February 27, 2007, 9:38 PM CT

Light On Blue Whales And Their Calls

Using a variety of new approaches, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego are forging a new understanding of the largest mammals on Earth.

In one recently published study on blue whales, Scripps researchers used a combination of techniques to show for the first time that blue whale calls can be tied to specific behavior and gender classifications. In a separate study, researchers used recordings of blue whale songs to determine the animal's population distributions worldwide.

While the specific function of songs and calls produced by whales remains a mystery to a large degree, the sounds are thought to mediate social interactions between the animals.

The first study, led by Scripps postdoctoral researcher Erin Oleson and Scripps scientist John Hildebrand, describes the behavioral context of calls produced by eastern North Pacific blue whales. Few researchers have attempted to link sound production with specific behaviors or environmental conditions to attempt to determine the significance of whale calls.

"This is the first study that has been able to study the calls by directly observing the animal while it is calling and gathering key information such as depth and body orientation-getting a sense of what the animal is doing underwater," said Oleson. "Once you understand the context of specific types of sounds, then you can use those sounds to infer something about what they are doing when you are not there to actually see them doing it"......... Posted by: Ashley      Read more         Source

February 27, 2007, 8:45 PM CT

Successful Rosetta swing

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Rosetta spacecraft successfully completed a swing-by of Mars in the early hours of Sunday morning (25th February 2007). Not only did this mark an important milestone on the spacecraft's 7.1 billion km journey to comet Churyumov Gerasimenko but it provided a unique opportunity to gather further scientific data and images from the Red Planet.

INTA/UPM/DASP/IDAThe critical gravity assist manoeuvre around Mars has helped Rosetta change direction putting it on the correct track towards Earth its next destination planet whose gravitational energy Rosetta will exploit in November this year to gain acceleration and continue on its ten-year journey to the comet which it will reach in 2014.

At 2.57 GMT mission controllers at ESA's Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Germany confirmed that Rosetta had successfully completed the swing-by manoeuvre. At its closest approach (around 2.15 GMT) Rosetta passed the surface of Mars at a distance of 250 km (155 miles) travelling at a mere 10.1 km/second relative to the centre of the planet.

During the swing by there was a 25 minute period when Rosetta passed into the shadow of Mars denying the probe the ability to generate power using its solar arrays. At this time the spacecraft was put into "eclipse mode" with no science operations taking place on the orbiter instruments......... Posted by: Brooke      Read more         Source

February 27, 2007, 8:22 PM CT

To Differentiate Human Embryonic Stem Cells

Molecular scientists at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM) - which is part of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston - have developed a new procedure for the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, with which they have created the first transplantable source of lung epithelial cells.

The process, created in the laboratory of Rick A. Wetsel, Ph.D., a professor of molecular medicine at the IMM, is described in this week's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Research scientist Dachun Wang, M.D., is lead author of the article, "A pure population of lung alveolar epithelial type II cells derived from human embryonic stem cells".

"We have developed a reliable molecular procedure which facilitates, via genetic selection, the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into an essentially pure population of lung epithelial cells," said Wetsel, noting the procedure also can be used to create other types of highly-specialized cells.

Scientists at the IMM used the in vitro method to create lung epithelial cells known as alveolar epithelial type II. The cells were derived from a human embryonic stem cell line approved by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)......... Posted by: Sean      Read more         Source

February 27, 2007, 8:18 PM CT

genetic basis of Type 2 diabetes

Researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Lund University and Novartis have announced the completion of a genome-wide map of genetic differences in humans and their relationship to Type 2 diabetes and other metabolic disorders.

All results of the analysis are accessible, free of charge, on the Internet to scientists around the world.

The work is the result of a pioneering public-private collaboration known as the Diabetes Genetics Initiative (DGI), which was formed in 2004 and is aimed at deciphering the genetic causes of Type 2 diabetes. Although Type 2 diabetes clearly runs in families, suggesting the importance of inherited factors, its genetic origins remain largely unclear.

"The Human Genome Project, HapMap database and new genomic tools have made it possible for the first time to screen the genome for DNA variations that contribute to common diseases," said principal investigator David Altshuler, the director of the Program in Medical and Population Genetics at the Broad Institute and an associate professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. "Since diabetes and cardiovascular risk factors are influenced by many genes, environment and behavior, these powerful new tools are required to pick up the effect of any one genetic risk factor"......... Posted by: Sean      Read more         Source

February 27, 2007, 8:05 PM CT

Computer Model Mimics Neural Processes

For the first time, MIT scientists have applied a computer model of how the brain processes visual information to a complex, real world task: recognizing the objects in a busy street scene. The researchers were pleasantly surprised at the power of this new approach.

"People have been talking about computers imitating the brain for a long time," said Tomaso Poggio, the Eugene McDermott Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. "That was Alan Turing's original motivation in the 1940s. But in the last 50 years, computer science and AI (artificial intelligence) have developed independently of neuroscience".

"Our work is biologically inspired computer science," said Poggio, who is also co-director of the Center for Biological and Computational Learning.

"We developed a model of the visual system that was meant to be useful for neuroscientists in designing and interpreting experiments, but that also could be used for computer science," said Thomas Serre, a postdoctoral associate in Poggio's lab and lead author of a paper on the work in the March 2007 IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

"We chose street scene recognition as an example because it has a restricted set of object categories, and it has practical social applications," said Serre......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

February 26, 2007, 8:58 PM CT

How T lymphocytes attack

Our immune system finds it difficult to eliminate tumours effectively. Deciphering the strategies it implements may increase the immune system's effect on tumour cells and thus improve the clinical perspectives for anticancer immune therapy. At the Institut Curie, INSERM and CNRS researchers have used two-photon microscopy to demonstrate, for the first time in vivo and real-time, how T lymphocytes infiltrate a solid tumour in order to fight it.

