"Bold traveller" bug could be a 'goldmine' of clues to life on other planets
London, Oct 10 ANI: A bug, discovered deep in a goldmine and nicknamed "the bold traveller" has got astrobiologists excited because of its unique ability to live in complete isolation of any other living species, suggesting it could be the key to life on other planets.According to a report in New Scientist, a community of the bacteria Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator has been discovered 2.8 kilometers beneath the surface of the Earth in fluid-filled cracks of the Mponeng goldmine in South Africa. Its 60 degree Celsius home is completely isolated from the rest of the world, and devoid of light and oxygen.Dylan Chivian of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, studied the genes found in samples of the fluid to identify the organisms living within it, expecting to find a mix of species. Instead, he found that 99.9 percent of the DNA belonged to one bacterium, a new species. The remaining DNA was contamination from the mine and the laboratory."The fact that the community contains only one species stands one of the basic tenets of microbial ecology on its head," said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute.A community of a single species is almost unheard of in the microbial world. It means the ecosystem's only species must extract everything it needs from an otherwise dead environment."Virtually all other known ecosystems on Earth that don't use sunlight directly do use some product of photosynthesis," said Pilcher.Chivian's analysis shows that D. audaxviator gets its energy from the radioactive decay of uranium in the surrounding rocks. It has genes to extract carbon from dissolved carbon dioxide and other genes to fix nitrogen, which comes from the surrounding rocks. Both carbon and nitrogen are essential building blocks for life as we know it, and are used in the building blocks of proteins, amino acids. D. audaxviator has genes to produce all the amino acids it needs.D. audaxviator can also protect itself from environmental hazards by forming endospores - tough shells that protect its DNA and RNA from drying out, toxic chemicals and from starvation. It has a flagellum to help it navigate.It also represents the kind or organism that could survive below the surface of Mars or Saturn's sixth largest moon Enceladus.According to Chivian, "One question that has arisen when considering the capacity of other planets to support life is whether organisms can exist independently, without access even to the Sun.""The answer is yes and here's the proof. It's philosophically exciting to know that everything necessary for life can be packed into a single genome," he added. ANI
2008-10-10 02:52:38Time's green hero Dilawar Mohammed fights for the sparrow
NAT32National/Environment/SocietyTime's green hero Dilawar Mohammed fights for the sparrowMumbai, Oct 7 IANS Dilawar Mohammed, one of the winners of Time magazine's Heroes of the Environment-2008, is a crusader for the almost ignored bird - the common sparrow.He is almost single-handedly struggling to raise awareness about conserving the common sparrow, which he feels is facing a severe threat from humans.Based in the heart of India's wine country, Nashik, north-west Maharashtra, Dilawar, 28, tends to over 150 sparrows daily, giving them food and water to enable them survive, since he says the bird's natural food resources are being eaten away by massive urbanization."The common sparrow is under attack from many quarters. Hundreds of trees and bushes are being cleared and replaced with monstrous buildings, open spaces are being concretized, hundreds of mobile phone communication towers are being erected in cities, towns and villages. All this has hugely affected the tiny sparrow," Dilawar explained.He considers mobile phone towers as one of the biggest threats not only to the sparrows, but to all other birds like the tailorbird, mynah, sunbird, as well as the squirrel - and human beings too. He quoted a recent survey by a New Delhi-based organisation, which found that electromagnetic radiation pollution in Mumbai due to mobile phone towers is 200 percent higher than the permissible limits."This means, we are sitting in an x-ray environment all the time. For the common sparrow, it causes irritation, it reduces their reproductive capacity. Even if it lays eggs, the hatchlings are either destroyed or born with serious deformities. Though the species is sturdy, sparrow chicks have a high mortality rate, as high as 50 percent, which affects its overall population," said Dilawar, a Masters in ecology and environmental studies, specializing in zoology from Manipal University.Dilawar compares the fate of the common sparrows to that of the "common man in a democracy - nobody bothers about him". Elaborating other examples of depleting space, he pointed out to the menace of corporates, housing complexes and even public authorities obsessed with landscaping using exotic and imported plants."They look very attractive but they repel insects and other natural food sources for the birds. In the long run, these landscapes will prove to be green deserts," he said.Sparrows, according to Dilawar are nature's bio-indicators. "They have lived with human beings for thousands of centuries, like squirrels, mynahs, tailorbirds and sunbirds - you don't find them in the jungles. If there is a significant shift in their population, its an alarm signal for us," Dilawar pointed out.Explaining the sparrow's characteristics, he said they survive in all temperatures from the humid coastal regions to the hot plains to the chills of Kashmir and beyond to Ladakh, up to 15,000 feet above sea level. In the open, a sparrow survives for around three years and up to 13 years in captivity.Referring to man's own contribution to the declining population, he said that in the cities, thousands of catapults are sold daily, which are used by children and youth to target birds. "As per the wildlife laws, selling catapults which can harm or kill creatures is an offence, but nobody has even thought of implementing and banning its sale. It's a lethal weapon which can shoot at a speed of 40 feet per second, fatal even for humans," he said.Even ordinary feeding of birds seen in cities is restricted to birds like pigeons and crows, mainly for religious purposes. "Nobody cares to throw seeds for the poor sparrows".He said that Time magazine's honour for him - first time it has gone to any ornithologist - will help highlight the cause of the common sparrow and all other common creatures facing threats of different kinds.Dilawar got married two years ago to Zainab, an interior designer who also manages to keep an eagle's eye on his uncommon obsession since four years - the common sparrow.--Indo-Asian News Serviceqn/rn/dg696 Words*07101543
