A new study on extinction risk has shown that proportions of plant and animal species being classified as threatened on national Red Lists are more closely related to socioeconomic pressure levels from the beginning than from the end of the 20th century. Stefan Dullinger of the University of Vienna and Franz Essl from the Austrian Environment Agency together with an international group of researchers reports this new finding in the current issue of PNAS.
New research results from Uppsala University, Sweden, instill hope of efficient hydrogen production with green algae being possible in the future, despite the prevailing scepticism based on previous research. The study, which is published today in the journal PNAS, changes the view on the ability of green algae.
(Phys.org) —Identify the type of cancer for patients with breast cancer in a few minutes. This is the challenge that EPFL researchers successfully met by presenting their new “microfluidic chip.” Their research is written up in PNAS. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
The first red alga genome has just been sequenced by an international team coordinated by CNRS and UPMC at the Station Biologique de Roscoff (Brittany), notably involving researchers from CEA-Genoscope, the universities of Lille 1 and Rennes 1 and the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. The genome of Chondrus crispus, also known by the Breton name ‘pioka’, turns out to be small and compact for a multicellular organism. It has fewer genes than several other species of unicellular algae, which raises a number of questions about the evolution of red algae. This low number of genes could explain why these organisms never colonized dry land, unlike their green counterparts-from which all terrestrial plants are descended. These findings open up new perspectives on the natural history of algae and of terrestrial plants. They are published online in the journal PNAS on March 11, 2013. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Insect or microbe: plants recognize their attackers and respond by producing specific internal signals that induce the appropriate chemical defenses. That is the main conclusion of a study at the Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology operated at Gainesville, Florida (USA)* by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, to which the team around Prof. Ted Turlings of the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, has contributed. The study is published today in the prestigious journal PNAS. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
New research, published today in the journal PNAS, shows that surprisingly accurate estimates of Facebook users’ race, age, IQ, sexuality, personality, substance use and political views can be inferred from automated analysis of only their Facebook Likes – information currently publicly available by default. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Flocks of birds, schools of fish, and groups of any other living organisms might have a mathematical function in common. Studying aquatic microorganisms, Andrea Giometto, a researcher EPFL and Eawag, showed that for each species he studied, body sizes were distributed according to the same mathematical expression, where the only unknown is the average size of the species in an ecosystem. His article was published in in PNAS in March 2013. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
(Phys.org)—Writing in PNAS, University of Manchester graphene researchers found that sandwiching a layer of the wonder material between boron nitride could produce highly-accurate capacitors. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
By hnn
We may need to look again at the idea that a late Neanderthal population existed in southern Spain as recently as 35,000 years ago, a study suggests.
Scientists using a “more reliable” form of radiocarbon dating have re-assessed fossils from the region and found them to be far older than anyone thought.
The work appears in the journal PNAS.
Its results have implications for when and where we – modern humans – might have co-existed with our evolutionary “cousins”, the Neanderthals….
Source: FULL ARTICLE at History News Network – George Mason University
(Phys.org)—Evolution in very large populations of plants, animals or fungi can be predicted far less easily than one would expect. This has been shown by research at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of Cologne and the Laboratory of Genetics at Wageningen University (published in the January 9 issue of PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). The researchers combined genetic information from a fungus with computer models which simulate the course of evolution. They concluded that, while evolution in small populations is known to be unpredictable, this is also the case for very large populations. There is an optimal population size for predicting evolutionary outcomes in every situation.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
If you have ever wondered why you never seem to win at skill-based games such as poker or chess, there might be a very good reason. Writing in PNAS, a University of Manchester physicist has discovered that some games are simply impossible to fully learn, or too complex for the human mind to understand.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
