News by Subject Biology

The first survey of methane vent sites off Washington's coast finds 1,778 bubble columns, with most located along a north-south band that is in line with a geologic fault.

When you flush the toilet, you probably don't think about the traces of the medicine and personal care products in your body that are winding up in sewage treatment plants, streams, rivers, lakes, bays and the ocean. But Rutgers scientists have found that bacteria in sewage treatment plants may be creating new contaminants that have not been evaluated for potential risks and may affect aquatic environments, according to a study in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

Research shows that females age more slowly and live longer when they have help raising their offspring. Researchers studied the relationship between ageing and offspring rearing patterns in the Seychelles warbler, and found that females who had assistance from other female helpers benefitted from a longer, healthier lifespan. The findings help explain why social species, such as humans, which live in groups and cooperate to raise offspring, often have longer lifespans.

Urogenital schistosomiasis (US), a chronic parasitic disease, is endemic in Ghana and policymakers have undertaken efforts to control it, largely through mass drug administration of praziquantel given to school-aged children. Now, researchers reporting in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases have found that awareness of Female Genital Schistosomiasis (FGS), a specific gender manifestation of US, is lacking, which affects the ability to control this disease in girls and women.

The dramatic difference in gonad size between honey bee queens and their female workers in response to their distinct diets requires the switching on of a specific genetic program, according to a new study publishing March 21 in open-access journal PLOS Biology by Annika Roth and Martin Beye of Heinrich-Heine University in Dusseldorf and colleagues. The finding may aid analysis of the interplay of genes and nutrition that drive caste dimorphism in honey bees.

A scientific study describes for the first time the submarine cartography of a high-latitude system in the IBIS channel, which covers tens of kilometres in the northern western area of the Barents Sea, in the Arctic Ocean. This channel is one of the few submarine valleys in polar latitudes that kept its geological architecture during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).

Meadows adjacent to high-intensity agricultural areas are home to less than half the number of butterfly species than areas in nature preserves. The number of individuals is even down to one-third of that number. These are results of a research team led by Jan Christian Habel at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Thomas Schmitt at the Senckenberg Nature Research Society.

An array of underwater listening lines that detect passing giant Atlantic bluefin tuna previously caught and tagged by scientists has created a new system to monitor these enormous, fast, powerful and lucrative fish in the open ocean. Ten years of research using the technology sheds light on the species' natural mortality as well as migration, important information for sustainable management of their populations.