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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 22, 2014 at 7:17am

Biofuels from crop residue can reduce soil carbon and increase CO2 emissions
Biofuels made using corn waste could release 7 percent more greenhouse gases in the early years compared to conventional gasoline. As a result, this type of cellulosic ethanol could be inelligible to meet quotas under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA).
According to a new study published yesterday in Nature Climate Change, this type of cellulosic biofuel could result in a 7% net increase in emissions. The government-funded research states that the main cause of this increase comes down to absolute changes in soil carbon content.

The carbon content of soil is broadly a function of new inputs (plant and animal material) and losses (predominately via erosion and respiration). Conventionally, corn crop residue is left on the field after harvest in order to reduce soil erosion and maintain the carbon stocks and soil fertility.

By removing corn waste from fields, models indicate that soil carbon content will decrease over time. In turn, corn-waste ethanol will effectively produce 7% more carbon dioxide equivalent than conventional gasoline in the short-term. While the results vary according to the amount of carn residue that is removed, any removal resulted in a net increase in emissions in the model.

In the longer-term, the study says that these types of biofuels will result in a net emissions decrease. However, the short term increase is enough to keep this type of biofuel from complying with regulations in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA). This Act requires that biofuels produce 60% less pollution than conventional gasoline.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 22, 2014 at 6:47am

What Is the Deep Web?
The internet is huge. I'm sure many of you know that, but it's almost unbelievable that when Googling the term "cat videos" that Google can serve up nearly a billion hits from all across the web. Now keep in mind there are 7 billion people on the planet. It's mind boggling.

But what if I were to tell you that Google and other search engines can only search a fraction of the web. This number varies from source to source, but the most generous term that I've heard is that Google can search about 10% of the world wide web. So what's in the other 90%?

Well I can assure you it's probably not another billion cat videos!

Tech Talker will be talking about the dark side of the web that Google won't show you.

This other 90% of the web goes by many different names: Dark Net, Invisible Web, Dark Web, Deep Web, Deep Net.

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/tech/web/what-is-the-deep-web

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 22, 2014 at 6:43am

The extent to which biodiversity change in local assemblages contributes to global biodiversity loss is poorly understood. We analyzed 100 time series from biomes across Earth to ask how diversity within assemblages is changing through time. We quantified patterns of temporal α diversity, measured as change in local diversity, and temporal β diversity, measured as change in community composition. Contrary to our expectations, we did not detect systematic loss of α diversity. However, community composition changed systematically through time, in excess of predictions from null models. Heterogeneous rates of environmental change, species range shifts associated with climate change, and biotic homogenization may explain the different patterns of temporal α and β diversity. Monitoring and understanding change in species composition should be a conservation priority.
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Biodiversity Survives Extinctions for Now
A meta-analysis of ecosystems finds that species losses in any given place do not yet translate to large changes in the number of different species in that place.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/biodiversity-surv...

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6181/296

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 22, 2014 at 6:01am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 20, 2014 at 3:33pm

Genetic Study Tackles Slow Plant Domestication Mystery
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113124568/slow-plant-domestic...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 19, 2014 at 9:24am

Northwestern synthetic biology team has created a new technology for modifying human cells to create programmable therapeutics that could travel the body and selectively target cancer and other sites of disease.

Engineering cell-based, biological devices that monitor and modify human physiology is a promising frontier in clinical synthetic biology. However, no existing technology enabled bioengineers to build such devices that sense a patient’s physiological state and respond in a customized fashion.

“The project addressed a key gap in the synthetic biology toolbox,” says Joshua Leonard, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering in Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. “There was no way to engineer cells in a manner that allowed them to sense key pieces of information about their environment, which could indicate whether the engineered cell is in healthy tissue or sitting next to a tumor.”

http://pubs.acs.org/journal/asbcd6

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 19, 2014 at 9:22am

Older women with gumption score high on compassion

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that older women, plucky individuals and those who have suffered a recent major loss are more likely to be compassionate toward strangers than other older adults.

The study is published in this month’s issue of the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291099-1166

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 19, 2014 at 9:20am

A groundbreaking study published in PLOS ONE by Prof. Iris Berent of Northeastern University and researchers at Harvard Medical School shows the brains of individual speakers are sensitive to language universals. Syllables that are frequent across languages are recognized more readily than infrequent syllables. Simply put, this study shows that language universals are hardwired in the human brain.

LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS

Language universals have been the subject of intense research, but their basis remains elusive. Indeed, the similarities between human languages could result from a host of reasons that are tangential to the language system itself. Syllables like lbog, for instance, might be rare due to sheer historical forces, or because they are just harder to hear and articulate. A more interesting possibility, however, is that these facts could stem from the biology of the language system. Could the unpopularity of lbogs result from universal linguistic principles that are active in every human brain?
http://www.northeastern.edu/cos/2014/04/iris-berent/

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 19, 2014 at 9:17am

Differences Between Neanderthals And Modern Man Caused By Genetic Switches
With Neanderthals and modern humans sharing more than 99.8 percent of their genetic material, the differences in DNA between the two species are fairly minimal and a new study has found that the differences seen in phenotypes are mostly caused by certain genes being “switched on” or “switched off.”

According to the study published in the journal Science, genetic switches that affect the size and shape of limbs, as well as those that affect the development of the brain, are the most pronounced differences.

The study brings up the importance of researching the epigenome, or the genetic aspects that are responsible for switching on or off certain genes. Recent research has revealed how the epigenome can affect everything from cancer risk to the subtle differences between identical twins, each of whom have a copy of the same genetic material. The switching off of genes is typically achieved through a process called methylation – in which a methyl group, comprised of a carbon atom and three hydrogen atoms, is attached to a gene.

To uncover the epigenomic differences between Neanderthals and moderns humans, scientists took genetic material from limb bones of a living person, a Neanderthal and a Denisovan – an extinct Stone Age human that lived in Eurasia.

The study team was able to find approximately 2,200 regions that were triggered in today’s humans, but switched off in either or both extinct species, or the other way around. One of the main differences identified by the team was a group of five genes called HOXD, which impacts the appearance and size of limbs. It was mainly silenced in both ancient species, the scientists said. The HOXD differences could explain Neanderthals’ characteristic shorter limbs, bowleggedness and oversized hands and fingers.

Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London, who was not directly involved in the study, told Reuters that the HOXD gene finding “may help to explain how these ancient humans were able to build stronger bodies, better adapted to the physical rigors of Stone Age life.”

The study team noted that the epigenome can be affected by lifestyle and environmental factors. This means that the differences observed could be unique to the individual sampled – rather than being representative on an entire species.

The researchers also found major epigenomic differences with respect to genes known to be related to neurological and psychiatric disorders such as autism and Alzheimer’s disease. These genes were silenced in the Neanderthal samples.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113124657/epigenome-neanderth...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 19, 2014 at 9:15am

The cause of neuronal death in Parkinson's disease is still unknown, but a new study proposes that neurons may be mistaken for foreign invaders and killed by the person's own immune system, similar to the way autoimmune diseases like type I diabetes, celiac disease, and multiple sclerosis attack the body's cells. The study was published April 16, 2014, in Nature Communications. "This is a new, and likely controversial, idea in Parkinson's disease; but if true, it could lead to new ways to prevent neuronal death in Parkinson's that resemble treatments for autoimmune diseases," said the study's senior author, David Sulzer, PhD, professor of neurobiology in the departments of psychiatry, neurology, and pharmacology at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons.

The new hypothesis about Parkinson's emerges from other findings in the study that overturn a deep-seated assumption about neurons and the immune system.
http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/

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