http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A new study exploring the growing worldwide problem of nitrogen pollution from soils to the sea shows that global ratios of nitrogen and carbon in the environment are inexorably linked, a finding that may lead to new strategies to help mitigate regional problems ranging from contaminated waterways to human health. http://phys.org/news191068870.html Space & Earth Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:00:20 EST news191068870 For those of us with allergies, springtime pollen is an invisible nuisance. But under the high-powered microscopes of Eleni Katifori, a biophysicist at Rockefeller University in New York, the grains of plant material become bits of origami -- they delicately fold, bend and roll themselves up to plug up leaks as they travel from flower to flower. http://phys.org/news190969219.html Biology Tue, 20 Apr 2010 08:00:41 EST news190969219 Rachel Lehmann-Haupt was 37 when she froze her eggs, a process technically known as oocyte cryopreservation. She knew it wouldn't guarantee her fertility. But the San Francisco-based writer had just ended a relationship and knew she wanted kids. http://phys.org/news190900597.html Medicine & Health Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:40:01 EST news190900597 (PhysOrg.com) -- Adding legumes to a crop rotation has many benefits, including reducing the need for external nitrogen input. http://phys.org/news189106072.html Space & Earth Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:28:34 EST news189106072 At a time when more and more young women are surviving breast cancer and delaying childbirth, it is important to take their needs and wishes about their future fertility into consideration when deciding on treatment, the seventh European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC7) in Barcelona will hear today (Wednesday). Dr. Anne Armstrong, from the Department of Medical Oncology, the Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK, will say that, although survival remains the most important priority for most women, many are also concerned about being able to make choices concerning their fertility and potential to become pregnant. http://phys.org/news188638458.html Medicine & Health Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:10:02 EST news188638458 Wageningen University (The Netherlands) biochemist Dolf Weijers and his German colleagues have discovered how stem cells in a plant embryo are formed. The cells communicate with one another via the transportation of a protein, reports Weijers this week in Nature. http://phys.org/news187550690.html Biology Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:44:03 EST news187550690 Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) scientists have identified a new link between strong period pain experienced in adolescence and early adulthood and the risk of endometriosis. http://phys.org/news187532238.html Medicine & Health Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:50:01 EST news187532238 (PhysOrg.com) -- A joint report from the law schools at UC Berkeley and UCLA recommends ways that farmers and ranchers can mitigate the impact of climate change. "Room to Grow" identifies barriers to lowering emissions and proposes concrete steps to overcome them. http://phys.org/news187450080.html Space & Earth Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:50:01 EST news187450080 (PhysOrg.com) -- About 40 percent of the earth’s population, or 2.6 billion people, do not have access to a toilet, according to United Nations. The unsanitary conditions have resulted in contaminated drinking water that causes diseases, such as diarrhea, which has become one of the leading causes of death in young children. http://phys.org/news186935544.html Space & Earth Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:40:01 EST news186935544 Nitrogen fertilization is essential for profitable corn production. It also is a major cost of production and can contribute to degradation of the environment. Is it possible to "teach" corn to fix its own nitrogen, thus eliminating the need for nitrogen fertilizer applications? University of Illinois agricultural engineer Kaustubh Bhalerao believes it may be, through research in an emerging area of engineering called synthetic biology. http://phys.org/news186923765.html Biology Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:30:01 EST news186923765 (PhysOrg.com) -- A BYU researcher helped discover a cellular tool some plants use to fertilize themselves. This fundamental understanding is important in the effort to reduce the 88 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer used worldwide every year. That in turn could help reduce fossil fuel use, because 3-5 percent of the world's natural gas is burned to make nitrogen fertilizer. The research is published in the journal Science. http://phys.org/news186341488.html Biology Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:20:02 EST news186341488 Women will soon be able to tell how many eggs they have in their ovaries in a simple hormone test that Australian researchers said Sunday could revolutionise family planning and fertility treatment. http://phys.org/news185944666.html Medicine & Health Sun, 21 Feb 2010 08:20:01 EST news185944666 Root systems are the basis of the second Green Revolution, and the focus on beans and corn that thrive in poor growing conditions will help some of the world's poorest farmers, according to a Penn State plant scientist. http://phys.org/news185944839.html Biology Sun, 21 Feb 2010 04:20:01 EST news185944839 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new 'fertility chip', developed by researchers at the University of Twente’s MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology (The Netherlands), can accurately count spermatozoa in sperm. This is an important step towards the development of a compact device for reliable ‘pre-scanning’ of male fertility. The researchers are publishing the invention of the chip in the scientific journal Lab on a Chip. http://phys.org/news185558401.html Chemistry Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:00:25 EST news185558401 Plants are usually our allies when it comes to reducing the atmosphere's greenhouse gases, converting carbon dioxide into food and storing the gas' carbon in the soil below. http://phys.org/news183914151.html Space & Earth Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:30:01 EST news183914151 (PhysOrg.com) -- Studying pollen tubes, University of Massachusetts Amherst plant cell biologist Peter Hepler and colleagues