Frontiers | Science News

Science News post list

437 news posts in Life sciences

Life sciences

25 Apr 2016

Study shows attitude makes a champion

By K.E.D. Coan, Frontiers science writer On the path to greatness, why do some become champions while others fall short? Coaches, parents, and aspiring athletes have all sought to answer this question. In their search for the optimal path to greatness, some believe that the path should be smoothed of all obstacles, while others say that such challenges are instrumental to talent development. Now, a recent study  suggests that what really distinguishes champions is how they face and overcome such obstacles. “We’ve found that there are universal psychological characteristics amongst those who are aspiring to get to the top,” says Professor Dave Collins, lead author of the study, as well as Chair and Director of the Institute of Coaching and Performance at the University of Central Lancashire. “We have a good idea of what makes people excellent and how we can help them reach peak performance.” By interviewing athletes from varied sports such as soccer, rowing, skiing, and combat sports, Collins and his collaborators sought to find distinguishing characteristics between the best of the best, the good, and those that didn’t quite make the cut. For each participant, they collected information about career trajectory, perceived challenges and the participant’s reactions […]

Life sciences

22 Apr 2016

DNA proves mammoths mated beyond species boundaries

By Tania FitzGeorge-Balfour, Frontiers science writer Several species of mammoth are thought to have roamed across the North American continent. A new study in the open-access journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, provides DNA evidence to show that these mammoths, which should only mate within their species boundaries, were in fact likely to be interbreeding. A species can be defined as a group of similar animals that can successfully breed and produce fertile offspring. By using differences in the size and shape of their fossilized teeth, a number of North American mammoth species have been identified. But, some scientists are not confident this method of species categorization tells the whole story. “Species boundaries can be very blurry. We might find differences in features of the teeth or skeleton that closely correspond to what we think are real species boundaries. But other features may not correspond to those boundaries, suggesting that what we formerly regarded as separate species are in fact not at all,” explains Hendrik Poinar, a Professor at McMaster University in Canada, who co-led the new study with his former graduate student Jake Enk and collaborator Ross MacPhee, a Professor at the American Museum of Natural History. Professor Poinar […]

Life sciences

11 Apr 2016

Alternative livelihoods for fin fishers needed to save sharks

By Nina Hall, Frontiersin.org The world’s largest shark fin industry lies in the heart of the Coral Triangle, a region of the Indian and Pacific Oceans home to the world’s most diverse coral reefs and known as the Amazon of the seas. This idyllic-sounding environment sustains an industry responsible for the deaths of over 3 million sharks a year. With a reported annual catch of 100,000 tons, Indonesia’s shark fishery contributes more to the international shark fin trade than any other nation. Shark fins are tempting targets for fishermen from Indonesian island communities because they have high monetary value and shark fishing is one of the most lucrative livelihoods in these remote coastal regions. The finning industry presents the main livelihood for fishermen in this region and the enormous profits have transformed remote coastal villages to cash-based communities.  But in recent years, shark populations have seen a worrying drop in numbers. The staggering increase in the supply of shark fins to a global market has led to overexploitation of these populations and it not only affects the biological ecosystem but also the highly profitable marine tourism industry. To protect both the sharks as well as the local economy, conservationists and […]

Life sciences

09 Apr 2016

What really happened on Easter Island?

By K.E.D. Coan, Frontiers science writer Hundreds of iconic moai statues stand testament to the vibrant civilization that once inhabited Easter Island, but there are far fewer clues about why this civilization mysteriously vanished. Did they shortsightedly exhaust the island’s resources? Were they decimated by European illnesses and slave trade? Or did stow-away rats devastate the native ecosystem? Such theories have spread widely, but recent evidence shows that the truth is not as simple as any one of these alone. “These different interpretations may be complementary, rather than incompatible,” said Dr. Valentí Rull. “In the last decade, there’s been a burst in new studies, including additional research sites and novel techniques, which demand that we reconsider the climatic, ecological and cultural developments that occurred.” Rull is a senior researcher of the Spanish National Research Council in Barcelona, Spain, and the lead author of an overview on the holistic reassessment of Easter Island history. Until recently, the evidence has been limited. Prior sedimentary samples—commonly used as historical records of environmental change—were incomplete, with gaps and inconsistencies in the timeline. Furthermore, past interpretations relied heavily on pollen alone, without incorporating more faithful indicators of climate change. Due to this uncertainty, many fundamental […]

