30/03/2010

Adapting to change? Remember the good, forget the bad!

It's not easy being a bacterium and constantly having to adapt to whatever your environment throws at you. Dr Robert Endres explains how bacteria rely on their 'memories' to fine-tune their ability to sense food and danger, ...

Bile sends mixed signals to E. coli

Bile secretions in the small intestine send signals to disease-causing gut bacteria allowing them to change their behaviour to maximise their chances of surviving, says Dr Steve Hamner, presenting his work at the Society ...

Essential oils to fight superbugs

Essential oils could be a cheap and effective alternative to antibiotics and potentially used to combat drug-resistant hospital superbugs, according to research presented at the Society for General Microbiology's spring meeting ...

Toads' earthquake exodus

Common toads (Bufo bufo) can detect impending seismic activity and alter their behaviour from breeding to evacuation mode, suggests a new study in the Zoological Society of London's (ZSL) Journal of Zoology.

Crude oil no longer needed for plastics

Each year the world produces about 130 million kilo of ethene, the most important raw material for plastics. This gigantic industry is currently dependent on crude oil. And that is running out. Dutch researcher Tymen Tiemersma ...

First-ever single-claw dinosaur fossil found in China

Dr. Xing Xu, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his collaborators, described a new dinosaur that was one of the smallest known and also one of the best adapted ...

Project to make car fuel from thin air

Researchers from the South West are working on a £1.4 million project that could take carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into car fuel.

TRMM measures Cyclone Paul's rainfall from space

Having been hit by two tropical cyclones so far this season, Queensland had been the center of tropical cyclone activity, but with the recent arrival of Tropical Cyclone Paul, it is now the Northern Territory's turn to experience ...

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