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Researchers Issue Forecast for ‘Moderate’ New England Red Tide in 2013

By Guest PostMay 2, 2013Environmentalexandrium fundyense, blooms, bruce keafer, chris nash, current status, don anderson, ecohab program, gulf of maine, harmful algal blooms, moderate, new england, noaa, paralytic shellfish poisoning, psp, quay dortch, red tide, toxic algae, whoi biologist

New England is expected to experience a “moderate” red tide this spring and summer, report NOAA-funded scientists studying the toxic algae that cause blooms in the Gulf of Maine. The “red tide” is caused by an alga Alexandrium fundyense, which produces a toxin that can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP). Red tide typically occurs annually along some portions of the Gulf of Maine coast. This year’s outlook is similar to the 2012 red tide which was also classified as “moderate.”

As with the past five forecasts for this region, the 2013 outlook is based on the quantities of the A. fundyense in its cyst (dormant) state detected in Gulf of Maine sediments last fall. These data are combined with a computer model to produce a range of bloom scenarios based on previous years’ conditions. This year, the team also used a forecast of toxicity impact developed from 34 years of historical data as part of the 2013 outlook. The 2013 bloom is expected to fall somewhere in the middle in terms of toxicity impact, justifying a “moderate” forecast done by the established method. (more…)

One-two punch could be key in treating blindness

By Guest PostMay 1, 2013Scienceachromatopsia, andras komaromy, blindness, central nervous system, cntf, fido, humans, michigan state university, model disease, molecular therapy, most younger dogs, photoreceptors, protein, treatment, university of miami, veterinary ophthalmologist

Researchers have discovered that using two kinds of therapy in tandem may be a knockout combo against inherited disorders that cause blindness. While their study focused on man’s best friend, the treatment could help restore vision in people, too.

Published in the journal Molecular Therapy, the study builds on earlier work by Michigan State University veterinary ophthalmologist András Komáromy and colleagues. In 2010, they restored day vision in dogs suffering from achromatopsia, an inherited form of total color blindness, by replacing the mutant gene associated with the condition. (more…)

Deep in Texas, a plant-eating feathered dinosaur reemerges

By Guest PostMay 1, 2013Sciencebird like dinosaurs, feathered dinosaur, plant eating dinosaur, small dinosaurs

A recently identified feathered dinosaur found deep in West Texas reinforces an emerging view that creatures like it were more diverse and widespread in North America than previously thought, according to a new study. (more…)

A new approach to spinal muscular atrophy?

By Guest PostMay 1, 2013Healthals drug, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, anne hart, boston, brown university, caenorhabditis elegans worm, children hospital, doctors for riluzole, maria dimitriadi, model of sma, neuromuscular disease, new therapy, normal cells, protein, riluzole, sk2 channels, sk2 potassium channels, sma treatment, smn, spinal muscular atrophy, survival motor neuron, united states, worm neurons

Spinal muscular atrophy is a debilitating neuromuscular disease that in its most severe form is the leading genetic cause of infant death. By experimenting with an ALS drug in two very different animal models, researchers at Brown University and Boston Children’s Hospital have identified a new potential mechanism for developing an SMA treatment.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — There is no specific drug to treat spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a family of motor neuron diseases that in its most severe form is the leading genetic cause of infant death in the United States and affects one in 6,000 people overall. But a new multispecies study involving a drug that treats amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has pinpointed a mechanism of SMA that drug developers might be able to exploit for a new therapy. (more…)

NASA Probe Gets Close-Up Views of Large Hurricane on Saturn

By Guest PostMay 1, 2013Scienceandrew ingersoll, angle, boulder, cassini huygens mission, cassini spacecraft, counter clockwise spin, earth, equinox, eye, france, Germany, hexagon, high clouds, hurricane, hydrogen atmosphere, jet propulsion laboratory, kunio sayanagi, mysterious hurricane, NASA, north pole, northern hemisphere, orbit, pasadena, saturn, saturn hurricane movie, saturnian storms, scott edgington, six sided, space science institute, the rose, united kingdom, united states, water vapor, weather pattern

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn’s north pole.

In high-resolution pictures and video, scientists see the hurricane’s eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of the hurricane are traveling 330 mph(150 meters per second). The hurricane swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon. (more…)

UCLA researchers discover sperm move along a ‘twisting ribbon’

By Guest PostApril 30, 2013Healthaydogan ozcan, chemicals, chemo attractants, chiral ribbon patterns, euan mcleod, fertilization, flagella propel, functions, holographic microscope, horse sperm cells, human, inkyum choi, jaiwen feng, kalvin huang, micro swimmers, micrometers, microscale motion, migration of cells, sperm, sperm cells, sperm head, sperm motility, sperm motion, swimming patterns, ting wei su, toxins, twisted ribbon pattern, twisting ribbon, ucla researchers

Opening the door to more sophisticated investigation of sperm locomotion and biophysics, researchers from UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have identified previously unobserved swimming patterns in human and horse sperm cells.

This research, published in Scientific Reports, a journal of the Nature Publishing Group, could lead to a deeper understanding of how sperm move on their way to fertilization or other functions and how they react when encountering various toxins or chemicals. (more…)

Listening to the Big Bang – in high fidelity

By Guest PostApril 30, 2013Sciencebig bang, computer program, cosmic microwave, data, earthquake, high frequency structure, john cramer, mathematica, planck satellite mission, radiation, recordings, seismologists, septillion times, universe, university of washington

A decade ago, spurred by a question for a fifth-grade science project, University of Washington physicist John Cramer devised an audio recreation of the Big Bang that started our universe nearly 14 billion years ago.

Now, armed with more sophisticated data from a satellite mission observing the cosmic microwave background – a faint glow in the universe that acts as sort of a fossilized fingerprint of the Big Bang – Cramer has produced new recordings that fill in higher frequencies to create a fuller and richer sound. (The sound files run from 20 seconds to a little longer than 8 minutes.) (more…)

Individual Donation Amounts Drop When Givers Are in Groups, Says MU Researcher

By Guest PostApril 30, 2013Culture, Scienceanthropologist, arizona state university, bystander effect, central european university, charitable organizations, charity donations, joan silk, karthik panchanathan, new york post, phenomenon, pro self, pro social, pro social individual, social factors, university of missouri, willem e frankenhuis

COLUMBIA, Mo. — In December of last year the New York Post published images of a man about to be killed by a train while several bystanders did little to help him. Numerous studies have provided evidence that people are less likely to help when in groups, a phenomenon known as the “bystander effect.” Those studies examined situations where only one person was needed to take action to help another. A University of Missouri anthropologist recently found that even when multiple individuals can contribute to a common cause, the presence of others reduces an individual’s likelihood of helping. This research has numerous applications, including possibly guiding the fundraising strategies of charitable organizations.

“In our study, individuals who didn’t want to share money tended to influence others to not share money,” said Karthik Panchanathan, assistant professor of anthropology in the College of Arts and Science. “We don’t know what psychological mechanism caused that, but perhaps potential givers did not want to be ‘suckers,’ who gave up their money while someone else got away with giving nothing. Selfish behavior in others may have given individuals an opportunity to escape any moral obligation to share that they might have felt.” (more…)

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