Life sciences

06 Apr 2016

Study raises online golf tutorials to above par

By Tania FitzGeorge-Balfour, Science Writer The internet is overflowing with online tutorials dedicated to improving your game of golf and other motor skills. A new study in Frontiers in Psychology has shown that straightforward changes to the way these tutorials are presented can have a measurable difference in the performance of the student. “Lots of research has shown that observing both novice and expert golfers online will help you to learn a new golf shot. However, our latest findings show that it is important to know the level of expertise you are observing before you watch the tutorial,” said Luc Proteau, a Professor at the University of Montreal, co-author of this new study. Knowing students of online tutorials benefit from watching all levels of expertise, Luc Proteau and co-author Mathieu Andrieux set out to understand whether it was better to know beforehand the skill level of the demonstration, or if students should be first left to evaluate the performance themselves. Arguments were put forward to support both approaches – prior knowledge of the skill level may enable a student to decide whether to imitate or detect errors/weakness. Alternatively, assessing the skill of a performer while watching them may activate more […]

Life sciences

28 Mar 2016

Fifteen shades of photoreceptor in a butterfly’s eye

  When researchers studied the eyes of Common Bluebottles, a species of swallowtail butterfly from Australasia, they were in for a surprise. These butterflies have large eyes and use their blue-green iridescent wings for visual communication – evidence that their vision must be excellent. Even so, no-one expected to find that Common Bluebottles (Graphium sarpedon) have at least 15 different classes of “photoreceptors” — light-detecting cells comparable to the rods and cones in the human eye. Previously, no insect was known to have more than nine. “We have studied color vision in many insects for many years, and we knew that the number of photoreceptors varies greatly from species to species. But this discovery of 15 classes in one eye was really stunning,” says Kentaro Arikawa, Professor of Biology at Sokendai (the Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama, Japan and lead author of the study. Have multiple classes of photoreceptors is indispensable for seeing color. Each class is stimulated by light of some wavelengths, and less or not at all by other wavelengths. By comparing information received from the different photoreceptor classes, the brain is able to distinguish colors. Through physiological, anatomical and molecular experiments, Arikawa and colleagues were able […]

Life sciences

20 Mar 2016

Triage in Conservation: Interview with Ralf Buckley

By Kirsten Martin In conservation, there is an ongoing debate over triage. Advocates of triage argue that some extinctions are unavoidable, and that fixed, limited and fully fungible resources are therefore best allocated where they are most likely to yield the largest conservation benefit. That is, they perceive conservation essentially as an economic optimisation problem. But the opponents of triage believe the opposite. They argue that species recovery is possible no matter how few individuals remain, that small peripheral subpopulations may contain genetic diversity not available in larger core populations, and that funds and resources are neither fixed nor fully fungible.  They think that conservation resources are at least partly tied to particular sites and species, and can be increased. Needless to say, both sides have strong opinions and more research and case studies are needed to gain a further understanding.  The Frontiers Research Topic “Triage in Conversation” hopes to shed a brighter light on the debate. Professor Ralf Buckley, Specialty Chief Editor of the section Frontiers in Conservation, recently wrote an article entitled “Grand challenges in conservation research.” We asked him about the debate and the importance of this research. Tell me about the Research Topic (the research area […]

