"La naturaleza es grande en las grandes cosas, pero es grandísima en las más pequeñas" Saint-Pierre (1737-1814)

miércoles, 16 de julio de 2014

Noticias científicas diarias

- Los machos de papamoscas cerrojillo se adaptan a las necesidades de las hembras.
El canal de comunicación entre machos y hembras podría ser una adaptación para garantizar el éxito de la incubación. Investigadores del Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN), del CSIC, han demostrado experimentalmente que, durante el periodo de incubación, los machos de Papamoscas cerrojillo, Ficedula hypoleuca, aumentan el aporte de alimento a las hembras cuando éstas así lo solicitan.
Más información: http://www.mncn.csic.es/

- El Real Jardín Botánico, CSIC participa en la exposición "El último viaje de la fragata Mercedes".
Ha cedido al Museo Arqueológico Nacional varias piezas procedentes de la Expedición Botánica al Virreinato del Perú (1777-1788) que se encuentran en el Herbario del RJB, CSIC. La muestra, que se ha distribuido también en el Museo Naval, se puede visitar hasta el próximo 30 de noviembre.

- Los centros distinguidos con el Severo Ochoa reciben su galardón.
Los directores de tres centros del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) han recibido este martes el galardón de excelencia científica Severo Ochoa que promueve el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad a través de la Secretaría de Estado de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación. La mención pretende promover la investigación de excelencia que se realiza en España en los campos de la ciencia y les asigna un millón de euros anuales durante cuatro años.
Más información: 

- Do friends have similar genomes?
A study from a controversial pair of US researchers claims that we are more genetically similar to our friends than we are to strangers.

- Flying dino had long, feathery tail.
Please welcome the latest member of the growing club of flying dinosaurs, Changyuraptor yangi, pictured here in an artist’s reconstruction. This latest specimen, found in 125-million-year-old sediments in northeastern China, was about 1.2 meters long and is related to a noted group of flying dinosaurs called Microraptor, which has provided important insights into the evolution of powered flight. Like Microraptor, the new specimen had feathers on all four limbs; but its feathery tail, which takes up about 30% of its total length, is the longest known among flying dinosaurs. Changyuraptor, described online today in Nature Communications, weighed 4 kilograms, making it among the heaviest flying dinosaurs known. As for its long tail, the dino probably used it to slow itself down when descending, thus avoiding crash landings.
More information: 

- Scientists call for limit on creating dangerous pathogens.
A group of prominent scientists and others are calling for a limit to experiments that modify influenza and other dangerous viruses to make them spread more easily in mammals.

- Updated: U.S. biosafety panel to come out of hibernation with new members.
On the heels of several mishaps involving deadly pathogens, U.S. officials are reconvening an expert advisory panel that hasn’t met in nearly 2 years. But the government has also dismissed 11 of the original members of the 23-person panel, called the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB).

- Darwin's ship library goes online.
As Charles Darwin cruised the world on the HMS Beagle, he had access to an unusually well-stocked 400-volume library. That collection, which contained the observations of numerous other naturalists and explorers, has now been recreated online.  
More information: 

- Why the Amazon flows backward.
Millions of years ago, rivers flowing westward across what is now northern Brazil reversed their course to flow toward the Atlantic, and the mighty Amazon was born. A previous study suggested that the about-face was triggered by gradual changes in the flow of hot, viscous rock deep beneath the South American continent. But new computer models hint that the U-turn resulted from more familiar geological processes taking place at Earth’s surface—in particular, the persistent erosion, movement, and deposition of sediment wearing away from the growing Andes.

- Backpacking on Mars.
At the height of the summer travel season, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has released its most detailed geological map of Mars.

- Nature Research Briefings: Graphene. It’s free to download.
Nature Research Briefings: Graphene is a collection of recently published Research Highlights, News and Views selected from across the Nature Publishing Group journals. Each edition highlights some of the latest and most exciting developments in this key area of interest. 
More information: http://bit.ly/1n3nwUv

- NEW! Mucosal Immunology presents a Focus on mononuclear phagocyte diversity in mucosal tissues.
The articles and reviews in this web focus are likely to be of central importance not only to our understanding of how mucosal immune responses are initiated and regulated, but also to the development of novel therapies and mucosal vaccines.
More information: http://bit.ly/1oAxnm5

- Astronomers will get a rare close-up look at a pristine comet in October, when Comet Siding Spring squeaks past Mars and a flotilla of spacecraft orbiting the red planet. NASA scientists are finalizing their plans to observe the event.
More information: 

- Advances in thin display technology that may pave the way for a new class of smart devices are detailed in Nature. 
More information: http://bit.ly/1jL3ROR

martes, 15 de julio de 2014

- Amphibians can learn to avoid infectious fungi, can acquire resistance after repeated exposures, and can be immunised with dead fungi, a study in Nature reports. 
More information: http://bit.ly/1jqActG

- Nature Conferences - Immune Homeostasis and Inflammatory Disease: A Herrenhausen Symposium.

