Duke's Weekly Science links

[Duke]

All credit to the authors found within the links.


Tiny Organisms Feast On Oil Thousands Of Feet Below Bottom Of Sea

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2008) — Thousands of feet below the bottom of the sea, off the shores of Santa Barbara, single-celled organisms are busy feasting on oil.

Until now, nobody knew how many oily compounds were being devoured by the microscopic creatures, but new research led by David Valentine of UC Santa Barbara and Chris Reddy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts has shed new light on just how extensive their diet can be.

Discovering How Human-caused Sounds Affect Marine Mammals

Human activities produce a range of underwater sound frequencies that can interfere with marine mammal functions important for their survival.

Urban Black Bears 'Live Fast, Die Young'

The study, published in the Fall 2008 issue of the journal Human-Wildlife Conflicts, tracked 12 bears over a 10-year period living in urban areas around Lake Tahoe, Nevada and compared them to 10 "wildland" bears that lived in outlying wild areas. The authors found that bears in urbanized areas weighed an average of 30 percent more than bears in wild areas due to a diet heavily supplemented by garbage.

Global Warming Costs Starfish an Arm and a Leg

The oceans absorb about half the carbon dioxide humankind releases into the atmosphere, and seawater is consequently acidifying.

That's a big problem for shellfish, corals, and certain other calcareous creatures, because lowered pH dissolves their shells and skeletons. Echinoderms — starfish and their relatives — have calcium-based skeletons, too, and so researchers have assumed they are likewise subject to slow dissolution.

Of Mice and Models

New research shows that neurons across species are not created equal. What does this mean for animal research?

 

[method]

Very cool, some great reads.

 

[shane14]

LOL good stuff there