Tag Archives: North America

Going wild could improve winged workforce

By Guest PostJune 25, 2013Environment, Naturealmonds, apples, bee, blueberries, bumble bee, bumble bee gyrations, canada, cherries, crops, flower bee interactions, flowers, going wild, jason gibbs, michigan state university, michigan team, North America, pollination, raspberries, rufus isaacs, spring, strawberries, united states, wild populations, winged workforce

Every spring in the United States, bees pollinate crops valued at about $14 billion.

A Michigan State University professor and a team of scientists are using a five-year, $8.6 million grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to keep this winged workforce operating efficiently.

Almonds, strawberries, apples, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, watermelon, cucumbers and more depend on bees to help maximize yields. But with wild honey bee populations decimated by varroa mites and other threats, farmers are dependent on beekeepers to deliver managed colonies of honey bees during peak pollination to ensure their flowers are pollinated. (more…)

Brick by brick

By Guest PostMay 17, 2013General, Sciencebionicles toy, blue hen, blue ocean, brick by brick, bruce weber, carpenter, chaplin tyler, China, copenhagen, danish toy company, darwin award winner, david robertson, Europe, evolution, Germany, godtfred, greek tragedy, guinness world record, harry potter, innovation, innovation matrix, leg godt, lego, lego education centers, lego like toys, lego story, legoland theme park, milan, newark campus, North America, ole kirk christiansen, plastic bricks, plastic toy production, rebuilding lego, red clay students, ryan maguire, san francisco, star wars, the uk, tokyo, toy, toys, university of delaware, university of pennsylvania, US, video games, wharton school, wild west

Professor, author Robertson discusses innovation evolution at Lego

When you hear Lego, if all you think about are shiny, plastic bricks and toys, think again. From a toy concept brought to life by a carpenter to tales of failed innovation truths that mirrored a Greek tragedy, the Lego story is about innovation and evolution, David Robertson told attendees at last week’s Chaplin Tyler Executive Leadership series lecture.

Robertson, professor of practice at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, presented “Rebuilding Lego” to 80 students, faculty, staff and community members on the University of Delaware’s Newark campus. (more…)

Dead Forests Release Less Carbon Into Atmosphere Than Expected

By Guest PostMarch 25, 2013Environmentalaska, atmosphere, boulder, carbon, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, CO2, david moore, dead forests release, dendroctonus ponderosae, double whammy, earth, greenhouse gas, Mexico, mountain pine beetles, NASA, nicole trahan, niwot ridge, North America, organic compounds, outbreaks, photosynthesis, pine beetle outbreaks, russell monson, soil microbes, surface, university of arizona, university of colorado, warmer conditions

Billions of trees killed in the wake of mountain pine beetle infestations, ranging from Mexico to Alaska, have not resulted in a large spike in carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, contrary to predictions, a UA-led study has found.

Massive tree die-offs release less carbon into the atmosphere than previously thought, new research led by the University of Arizona suggests.

Across the world, trees are dying in increasing numbers, most likely in the wake of a climate changing toward drier and warmer conditions, scientists suspect. In western North America, outbreaks of mountain pine beetles (Dendroctonus ponderosae) have killed billions of trees from Mexico to Alaska over the last decade. (more…)

Researcher Discovers Bug That Might Only Exist on Mizzou’s Campus

By Guest PostMarch 17, 2013Scienceaphid family, aphis mizzou, ben puttler, bend stems, bug, campus, crumple leaves, distort plant tissue, doris lagos, faurot field, five segmented antenna, jesse hall, memorial union, molecular tests, mu researcher, new insect, North America, sap of plants, shrubs, trees, university of Illinois, university of missouri

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The University of Missouri has Jesse Hall, Faurot Field, Memorial Union and the Columns. Now, MU has its own bug. An MU researcher has discovered a new insect on campus and given it a Mizzou name. Ben Puttler, assistant professor emeritus of plant sciences at the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, first discovered Aphis Mizzou in 2005 while conducting research on wasps on the MU campus.

The insect, Aphis Mizzou, is a member of the aphid family of bugs. Aphids are tiny insects that live by feeding on the sap of plants. Nearly all annual and perennial plants, including shrubs and trees, are potential hosts for aphids. When feeding on these plants, aphids can crumple leaves, distort plant tissue and bend stems. There are 5,000 species of aphids known in the world, but only 150 live in North America. (more…)

Ancient Fossilized Sea Creatures Yield Oldest Biomolecules Isolated Directly from a Fossil

By Guest PostFebruary 21, 2013Nature, Scienceamerican midwest, analytical tools, ancient, aquatic sea creatures, aromatic compounds, biological signal, biomarkers, calcite crystal, carboniferous period, christina omalley, complex organic molecules, crinoids, crinoids today, DNA, feathery arms, fine grained sediment, fossil, fossilization, fossilized sea creatures, function, gas chromatograph, geochemist, geologic time, geologists, hard calcite shell, Indiana, iowa, layer, living tissue, mass spectrometer, midwest, mountain chains, North America, ohio, ohio state, ohio state geologists, ohio state university, oldest biomolecules, organic matter, organic molecules, pigments, pores, predators, quinines, sand dollars, sea lily, spindly animals, toxins, vast inland seas, volcanism, william ausich, yu ping chin

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Though scientists have long believed that complex organic molecules couldn’t survive fossilization, some 350-million-year-old remains of aquatic sea creatures uncovered in Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa have challenged that assumption.