2008-10-07 06:00:00Future electric cars may supply power to grid customers
Washington, October 3 ANI: Scientists at the University of Michigan are probing the possibility of creating plug-in hybrid electric vehicles PHEV that can earn their owners money by transferring electricity to power grids, besides using it for propulsion. The researchers have received a grant of two million dollars from the National Science Foundation NSF for the four-year project. "Cars sit most of the time. What if it could work for you while it sits there If you could use a car for something more than just getting to work or going on a family vacation, it would be a whole different way to think about a vehicle, and a whole different way to think about the power grid, too," said Jeff Stein, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.The vehicle-to-grid V2G integration concept is aimed at achieving large-scale changes that are needed to improve the sustainability and resilience of the transportation and electric power infrastructures. If the concept turns out to be successful, it will become possible for power grids to utilise car batteries for storing excess renewable energy from wind and the sun, and releasing the energy to customers when needed, such as during peak hours. The researchers believe that the introduction of such a system can lead to sharp changes in energy costs, supply or demand. They have revealed that a team of experts in mechanical and power systems engineering, economics, and industrial ecology examining every aspect of a PHEV, and how it interacts with the electrical grid. They reckon that PHEVs may be on the market in 2010, and say that their success might lead to mass-production in the decades to come. He and his colleagues envision a world where the electric cars could double as mobile holding tanks for electricity, ready to serve in their down time."If we had lots of PHEVs all plugged into the grid, then what seems like an insignificant amount of energy storage becomes a large energy storage," he said. During the course of study, the researchers will develop models to understand how PHEVs can influence the reliability and stability of the electrical grid, and how well such a system can shift to a back up plan. The models they create ultimately can be turned over to industry. "This project will provide policy makers, industry leaders and the public with critical information so that they can make well informed decisions. It is the new face of informed decision making," said Gary Was, director of the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute which develops, coordinates and promotes multidisciplinary energy research and education at U-M. ANI
2008-10-03 23:00:00Female birds sacrifice health to lay more colourful eggs
London, Oct 3 ANI: Researchers at the University of Vigo in Spain have found that female birds sacrifice their health to lay colourful eggs.The colour blue in many birds' eggs comes from the compound biliverdin - a breakdown product of the heme unit in haemoglobin - that circulates freely in the blood. However, biliverdin is not just a pigment, it is also an antioxidant used by the body to prevent cellular damage. Previous studies have shown that when females lay vibrant blue eggs, their partners are more likely to stick around and help rear the young one. Therefore, researchers thought that since the blue colour comes from an antioxidant, it is an indication to male partners of the female's health status. For the study, Judith Morales at the University of Vigo in Spain and her colleagues monitored 100 boxes near the village of Lozoya in central Spain, where pied flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca commonly nest. They observed the progress of 48 females from when they started nesting. Once the nests were completed, the female birds began laying eggs. The researchers measured the colour of the eggs with a portable spectrophotometer, and one week after egg-laying was completed the scientists took blood samples from the birds. They found that neither laying intensely blue eggs nor having to rebuild a nest triggered a noticeable decrease in plasma concentrations of the antioxidant. But both factors combined did.The researchers suggest that the birds somehow shift their allocation of biliverdin towards the eggs, depleting their own antioxidant defences in the process. The effect becomes measurable in birds that are already stressed by having to rebuild their nest, something that is itself expected to decrease antioxidant levels."To the best of our knowledge, this is the first evidence that blue eggs are not free - there is a big price that the females are paying," Nature quoted Morales, as saying. The study is published in Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology2. ANI
2008-10-03 23:00:00Jakhu ropeway project hits roadblock in Himachal Pradesh
