A new study published in Genome Research has identified intrinsic properties of DNA that influence mutation rate, shedding light on an area of biology that still needs to be investigated - the mechanisms involved in genome maintenance .

Some DNA mutations are subject to natural selection, either conferring a biological advantage that is selected for, or a negative effect that is selected against. Mutations not under selection are said to be neutral, and the rate at which neutral mutations accumulate is reflective of the true DNA mutation rate. Researchers can estimate this mutation rate by comparing neutrally evolving sequences in species that share a common ancestor.

Male antelopes, observed in southwest Kenya, send a false signal that a predator is nearby only when females in heat are in their territories. When the females react to the signal, they remain in the territory long enough for some males to fit in a quick mating opportunity.

The signal in this case, an alarm snort, is not a warning to other antelopes to beware, but instead tells a predator that it has been seen and lost its element of surprise, the researchers found.

A major earthquake, comparable to the one that hit Chile earlier this year, could strike the Pacific Northwest coast of the United States, Oregon State geologists say.There is more than a one-in-three chance that it will happen within the next 50 years.

The team's new analysis has provided fresh insights into the Northwest's turbulent seismic history – where magnitude 8.2 (or higher) earthquakes have occurred 41 times during the past 10,000 years. Those earthquakes were thought to generally occur every 500 years, but as scientists delve more deeply into the offshore sediments and other evidence, they have discovered a great deal more complexity to the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), The Nile Delta Basic holds an estimated 223 trillion cubic feet (tcf) (mean estimate) of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas.

This is the first USGS assessment of this basin to identify potentially extractable resources. The USGS also recently completed an assessment of the adjacent Levant Basin Province, with a mean estimated natural gas endowment of 122 tcf.

Bone marrow cells play a critical role in fighting respiratory viruses, making the bone marrow a potential therapeutic target, especially in people with compromised immune systems, say researchers writing in Cell Host&Microbe. They have found that during infections of the respiratory tract, cells produced by the bone marrow are instructed by proteins to migrate to the lungs to help fight infection. The data are published in the current issue of.

Drinking fewer sugar-sweetened beverages may lower blood pressure, according to research published in Circulation.
The study potentially has important public health implications, because even small reductions in blood pressure are projected to have substantial health benefits on a population level, according to the authors. The researchers also say further study – particularly randomized controlled trials to establish any cause and effect relationship – is warranted.

A previously unknown function that regulates how stem cells produce different types of cells in different parts of the nervous system has been discovered.  The results improve our understanding of how stem cells work, crucial for our ability to use stem cells to treat and repair organs. 

A group of bioelectronics researchers say they have made a major step toward being able to regulate nerve cells externally.  Their breakthrough is based on an ion transistor of plastic that can transport ions and charged biomolecules and thereby address and regulate cells.

Previously, use has been made of nano-canals and nano-pores to actively control the concentration and transport of ions but those components are difficult to produce and function poorly when the salt content is high, obviously something that would be an issue in interaction with biological systems.

In the final chapter of the book Complexity: A Guided Tour, Mitchell gets to the heart of the real issues that I've been griping about in this blog. She begins by citing a harsh, 1995 piece by John Horgan, “Is Complexity A Sham?”

The article contained two main criticisms. First, in Horgan’s view, it was unlikely that the field of complex systems would uncover any useful general principles, and second, he believed that the predominance of computer modeling made complexity a “fact-free science.”

Is the Sun going to enter a million-degree galactic cloud of interstellar gas?

A group of scientists are suggesting that the Ribbon of enhanced emissions of Energetic Neutral Atoms(ENA) discovered last year by the NASA Small Explorer satellite IBEX could be explained by a geometric effect coming up because of approach of the Sun to the boundary between the Local Cloud of interstellar gas and another cloud of a very hot gas called the Local Bubble.

If their hypothesis is correct, IBEX is catching matter from a hot neighboring interstellar cloud, which the Sun might enter in a hundred years.