The spindly animals with feathery arms—called crinoids, but better known today by the plant-like name “sea lily”—appear to have been buried alive in storms during the Carboniferous Period, when North America was covered with vast inland seas. Buried quickly and isolated from the water above by layers of fine-grained sediment, their porous skeletons gradually filled with minerals, but some of the pores containing organic molecules were sealed intact. (more…)

A ‘Golden Era’ of Insight: Big Data’s Bright Future

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2013Technologybangalore, Beijing, big data, bing, bing directions, bing maps, bing voice search, biomedical informatics terabytes, breakthroughs, bright future, buzzwords, cambridge, capturing data, China, computational mechanisms, data analytics, data centric methods, decision-making, distinguished scientist, DNA, eric horvitz, golden era, government, hawaii, insight, labs, law, machine intelligence, machine learning, mandarin, microsoft research, networking, new england, new york city, North America, predictive modeling, predictive models, redmond, rick rashid, sensing, silicon valley, storage, tianjin, traffic free route, visualization, web

For over 20 years, Microsoft Research’s labs around the world have focused on research across a broad spectrum of topics in computer science. From the start, the organization has invested heavily in pioneering breakthroughs in machine intelligence, including efforts in machine learning and big data. In this interview, Distinguished Scientist Eric Horvitz talks about advances he sees on the horizon, the influence they will have on your daily life, and how insights from big data and developing more intelligent software and services will change the world.

REDMOND, Wash. – Feb. 15, 2013 – At Microsoft Research labs around the world, some very deep thinkers are contemplating big data.

This includes Eric Horvitz, distinguished scientist at Microsoft and co-director of Microsoft Research’s Redmond lab, who was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his work in “computational mechanisms for decision making under uncertainty and with bounded resources.” (more…)

Sail Far and Wide from New York City

By Guest PostFebruary 9, 2013Holidays 'n Travelsamerican, ancestor routes, beautiful autumn colors, bermuda, boston, canada, cape town, city, cruise to caribbean, cruise travel, cruise web team, eastern coast, Europe, far and wide, focal point, full of sunshine, halifax, new england, new york, new york city, North America, norwegian breakaway, norwegian cruise line, panama canal, passengers, quebec city, sail, South Africa, that never sleeps, transatlantic cruise, tropical breezes

New York is a hub. This city has served as a focal point for so many things American, from fashion to publishing to bagels and so much more. Now the “city that never sleeps” is becoming a hub for cruise travel. You can now cruise around the world, right from New York.

Here are four major destinations that you can discover on a cruise from New York.

Europe – Set sail for a European adventure on a transatlantic cruise. This sailing has old world charm, as you cross the ocean like many immigrants did generations ago, to experience the new world and embark upon a new life. You can trace back your ancestor’s routes and see the precious places they came from. (more…)

Flies of the World Embrace Vegetarianism

By Guest PostFebruary 2, 2013Nature, Scienceagricultural pests, animal kingdom, australia, bracken ferns, brassicas, canolas, change of lifestyle, convergent phenotypes, cyanogenic compounds, detoxify the plants, earth, evolutionary biologists, Facebook, family drosophilidae, fly detectives, genetic changes, genetic pathways, genome biology evolution, good model organisms, hawaii, hawaiian lineage, herbivores, herbivorous fly species, insects, levels of alcohol, microbe eating flies, mt lemmon, mustard plants, new zealand, noah whiteman, North America, north american flies, organisms, papua new guinea, richard lapoint, scaptomyza nigrita, South Pacific, toxic plants, united kingdom, university of arizona, vegetarianism

Microbe-eating flies from at least three different locations around the world recently have evolved into herbivores, feeding on some of the most toxic plants on Earth. Fly detectives and UA evolutionary biologists Noah Whiteman and Richard Lapoint are trying to find out what genetic pathways led the flies to such a major change of lifestyle.

For millennia, they buzzed through the woods, contentedly munching yeasts off the surfaces of leaves, bracken and rotting duff on the forest floor. But now, flies in the family Drosophilidae, whose disparate members dwell in areas all across the planet, have evolved into all-out vegetarians with a wicked diet of plants that are deadly to most other organisms.

What, University of Arizona scientists would like to know, has caused these flies, yeast-feeders for nearly 80 million years, to independently go cold turkey with respect to their formerly meaty diets? (more…)