Salamanders Suffer Delayed Effects Of Common Herbicide:
Pollution from a common herbicide might be causing die-offs in stream salamanders, according to biologists who say findings from their long-term study raise concerns over the role of atrazine in global amphibian declines.
Experience Affects New Neuron Survival In Adult Brain; Study Sheds Light On Learning, Memory:
Experience in the early development of new neurons in specific brain regions affects their survival and activity in the adult brain, new research shows. How these new neurons store information about these experiences may explain how they can affect learning and memory in adults.
Researchers Uncover New Burrowing Dinosaur:
An Emory University paleontologist, collaborating with colleagues from Montana State University and Japan, has uncovered the world's first fossil evidence of burrowing behavior in dinosaurs. The study appears in the current Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences issue online. The 95-million-year-old skeletal remains of the diminutive dinosaur -- along with the bones of two juveniles -- were found tucked into a fossilized chamber at the end of a sediment-filled burrow in southwestern Montana.
Biologists Solve Vitamin Puzzle:
Solving a mystery that has puzzled scientists for decades, MIT and Harvard researchers have discovered the final piece of the synthesis pathway of vitamin B12--the only vitamin synthesized exclusively by microorganisms. B12, the most chemically complex of all vitamins, is essential for human health. Four Nobel Prizes have been awarded for research related to B12, but one fragment of the molecule remained an enigma--until now.