NAT28National/Environment/TourismJakhu ropeway project hits roadblock in Himachal PradeshShimla, Oct 1 IANS The aerial ropeway project linking the Ridge with the historical Hunuman Temple in Jakhu hills in Himachal Pradesh's state capital has hit a roadblock over violation of environment laws.The state government has directed the construction company, Jagson International Ltd to stop the construction of the ropeway till preventive measures are taken to protect the trees and the houses that fall in the vicinity of the construction site."We have directed company officials to stop the construction work immediately and take remedial measures to check threats to ecology and houses," Forest Minister J.P. Nadda told IANS Wednesday."A three-member committee has been set up to study the extent of damage caused by Jagson International Ltd and to oversee whether it the company complies with environment laws in future," he added.The district court last week expressed concern over damage to trees and threat to human life.It has also directed the company to stop all excavation, digging and construction activities till steps are taken to check further damage."The company has been told to build retaining walls along the landslide-prone areas and embankments along the trees so that excavation work might not pose any threat to nearby areas," Nagin Nanda, director for environment, said.Nanda is a member of the three-man committee that is reviewing the violations at the site."The company has dumped debris haphazardly near the construction site, thus blocking the flow of a water channel. Now we have directed the company to dump the debris at the designated sites only," Nanda said.The company has also been directed to remove the heavy earth-moving machines from the site as these are triggering landslides."We will not allow the company to start the ropeway project until it prepares a plan to protect the environment and houses," Nadda added.Surprisingly, the state government had approved the ropeway project despite the fact that the area falls in the no-construction green zone.However, Nadda clarified that the state forest department had granted permission to the company to axe 31 trees after getting the green signal from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests.--Indo-Asian News Servicevg/ak/dg388 Words01101337
2008-10-01 04:14:12Roadsides could serve as nature preserves for bees
Washington, September 14 ANI: A new research has suggested that roadsides could serve as nature preserves for crucial pollinators, particularly native bees.The research was started by Jennifer Hopwood, while she was in graduate school in ecology at the University of Kansas in Lawrence."I just became really interested in the idea that roadsides could be potential habitat for animals and could also be a haven for plant species," she said.According to a report in Discovery News, roadsides planted with native plants hosted more than twice as many total bees and almost 50 percent more bee species than roadsides covered in non-native grasses, as indicated by findings from the study.Hopwood collected bees from several roadside sites in Kansas that had been restored to native plants, and compared them with nearby, unrestored roadsides. Not only did Hopwood find that native plants hosted more than twice as many bees and almost 30 more types than weedy sites, but she also found that this relationship held regardless of how many flowers were present."Even if there were a ton of exotic flowers, the roadsides that had native flowers in them still attracted more bees," Hopwood said.The width of the roadside did not make a difference in Hopwood's findings, suggesting that even narrow roadsides can act as refuges for native bees.The bees seemed to fare fine despite their proximity to speeding windshields: There were no fewer bees in plots next to heavily trafficked roads than in less-trafficked areas.Native-planted roadsides, which are not tilled like agricultural lands, and which have more open ground than weedy roadsides, also provide good spots for native ground-nesting bees to settle in, according to Hopwood.The findings suggest that the more than 10 million acres of roadside in the US could serve as a valuable, interconnected source of habitat for native bees, whose populations have declined in recent years. Experts also have hopes for native bees to help with the crucial pollination of agricultural plants since honeybee numbers have crashed from colony collapse disorder.According to Kimberly Russell of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, "The idea of taking what people often refer to as junk land, and, with just a little bit of effort, creating this haven for these grassland species is a way to make a difference." "We're going to sprawl, but if you can do these little things to bring in native species, that's a really good thing," she added. ANI
2008-09-14 04:01:06Old growth forests are valuable "carbon sinks"
Washington, September 11 ANI: A new analysis has suggested that old growth forests are usually valuable "carbon sinks", and they continue to absorb carbon dioxide CO2 from the atmosphere and mitigate climate change for centuries.The analysis of 519 different plot studies, by researchers from Oregon State University OSU and several other institutions, found that about 15 percent of the forest land in the Northern Hemisphere is unmanaged primary forests with large amounts of old growth, and that rather than being irrelevant to the Earth's carbon budget, they may account for as much as 10 percent of the global net uptake of carbon dioxide.According to the study, in forests anywhere between 15 and 800 years of age, the net carbon balance of the forest and soils is usually positive - meaning they absorb more carbon dioxide than they release."If you are concerned about offsetting greenhouse gas emissions and look at old forests from nothing more than a carbon perspective, the best thing to do is leave them alone," said Beverly Law, professor of forest science at OSU.Forests use carbon dioxide as building blocks for organic molecules and store it in woody tissues, but that process is not indefinite. In the 1960s, a study using 10 years worth of data from a single plantation suggested that forests 150 or more years old give off as much carbon as they take up from the atmosphere, and are thus "carbon neutral.""That's the story that we all learned