These "defenders" methodically encircle the enemy positions and "patrol" until they meet a tumour cell, which they have previously learnt to recognise. They then halt to eliminate it, before resuming their rounds. The rapidity of the advance achieved by T lymphocytes is indicative of either the absence of an adversary, or defeat of the immune system in the battlefield.

This scenario was published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine.

How is a tumour destroyed by T lymphocytes? This scenario has recently been visualised by researchers at the Institut Curie. The original images obtained and assembled in twelve video sequences are the result of close collaboration between a specialist in two-photon microscopy, Luc Fetler, an INSERM scientist in the CNRS/Institut Curie "Physical Chemistry Curie" Unit1, and immunologists, notably Alexandre Boissonnas, in the INSERM "Immunity and Cancer" Unit at Institut Curie......... Posted by: Sean      Read more         Source

February 26, 2007, 7:13 PM CT

Atomic Movements And Pharmaceuticals

Chemists at the University of Liverpool have designed a unique structure to capture the movement of atoms which may impact on future designs of pharmaceuticals.

The research, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), will further understanding of how to control chemical reactions and will influence improvements in a range of important processes from the design of biopharmaceuticals to the engineering of new catalysts, enabling scientists, for example, to develop products in more environmentally friendly ways.

The Liverpool team created a porous crystal which has 'walls' of atoms and cavities which act as containers for molecules. They used this crystal to accommodate a set of molecules as they took part in a chemical reaction similar to reactions by enzymes and proteins to regulate and keep alive living systems.

The crystal was put into a powerful X-ray diffraction machine at Daresbury laboratory, Warrington. This allowed researchers to pinpoint precisely the positions of individual atoms, providing snapshots of their movement. Because the reaction was carried out within the cavities of the crystal, the team was able to locate the positions of the atoms both before and after the reaction. This is the first time that the positions of atoms both at the beginning and the end of a chemical process have been seen......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source

February 26, 2007, 7:07 PM CT

Northwest Atlantic Ocean Ecosystems

Ecosystems along the continental shelf waters of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean--from the Labrador Sea south of Greenland all the way to North Carolina--are experiencing large, rapid changes, report oceanographers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the Feb. 23, 2007, issue of the journal Science.

While some researchers have pointed to the decline of cod from overfishing as the main reason for the shifting ecosystems, the paper emphasizes that climate change is also playing a big role.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that Northwest Atlantic ecosystems are being affected by climate forcing from the bottom up and overfishing from the top down," said Charles Greene, an oceanographer at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y, and lead author of the Science paper. "Predicting the fate of these ecosystems will be one of oceanography's grand challenges for the 21st century".

Most researchers believe humans are warming the planet by burning fossil fuels and changing land surfaces. Early signs of this warming have appeared in the Arctic. Since the late 1980s, researchers have noticed that pulses of fresh water from increased precipitation and melting of ice on land and sea in the Arctic have flowed into the North Atlantic Ocean and made the water less salty......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

February 26, 2007, 6:57 PM CT

Lost cuckoo breaks its silence

A team of biologists with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have recorded for the first time the call of the extremely rare Sumatran ground cuckoo, found only on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.

The bird was captured by a trapper and handed over to WCS biologists, who recorded the birds call while it nursed an injured foot. Once fully recovered, the bird will be released back into the wild.

Known only by a handful of specimens collected over the past century, the Sumatran ground cuckoo is considered to be one of the worlds rarest, most secretive birds, and is restricted to Sumatras deep jungles and rainforests. In fact, ornithologists believed the bird was extinct until 1997, when a single individual was briefly seen. Last year a second bird was photographed by a remote camera trap. It is now believed to be critically endangered.

Until now, however, no one knew the birds call a key field diagnostic ornithologists use to identify birds that live in forest. According to WCS, having a recording of the birds call will also make it easier for biologists to locate other individuals, and to possibly evaluate the birds total population.

"We were extremely lucky to have recorded the birds unique call," said Firdaus Rahman, of WCSs Indonesia Program. "Our team will use the recording to hopefully locate other Sumatran ground cuckoos, and to eventually secure their protection"......... Posted by: Ashley      Read more         Source

February 26, 2007, 6:43 PM CT

Engineering Plus Studio Art

Daniel Schneider '07 jokes that he is majoring in snow sculpture. Actually, his major is engineering modified with studio art, but since he arrived on campus in 2003, a number of elements of his course of study have involved building Dartmouth's annual giant snow sculpture for Winter Carnival.

"I've always loved to build things," says Schneider, who hails from Brooklyn, N.Y. "I started with LEGOs and sand castles; I've built sets for theater productions; I've worked with Habitat for Humanity in New York City; I've done some carpentry on a farm in New Zealand; I've designed and built an outdoor stage at the Upper Valley Events Center in Norwich (Vt.). I love to build".

Schneider also likes to find ways to make the building process more streamlined and energy efficient. For example, as part of his senior honors thesis, he converted a 36-foot hay elevator, originally designed to lift heavy bales of hay to a loft, into a five-gallon bucket snow conveyor. This, he says, made it so much easier to move snow to the top of the giant sculpture, which was an enormous skiing bunny this year for the 2007 Winter Carnival (the theme was "Dartmouth Down the Rabbit Hole" in honor of Alice in Wonderland).

"We used to lift the snow in 55-gallon drums. It was slow, back-breaking work," he says......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source