- The latest Nature Podcast on SoundCloud: The STAP cell paper retractions, immunising frogs against a deadly fungus, how kangaroos use their tails as a fifth leg - and how scientists change the optical properties of a material by applying electricity.

- Publishing is one of the most ballyhooed metrics of scientific careers. Now, a new study finds that very few scientists—fewer than 1%—manage to publish a paper every year. But this 1% of scientists dominates the research journals, having their names on 41% of all papers (and on 87% of the most highly cited.)

- Insight: Hepatitis C can be cured globally, but at what cost? 
The high costs of drugs for treating Hepatitis C, which kills up to 500,000 people every year -- more than tuberculosis or malaria -- can be significantly decreased with the mass production of generic versions, according to the authors of a Perspective in this week’s issue. New drugs capable of curing 90 percent of patients cost between $60,000 to $85,000 per person for a 12 weeks of treatment. With generics, these costs can be brought down to somewhere between $75 and $170 for the same time span. But current U.S. patents prohibit companies from producing generic versions of the drugs for the next 12 to 15 years.
More information: http://bit.ly/1mnikzy

sábado, 12 de julio de 2014

Noticias científicas diarias

- Sigue disfrutando en verano de las visitas de fin de semana al Real Jardín Botánico.
Dentro del programa educativo que financia la Comunidad de Madrid a través de la Consejería de Medio Ambiente y Ordenación del Territorio. Las visitas son en castellano, los sábados y domingos, y en inglés, dos veces al mes, los primeros y terceros domingos.

- China 'admits' trading in tiger skins.
China has for the first time admitted in public that it permits trade in skins from captive tigers, according to participants and officials at a meeting of an international convention to protect endangered species.

- In a FREE special section this week, experts weigh in on the state of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.

- Phase III trial from The Pharmacogenomics Journal.
Identification of SNPs associated with response of breast cancer patients to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in the EORTC-10994 randomized phase III trial.
More information: http://bit.ly/1q2c5o4

- Check out Nature Research Briefings: Cancer. It’s free to download.
Nature Research Briefings: Cancer is a collection of recently published Research Highlights selected from across the Nature Publishing Group journals. Each edition highlights some of the latest and most exciting developments in this key area of interest. PDF – 12 pages, free.
More information: http://bit.ly/1k1Kk7i

- Helmholtz Zentrum München and Nature Medicine are pleased to announce the 2nd Annual Helmholtz-Nature Medicine Diabetes Conference.
 

viernes, 11 de julio de 2014

Noticias científicas diarias

- Las lagartijas de turbera juegan a ‘piedra papel o tijera’ en su estrategia evolutiva.
Investigadores del Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC) han demostrado experimentalmente por primera vez la teoría de la selección sexual basada en el juego piedra papel o tijera. La dinámica ‘piedra papel o tijera' (PPT) es un modelo que ofrece una explicación a cómo los diferentes morfotipos [expresión visible de las variaciones del ADN] de una población se mantienen sin que ninguno de ellos acabe desapareciendo por completo. No existían evidencias científicas que confirmaran este modelo, aunque es una teoría aceptada para especies en las que diferentes generaciones no comparten espacio.
Más información: http://www.mncn.csic.es/

- Animal procedures show small rise.
The number of experimental procedures involving animals in Britain showed a small rise last year, despite a pledge by the government to reduce them.

- HIV re-emerges in 'cured' Mississippi girl.
A baby girl in the US born with HIV and believed cured after very early treatment has now been found to still harbour the virus.

- UK admits that air quality targets will be missed by 20 years.
The air quality in some of the UK's biggest cities is unlikely to meet EU standards before 2030, according to the government.  

- Flexible nano-pixel screen patented.
Scientists have patented a new way to make ultra high-res displays that can bend and are thousandths of a mm thick.

- New in Science: A FREE section on strategies against HIV, the relationship between income and spending, and linking the magnetotail to the ionosphere.