for decades in ecology classes. But it was just based on observations in a single study of one type of forest, and it simply doesn't apply in all cases," Law said."The current data now makes it clear that carbon accumulation can continue in forests that are centuries old," he added.According to Law, when an old growth forest is harvested, studies show that there's a new input of carbon to the atmosphere for about 5-20 years, before the growing young trees begin to absorb and sequester more carbon than they give off. The creation of new forests, whether naturally or by humans, is often associated with disturbance to soil and the previous vegetation, resulting in decomposition that exceeds for some period the net primary productivity of re-growth.Old growth forests, according to the study, continue to sequester carbon for many centuries. When individual trees die due to lightning, insects, fungal attack or other causes, there is generally a second canopy layer waiting in the shade to take over and maintain productivity. The study will be necessary for land surface models that attempt to define carbon balance to better characterize function of old forests. ANI
2008-09-11 05:00:00Oldest sheep make larger contributions to population growth when conditions are harsh
Washington, September 6 ANI: A new research has shown that the oldest individuals in a group of sheep contribute most to population growth when climate changes makes conditions harsh.Carried out by researchers at Imperial College London and Universite Claude Bernard Lyon, the research has shown how a sheep population on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland responds to two consequences of climate change: altered food availability and the unpredictability of winter storms. According to Dr. Thomas Ezard, lead author of the study, "When times are good and food is plentiful, lambs contribute almost twice as much to changes in population size than when times are hard.""On the flip side, the oldest sheep contribute most to population growth when conditions are harsh," he added. The work, published in the September issue of The American Naturalist, suggests that the dynamics of populations are influenced not only by the weather, but also by the ability of individuals to respond to it.New mathematical breakthroughs have made it possible to show how environmental change affects populations, like these sheep. The key is appreciating how weather affects individual sheep and how the weather changes from one year to the next. If consecutive years have similar weather, the dynamics of the population will be very different than if conditions are unrelated from one year to the next. According to Professor Tim Coulson, "A thorough understanding of the likely effects of climate change on the ecology of wild populations requires linking populations to their environment. This demands application of innovative mathematical methods, as used here." ANI
2008-09-06 06:00:00Biological invasions increasing due to freshwater impoundments
Washington, September 3 ANI: A new study, led by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder, US, has indicated that the growing number of dams and other impoundments is increasing the number of invasive species and the speed at which they spread, putting natural lakes at risk.The research team combined data on water chemistry, the distribution of five "nuisance invaders" and boating activity from the Great Lakes region. According to CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Pieter Johnson, co-lead author of the study, the results showed the increasing occurrence of such species in impoundments creates "stepping-stone habitats" for them into natural lakes, ponds and waterways in the region.The researchers looked at invaders like the Eurasian zebra mussel, the Eurasian water plant known as watermilfoil, the Eurasian spiny water flea, the rusty crayfish and the rainbow smelt. "Such freshwater invaders often have direct negative effects on lake ecosystems, including reduced fishing success, changes in water clarity and fouling of fishing gear and water-pumping equipment," Johnson said.The study showed impoundments significantly reduced the average distance between "uninvaded" lakes and lakes inhabited by zebra mussels, increasing the number of natural lakes considered vulnerable to zebra mussel invasion by 50 percent.Zebra mussels recently jumped to reservoirs in the West, including Colorado, leading to mandatory boat inspections at some landings, according to Johnson. The other invaders are either already in Colorado - the rainbow smelt and water milfoil - or have a high probability of being introduced, like the spiny water flea and rusty crayfish, he added."We believe impoundments may be functioning as 'hubs' for freshwater invaders, aiding their spread and establishment into natural water bodies," said Johnson of CU-Boulder's ecology and evolutionary biology department. The researchers wrote in the study that "reservoir construction and the conversion of free-flowing rivers to standing waters may ultimately facilitate the spread of invasive species across the landscape."The team looked at data from 4,200 lakes and more than 1,000 impoundments across Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The study showed non-indigenous species are up to 300 times more likely to occur in impoundments than in natural lakes, increasing the invasion risks for natural lakes."Collectively, these results suggest the benefits of building more reservoirs should be carefully balanced against the potential negative consequences, including increased biological invasions," Johnson said. ANI
2008-09-03 18:00:00French Housing Starts Decline
Tuesday, France's Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Planning and Development said in a report that housing starts declined 11.8% in the three-month period to July. This was slower compared to a 28.2% fall recorded in the three-month to June.
2008-08-26 02:10:23
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