have captured some of the fastest growing tissues known, on camera for the first time, to advance understanding of fertilization processes critical to development of all fruits, nuts, grains, rice, corn, wheat and other crops we depend on for food. http://phys.org/news183814494.html Biology Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:35:54 EST news183814494 Dispelling the notion that urban "green" spaces help counteract greenhouse gas emissions, new research has found - in Southern California at least - that total emissions might be lower if lawns did not exist. http://phys.org/news183129874.html Space & Earth Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:40:01 EST news183129874 Companies and communities trying to restore vegetation on damaged northern landscapes should think twice about using fertilizer to stimulate growth according to new research published in the November issue of Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research. http://phys.org/news180273757.html Space & Earth Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:20:01 EST news180273757 (PhysOrg.com) -- Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists are front and center in finding out how farming affects emissions of the green house nitrous oxide (N2O). http://phys.org/news179678146.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:20:04 EST news179678146 A USDOE and USDA study concluded that 50 million U.S. acres of cropland, idle cropland, and cropland pasture could be converted from current uses to the production of perennial grasses, such as switchgrass, from which biomass could be harvested for use as a biofuel feedstock. Economically viable production of a perennial grass monoculture from which substantial quantities of biomass are removed annually is expected to require nitrogen fertilizer. http://phys.org/news178208915.html Biology Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:40:01 EST news178208915 (PhysOrg.com) -- Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have found that using alternative types of fertilizers can cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, at least in one part of the country. They are currently examining whether the alternatives offer similar benefits nationwide. http://phys.org/news177778629.html Biology Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:10:01 EST news177778629 The December issue of European Urology, the official journal of the European Association of Urology, features an article entitled 'Are Infertile Men Less Healthy than Fertile Men? Results of a Prospective Case-Control Survey' by Dr. Andrea Salonia et al. The conclusion is that male factor infertility is associated with a number of medical comorbidities, as objectively scored with the hospital-based Charlson Comorbidity Index. http://phys.org/news176997599.html Medicine & Health Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:30:07 EST news176997599 The complicated sex life of the papaya is about to get even more interesting, thanks to a $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant will fund basic research on the papaya sex chromosomes and will lead to the development of a papaya that produces only hermaphrodite offspring, an advance that will enhance papaya health while radically cutting papaya growers' production costs and their use of fertilizers and water. http://phys.org/news176386888.html Biology Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:21:48 EST news176386888 (PhysOrg.com) -- Artificial insemination (AI) techniques that work well with cattle and swine can be difficult or costly to perform in sheep, but help’s on the way, thanks to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) studies in Fort Collins, Colo. http://phys.org/news175253007.html Biology Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:09:18 EST news175253007 (PhysOrg.com) -- Studies in China and Colorado by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and cooperators have revealed some interesting tactics on how to irrigate with limited water, based on a crop’s critical growth stages. http://phys.org/news174287071.html Biology Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:20:04 EST news174287071 There is no doubt that modern contraception has enabled women to have unprecedented control over their own fertility. However, is it possible that the use of oral contraceptives is interfering with a woman's ability to choose, compete for and retain her preferred mate? A new paper published by Cell Press in the October issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution reviews emerging evidence suggesting that contraceptive methods which alter a woman's natural hormonal cycles may have an underappreciated impact on choice of partners for both women and men and, possibly, reproductive success. http://phys.org/news174140457.html Biology Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:10:01 EST news174140457 Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have identified the role of a gene in regulating molecular signals involved with ovarian follicle development, which may one day help shed light on some of the causes of fertility issues in humans. http://phys.org/news173712184.html Biology Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:40:01 EST news173712184 When society jumps on a bandwagon, even for a good cause, there may be unintended consequences. The unintended consequence of crop-based biofuels may be the loss of wildlife habitat, particularly that of the birds who call this country's grasslands home, say researchers from Michigan Technological University and The Nature Conservancy. http://phys.org/news173595036.html Biology Thu, 01 Oct 2009 06:10:01 EST news173595036 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have linked poverty in sub-Saharan Africa with poor soil health, but two new Cornell studies find that the recommended practice of applying more fertilizer may not help the poorest farmers. http://phys.org/news173035449.html Space & Earth Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:36:15 EST news173035449 Results of the first study evaluating the use of human urine mixed with wood ash as a fertilizer for food crops has found that the combination can be substituted for costly synthetic fertilizers to produce bumper crops of tomatoes without introducing any risk of disease for consumers. The study appears in the current issue of ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication. http://phys.org/news171126772.html Space & Earth Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:30:01 EST news171126772