Life sciences

13 Jan 2016

News from #AGU15: NASA’s LADEE mission

Our colleague Laura Smart, Journal Coordinator in our Physical Sciences and Engineering program, represented Frontiers at the AGU (American Geophysical Union) Fall Meeting in San Francisco from December 14 – 18,2015. Besides meeting with many Frontiers editors and authors, she also attended several scientific press conferences. Here, she gives her summary of an exciting talk by on NASA’s LADEE mission. In this press conference, scientists presented new findings on the moon’s tenuous exosphere, which ultimately should provide insight into the soil composition and processes in many atmospheres in our solar system.   New findings from NASA’s LADEE mission at AGU  Thursday 17th December Anthony Colaprete, Planetary atmospheric scientist and LADEE Ultraviolet-visible Spectrometer (UVS) Principal Investigator, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA Richard Elphic, LADEE Project Scientist, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA Menelaos Sarantos, Associate Research Scientist, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, USA Thomas H. Morgan, Project Manager, NASA Planetary Data System, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA Artist’s concept of LADEE spacecraft in lunar orbit. Image credit: NASA Ames   Anthony Colaprete spoke first and explained what observations NASA’S Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission made. He highlighted that the observations taken by LADEE’s Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) every 12 h over a period of five months were measured from a distance of between 5-50 […]

Life sciences

15 Dec 2015

A travel through Biochemistry and beyond: from textbooks to Mount Everest

An interview with Michele Samaja, Associate Professor in Biochemistry at the University of Milan and Guest Associate Editor for Frontiers in Pediatrics.   Before falling in love with Biochemistry, Professor Michele Samaja was about to leave the university after only one year. “After the classical courses in Chemistry, Physics, Organic Chemistry, Microbiology etc., I was rather discouraged by the tedious and repetitive teachings and textbooks,” he said, “I even started practicing as a TV-cameraman and as a downhill ski instructor.” Then, he finally incurred the right course. Needless to say, it was a course of Biochemistry. “Eventually I became increasingly stimulated in getting more and more insight in what appeared to me a young discipline with high impact in every biomedical branch.” Today Michele Samaja is an Associate Professor in Biochemistry at the University of Milan, and this discipline led him to interact with different kinds of scientists (from physiologists to hematologists, pathologists, pharmacologists and immunologists), with lots  of young PhD students and even with Sherpas from Nepal. What’s the main focus of your current research? The “genetic” imprinting that is leading my past and current research was given by a unique opportunity I had just after graduating, when I […]

Life sciences

21 Oct 2015

Join us in Iguazú Falls, Brazil at the 11th International Congress of Plant Molecular Biology (IPMB 2015)

Going to IPMB 2015 in Iguazú Falls, Brazil? Meet Frontiers at the 11th International Congress of Plant Molecular Biology this October 25 – 30! Come chat with us about Open Access publishing, interactive peer-review, becoming an editor, or about hosting your very own Research Topic! With a Research Topic, you can spotlight your very own research area by editing a collection of cutting-edge peer-reviewed articles. Take a look at this successful Research Topic in Frontiers in Plant Science: Molecular basis of fruit development has had over 25’000 views and is available as a freely downloadable e-book! You can learn more about Research Topics in this brochure. We are looking forward to seeing you at IPMB 2015!

Life sciences

20 Oct 2015

Chemistry Week: Magnetic fluid sculpture

 By Brian Boyle Magnetic fields are everywhere. Every electric circuit creates one. They are utilized in such diverse applications as real time brain imaging (fMRI), and in developing future means of transport (MAGLEV trains). The earth itself, with its north and south poles, emits a magnetic field which protects us from dangerous solar radiation – and radiation from further afield. The `magnetospheres` interaction with this radiation is revealed, at least indirectly, in the beauty of the aurora borealis. Thankfully, we don`t have to trek to the poles to visualize the shape of magnetic fields. The unique behavior of ferrofluids, as they trace the field lines of readily available magnets in 3 dimensions, give us an insight into how different the world would look if we could see the magnetic fields which surround us on a daily basis. The key property of ferrofluids stem from the tiny particles of a compound dispersed in a liquid, all sharing one thing in common – ferromagnetism, or the tendency to respond strongly to magnetic fields. How tiny? A human hair is 75,000 nanometres across, with ferromagnetic particles typically from 1 to 10 nanometres. A common ferromagnetic metal is iron (Fe), and the most commonly […]