University of Utah researchers identify new technique for identifying cancerous moles
Have you ever had a strange mole on your body and wondered if it was skin cancer? The best move is to schedule an appointment with a dermatologist, but many wait without realizing they could be dealing with melanoma.
Researchers at two universities – the University of Utah and Texas Tech University – have recently identified a new technique for handling this problem: Ask a crowd. (more…)
Potential for Storing Meltwater Important for Calculating Sea-Level Rise
Researchers at the University of Utah have discovered a new aquifer in the Greenland Ice Sheet that holds liquid water all year long in the otherwise perpetually frozen winter landscape. The aquifer is extensive, covering 27,000 square miles.
The reservoir is known as a “perennial firn aquifer” because water persists within the firn – layers of snow and ice that don’t melt for at least one season. Researchers believe it figures significantly in understanding the contribution of snowmelt and ice melt to rising sea levels. (more…)
High-Fiber Salad Bar May Help Lagomorphs Survive Climate Change
In some mountain ranges, Earth’s warming climate is driving rabbit relatives known as pikas to higher elevations or wiping them out. But University of Utah biologists discovered that roly-poly pikas living in rockslides near sea level in Oregon can survive hot weather by eating more moss than any other mammal.
“Our work shows pikas can eat unusual foods like moss to persist in strange environments,” says biology professor Denise Dearing, senior author of the new study, published online on Dec. 18, 2013 in the February 2014 issue of Journal of Mammalogy. “It suggests that they may be more resistant to climate change than we thought.” (more…)
Air flows mostly in a one-way loop through the lungs of monitor lizards – a breathing method shared by birds, alligators and presumably dinosaurs, according to a new University of Utah study.
The findings – published online Wednesday, Dec. 11 in the journal Nature – raise the possibility this breathing pattern originated 270 million years ago, about 20 million years earlier than previously believed and 100 million years before the first birds. Why remains a mystery. (more…)
A surprising number of microorganisms – more than 100 times more kinds than reported just four months ago – are leaping the biggest gap on the planet. Hitching rides in the upper troposphere, they’re making their way from Asia across the Pacific Ocean and landing in North America.
For the first time researchers have been able to gather enough biomass in the form of DNA to apply molecular methods to samples from two large dust plumes originating in Asia in the spring of 2011. The scientists detected more than 2,100 unique species compared to only 18 found in the very same plumes using traditional methods of culturing, results they published in July. (more…)
*Study implicates “arms race” between genes and germs*
Biologists have found new evidence of why mice, people and other vertebrate animals carry thousands of varieties of genes to make immune-system proteins named MHCs–even though some of those genes make vertebrate animals susceptible to infections and to autoimmune diseases.
“Major histocompatibility complex” (MHC) proteins are found on the surfaces of most cells in vertebrate animals. They distinguish proteins like themselves from foreign proteins, and trigger an immune response against these foreign invaders. (more…)
*Open, grassy environments accompanied human evolution*
Scientists using chemical isotopes in ancient soil to measure prehistoric tree cover–in effect, shade–have found that grassy, tree-dotted savannas prevailed at most East African sites where human ancestors and their ape relatives evolved during the past six million years.
“We’ve been able to quantify how much shade was available in the geological past,” says University of Utah geochemist Thure Cerling, lead author of a paper titled “Woody cover and hominin environments in the past 6 million years” on the results in this week’s issue of the journal Nature. (more…)
