the bodys immune response.

A team led by U-M scientist James Baker Jr., M.D., the institutes director, pioneered the technology, for which a patent was recently awarded to U-M.

The two studies show the nanoemulsion platform is capable of developing vaccines from very diverse materials. We used whole virus in the smallpox vaccine. In the HIV vaccine, we used a single protein. We were able to promote an immune response using either source, says Baker.

The technology is licensed to NanoBio Corp., an Ann Arbor-based biotech company which Baker founded in 2000 and in which he has a financial interest. Baker is the Ruth Dow Doan Professor of internal medicine and Allergy Division chief at the U-M Medical School......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source