Tag Archives: North America

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…)

U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force and DISA Expand Access to Microsoft Technologies through Cost-Saving Modernization Agreement

By Guest PostJanuary 4, 2013Technologyadvanced mobility, africa, air force base, alabama, asia-pacific, big data, cloud computing, cybersecurity, defense, department of defense, disa, dod, Europe, fort huachuca, gunter annex, information systems agency, insight enterprises, insight public sector, it costs, microsoft corp., microsoft office 2013, microsoft solutions, middle east, mobility, North America, reduce, sharepoint 2013, tim solms, us air force, us army, windows 8

Insight Public Sector selected to deliver licensing agreement aimed at reducing IT costs while offering advanced mobility, collaboration and cloud computing capabilities to personnel.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Jan. 4, 2013 — In an effort to modernize technology infrastructure, reduce costs and foster new levels of cross-agency collaboration, the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) are expanding access to Microsoft solutions by entering into a transformative three-year Joint Enterprise Licensing Agreement for enterprise licenses and software assurance. The agreement provides all three organizations with a single vehicle for accessing the latest Microsoft technologies in support of top IT priorities around datacenter consolidation, collaboration, cybersecurity, mobility, cloud computing and big data.

This is the most comprehensive licensing agreement Microsoft Corp. has ever established with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), covering nearly 75 percent of all DoD personnel. The net new contract was awarded to Insight Public Sector, a division of Insight Enterprises Inc., one of the largest global Microsoft Large Account Resellers. (more…)

UMass Amherst Climate Model is First to Study Climate Effects of Arctic Hurricanes

By Guest PostDecember 31, 2012Environment21st century, alan condron, arctic hurricane, arctic region, arctic seas, barometric pressure, central eye, climate, climate model, climate prediction models, climate scientist, conveyer belt, cyclone, east anglia, England, Europe, forecast climate change, gas exploration, higher resolution modeling, ian renfrew, massachusetts amherst, missing storms, model, North America, north atlantic, norwegian sea, ocean water circulation, oil, oxymoron, polar lows, satellite, thermohaline circulation, thick ice, university, wave

AMHERST, Mass. – Though it seems like an oxymoron, Arctic hurricanes happen, complete with a central “eye,” extreme low barometric pressure and towering 30-foot waves that can sink small ships and coat metal platforms with thick ice, threatening oil and gas exploration. Now climate scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and in England report the first conclusive evidence that Arctic hurricanes, also known as polar lows, play a significant role in driving ocean water circulation and climate.

Results point to potentially cooler conditions in Europe and North America in the 21^st century than other models predict. (more…)

Asteroid that Killed the Dinosaurs also Wiped out the ‘Obamadon’

By Guest PostDecember 11, 2012Nature, Scienceage of dinosaurs, alberta, asteroid collision, asteroid strike, bhart anjan bhullar, boundary, canada, carnivorous lizards, cerberophis, cretaceous, dinosaur species, dinosaurs, diversification, ecosystem, edmontosaurus, evolution, extinct lizard, flood, fossils, gracilis, harvard, jacques a gauthier, kill, lizard, mammals, mass extinction, montana, new mexico, nicholas r longrich, North America, obamadon, obamadon gracilis, odon, palaeosaniwa, paleogene, political significance, polyglyphanodontia, slender, snake, species, survivor, swamps, t rex, taxonomy, tooth, triceratops, united states, us president, yale, yucatan peninsula

The asteroid collision widely thought to have killed the dinosaurs also led to extreme devastation among snake and lizard species, according to new research — including the extinction of a newly identified lizard Yale and Harvard scientists have named Obamadon gracilis.

“The asteroid event is typically thought of as affecting the dinosaurs primarily,” said Nicholas R. Longrich, a postdoctoral associate with Yale’s Department of Geology and Geophysics and lead author of the study. “But it basically cut this broad swath across the entire ecosystem, taking out everything. Snakes and lizards were hit extremely hard.” (more…)