- An isolated tribe in the Amazon region has just taken a momentous and potentially tragic step.  
Emerging from dense rainforest, the group willingly approached a team of government scientists on 29 June and made peaceful contact with the outside world. It is not yet clear what prompted the tribe to end its long seclusion.
More information: 

- Nature Outlook Epilepsy.
Although discussed and feared for millennia, progress towards understanding epilepsy has been slow — even with help from modern genetic and neurological analysis. Stigmatization of people with epilepsy continues in certain parts of the world and though lack of funding limits epilepsy research, new ways to treat and manage seizures are on the horizon. 
More information:  http://bit.ly/U5aHCA

- Policy and Genomics.
See Burke et al. in Genetics in Medicine for “The Translational Potential of Research on the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Genomics" .
More information: http://bit.ly/TFkgHJ 
          


 

jueves, 10 de julio de 2014

Noticias científicas diarias

- Descifradas las ondas atmosféricas de Venus, que podrían explicar la superrotación de su atmósfera 
El planeta Venus gira muy lentamente sobre sí mismo, tanto que un día allí dura 243 días terrestres. Pero su atmósfera, que debería rotar también despacio, circunda el planeta en apenas cuatro días. El motor que origina esta superrotación atmosférica aún se desconoce, aunque las numerosas ondas que pueblan la atmósfera del planeta podrían jugar un papel importante. Un estudio liderado por el Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) ha identificado la naturaleza de estas ondas por primera vez.  
Más información:


- Dispersal 'key to reptile survival'
Reptiles whose gender depends on temperature must become more widespread to survive the effects of climate change, according to new research.

- Bird decline 'smoking gun' for pesticide's effects
The widespread use of a type of insecticide that has been blamed for honeybee deaths is linked to a marked decline in bird numbers in Europe, a report says.

- ¿HASTA QUE PUNTO ES CIENCIA FICCIÓN LA MINERÍA ESPACIAL?
Las principales agencias espaciales están apostando por la exploración de asteroides que, no sólo contienen claves sobre el origen del Sistema Solar, sino que son fuente prácticamente inagotable de metales y otros compuestos esenciales.

- Transforming human brain imaging, discrimination that's skin deep, seizures in glioma, and much more in the 9 July 2014 issue of Science Translational Medicine.

- Physicists spot potential source of 'Oh-My-God' particles
For decades, physicists have sought the sources of the most energetic subatomic particles in the universe—cosmic rays. Now, scientists have observed a broad "hotspot" in the sky in which such they seem to originate. Although not definitive, the observation suggests the cosmic rays emanate from a distinct source near our galaxy and not from sources spread all over the universe.
More information:


- Understanding volcanic plumbing 
Scientists studying the responses of ground waves below Japanese volcanoes have devised a method for identifying where pressurized volcanic fluids build up. This may help them better anticipate volcanic eruptions going forward. Although scientists have known that seismic waves from large earthquakes agitate volcanic systems, they have not been able to determine the specific physical changes seismic waves cause. They do know that large volcanic eruptions are preceded by the build-up of pressurized volcanic fluids at depth. Therefore, understanding the state of these fluids could help better anticipate future eruptions.
More information:


- Multiple sexual signals: calls over colors for mate attraction in an aposematic, color-diverse poison frog
Sexual signals indicate species identity and mate quality, and their importance for mate attraction is largely recognized. Recently, research in animal communication has started to integrate multiple signal modalities and evaluate their interactions. However, mate choice experiments across animal taxa have been limited to laboratory conditions, and assessments of multiple sexual signals under field conditions are still lacking. We take advantage of the divergence in visual and acoustic signals among populations of the Neotropical poison frog Oophaga pumilio to evaluate the importance of male advertisement calls and color patterns in female mate selection. Previous mate choice experiments in this species suggested color-assortative female mate preferences across many populations. Nevertheless, acoustic signals are crucial for sexual selection in frogs, and males of O. pumilio use advertisement calls to attract females. We hypothesize that both advertisement calls and coloration affect female mate selection in O.pumilio. To test this hypothesis we tested 452 receptive females from six populations in Costa Rica and Panama in their natural home ranges for preferences regarding local vs. non-local advertisement calls and color patterns. Overall, the calls overrode the effect of coloration, whereby most females preferred local over non-local calls. We found a tendency to prefer brighter (but not necessarily local) males in two populations. Furthermore, the strength of preferences varied geographically, and thus might be involved in prezygotic isolation among populations. The stronger effect of calls on mate attraction is associated with acoustic divergence between genetic groups in the species, while color pattern diversity is mostly located within one genetic group, i.e., not linked to large-scale population structure. Finally our data highlights the importance to consider an array of signal modalities in multiple wild populations in studies of behavioral isolation.
More information:

- A more effective step-down treatment for asthmatics: CIC or BUD?
Comparison of the efficacy of ciclesonide with that of budesonide in mild to moderate asthma patients after step-down therapy: a randomised parallel-group study.
More information:

   
   

viernes, 20 de junio de 2014

La romería de El Rocío y su relación con la naturaleza

No he podido evitar no comentar acerca de este tema. Me es imposible. Me estoy refiriendo a la romería de El Rocío que se celebra todos los años en los alrededores del Parque Nacional de Doñana y de la aldea de El Rocío pertenecientes a la limítrofe provincia de Huelva.

