Dr. Miracle of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington has developed a method of detecting brain injuries in salmon caused by dams by comparing amounts of intact protein to amounts of breakdown protein products in cell walls.
On rivers with flood-control and hydroelectric dams, like many in the Pacific Northwest, the young salmon are buffeted, subject to sharp pressure changes and otherwise knocked around as they pass through spillways, tunnels and power-generating turbines.
Dr. Miracle’s methods of measuring protein in cell walls could replace the current usage of dummy fish containing accelerometers and embedded sensors in live fish.
Mosquitoes are responsible for millions of deaths around the world. The problem is, science isn’t advanced enough to make them disease-resistant, yet pesticides are leading to even bigger worldwide problems. Researchers in Australia think they may have found a new green solution.
Once a mosquito encounters dengue or malaria, it takes roughly two weeks of incubation before the insect can spread that pathogen by biting someone, meaning older mosquitoes are the more dangerous ones.
The Australian scientists knew that one type of fruit fly often is infected with a strain of bacterial parasite that cuts its lifespan in half.
Breeding mosquitoes that die younger can cut down on the need for more dangerous pesticides, though messing with mother nature in an way could pose unforeseen problems…
When people go hunting, they kill the big trophy animals with the largest antlers, hide, horns, etc. The scawny, weak animals are left behind, reversing the natural selection Darwin espoused in his theory of evolution.
Researchers describe what’s happening as none other than the selection process that Darwin made famous: the fittest of a species survive to reproduce and pass along their traits to succeeding generations, while the traits of the unfit gradually disappear. Selective hunting—picking out individuals with the best horns or antlers, or the largest piece of hide—works in reverse: the evolutionary loser is not the small and defenseless, but the biggest and best-equipped to win mates or fend off attackers.
Researchers and officials from the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Park Service on Tuesday presented the findings of a 4 year study that estimated the population of grizzly bears in Montana. The results confirmed what was assumed: the endangered grizzly bear population has grown. There are now an estimated 765 bears living in northwest Montana, in places like Glacier National Park. This number indicates that the population has grown by about 2.5X since the last survey was conducted.
Of all places to start a greenhouse, the Sahara Desert would likely rank pretty low for many. But someone is working on a plan to make food growing happen there. The Sahara Forest Project aims to use massive greenhouses to direct the sun’s rays for heat and energy, which is planned to regulate the air, filter water and create an environment for plant growth.
This Friday, John C. Mankins, a former NASA employee who is an expert on space solar power will make a big announcement about a potentially huge alternative energy breakthrough.
The basic idea is that satellites in space will collect solar energy and beam it down to the earth. Apparently, Mankin was involved with a project that successfully demonstrated a wireless power transmission between two Hawaiian Islands. The islands are farther apart in distance than is the Earth’s surface from space. The idea and pilot project will be featured on a Discovery Channel show called Discover Project Earth that will also be broadcast this Friday.
Here’s an interesting and complicating bit of information to add in for the nuclear power debate at Sustainablog:
Because mineral coal contains trace amounts of radioactive materials such as thorium and uranium, when the coal is burned, those previously trace elements become far more concentrated in the fly ash residue. As a result, coal plant fly ash is actually more radioactive than nuclear power plant waste, and the land around a typical coal plant has a higher background radiation level than a similar area around a typical nuclear power plant.
The result: estimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities. At one extreme, the scientists estimated fly ash radiation in individuals’ bones at around 18 millirems (thousandths of a rem, a unit for measuring doses of ionizing radiation) a year. Doses for the two nuclear plants, by contrast, ranged from between three and six millirems for the same period. And when all food was grown in the area, radiation doses were 50 to 200 percent higher around the coal plants.
The whole article on coal fly ash at Scientific American makes for thought provoking reading.
Humans might have ushered Earth into the Anthropocene, but we’d be unwise to ignore the fact that we’re always going to be living in the Age of Microbes, according to a new article in Microbiology Today. “Microbes will continue as climate engineers long after humans have burned that final barrel of oil,” says author Dave Reay of the University of Edinburgh. “Whether they help us to avoid dangerous climate change in the 21st century or push us even faster towards it depends on just how well we understand them.”
Image courtesy of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Dr. Miracle of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington has developed a method of detecting brain injuries in salmon caused by dams by comparing amounts of intact protein to amounts of breakdown protein products in cell walls.
Here’s an interesting and complicating bit of information to add in for the 
