Monthly Archives: September 2010

The Ocean’s Influence Greater Than Thought

Posted on 2010/09/27 by Ray Tomes

A description of a recent paper in Nature states that: Alex Bojanowski at Germany’s online Der Spiegel reports here on a new paper appearing in Nature that shows climate change in the 1970s was caused by ocean cooling. Climate simulation … Continue reading →

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Tick Tock: Rods Help Set Internal Clocks, Johns Hopkins Biologist Says

Posted on 2010/09/24 by Leslie Carol Botha

AScribe

BALTIMORE, Sept. 16 (AScribe Newswire) — We run our modern lives largely by the clock, from the alarms that startle us out of our slumbers and herald each new workday to the watches and clocks that remind us when it’s time for meals, after-school pick-up and the like.

In addition to those ubiquitous timekeepers, though, we have internal “clocks” that are part of our biological machinery and which help set our circadian rhythms, regulating everything from our sleep-wake cycles to our appetites and hormone levels. Light coming into our brains via our eyes set those clocks, though no one is sure exactly how this happens. Continue reading →

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Say Goodbye to Sunspots?

Posted on 2010/09/21 by Ray Tomes

According to sciencemag the magnetic field of the Sun has been gradually reducing over a long period and we might soon be seeing very few sunspots for quite some time. Scientists studying sunspots for the past 2 decades have concluded … Continue reading →

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Found: solar cycles on another star

Posted on 2010/09/16 by Ray Tomes

What’s Up with That reports that: Distant Star’s Sound Waves Reveal Cycle Similar to Sun – but the cycle is fast, less than 1 year Star known as HD49933 is located 100 light years away from Earth In a bid … Continue reading →

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Photoperiodic diapause under the control of circadian clock genes in an insect

Posted on 2010/09/04 by Leslie Carol Botha

7th Space

Most organisms have evolved a circadian clock in order to anticipate daily environmental changes and many of these organisms are also capable of sophisticated measurement of daylength (photoperiodism) that is used to regulate seasonal events such as diapause, migration and polymorphism. It has been generally accepted that the same elements are involved in both circadian (daily) and seasonal (annual) rhythms because both rely upon daily light-dark cycles.

However, as reasonable as this sounds, there remains no conclusive evidence of such a molecular machinery in insects. We have approached this issue by using RNA interference (RNAi) in Riptortus pedestris. Continue reading →

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