Con todo el respeto, y aunque personalmente no sea yo muy creyente, me considero una persona de sentido común, y es necesario hacer una reflexión sobre dicha festividad. Las imágenes que se ven todos los años de ese fervor religioso de las masas y de esos bebés volando entre la gente son cuando menos impactantes (que si procedieran de otros países hablaríamos de fundamentalismo), pero mi intención no es dar el enfoque religioso sino el enfoque medioambiental.

No es de sentido común, para nada, hacer un evento de este calibre atravesando zonas protegidas del maravilloso y único en toda Europa Parque Nacional de Doñana (espacio muy sensible ya que se encuentra rodeado por todos los frentes de importantes ciudades y un fuerte desarrollo urbanístico que le asfixia día tras día, y protegido por numerosas figuras de protección desde nivel autonómico, estatal, europeo e internacional). Este evento produce alteraciones en el entorno al paso de la columna humana, las cientos de toneladas de residuos que se generan y algo que me parece muy preocupante, que es el hecho de que todos los años se deja morir a una decena mínimo de caballos o mulos que de forma leal hacen ese camino con sus dueños, pero que por dejadez de los mismos no son capaces de aguantar las largas caminatas, la falta de sed o de comida y acaban quedándose por el camino.

Reitero, respeto a la gente que vaya hacer la romería, pero no estaría mal hacer una planificación de ruta alternativa para no dañar esa joya natural que forma el Parque Nacional de Doñana. Sinceramente, no se entiende la postura de la Junta de Andalucía, y se supone que los Agentes de Medio Ambiente y el SEPRONA de la Guardia Civil están ahí para velar por la seguridad de los romeros, pero también por algo que a veces se olvida que es velar por la protección y conservación del medio ambiente (sin el cuál por otra parte no seríamos absolutamente nada ni estaríamos aquí). Reflexión.

Javier Alameda Lozano

lunes, 9 de junio de 2014

Algunos eventos y noticias biológicas para el mes de julio del 2014

- Durante todo el mes de julio se podrá visitar la exposición "PhotoEspaña 2014", y se organizarán Campamentos de Verano en el Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid, CSIC y Museo Nacional de Antroplología. Más información: http://www.rjb.csic.es/jardinbotanico/jardin/contenido.php?Pag=143&tipo=agenda&cod=1804

- Actividades divulgativas, excursiones y viajes, cursos y campamentos de verano relacionados con el mundo de las aves se pueden encontrar en la página web de la Sociedad Española de Ornitología. Más información: http://www.seo.org/

- Eventos organizados por la Sociedad Española de Microbiología entre otras:
  • 01/07 - 02/07: Congress of the Spanish Society of Biotechnology. El congreso BIOTEC 2014 se celebrará en julio de 2014 en Madrid, en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Aulario Facultad de Farmacia y Facultad de Medicina
Link: http://www.anque-icce-biotec2014.org/
  • 13/07 - 16/07: 16th European Congress on Biotechnology. The European congress on Biotechnology is the leading conference for academic and industrial biotechnologists in Europe organised by the European Federation of Biotechnology. The 16th biennial event will take place in the beautiful and historic city of Edinburgh, Scotland.
Link: http://www.ecb16.com/
  • 27/07 - 01/08: International Union of Microbiological Societies (IUMS). La reunión de la International Union of Microbiological Societies (IUMS) se celebrará en Montreal, canadá del 27 de julio al 1 de agosto de 2014
Link: http://www.montrealiums2014.org

- 1: XIV Jornada de Biología Evolutiva de la Societat Catalana de Biologia. Organizada por la Societat Catalana de Biologia. Máss información: http://www.sesbe.org/node/1110

- 4: Conferencia "Evolution of vocalizations in a frog family: are torrent ranid advertisement calls adaptive? " impartida por Sandra Goutte del Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris. Organizada por el Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales. Más informaciór: http://www.mncn.csic.es/index.jsp

- 10: Congreso Mundial de Malacología (Congreso de Unitas Malacologica). Tendrá lugar en las Islas Azores (Portugal). Más información: http://www.soesma.es/paginas/spanish/congresos/Proxc.htm