Biologists rally to sequence ‘neglected’ microbes

From Nature.com:

The GenBank sequence database, the central repository of all publicly available DNA sequences, counted its thousandth complete microbial genome this month. But a thousand genomes is only a small fraction of the diversity that exists in the microscopic world. Now, scientists want to fill in the gaps.

“The broad brush strokes of microbial diversity are not adequately represented in that first thousand,” says Stephen Giovannoni, a microbiologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis. “It’s absolutely important that we sequence more.”

Click here for the full article.

 

Accidental OSU discovery produces new blue pigment

From today’s Gazette Times:

“Basically, this was an accidental discovery,” said Mas Subramanian, the Milton Harris Professor of Materials Science in the OSU Department of Chemistry. “We were exploring manganese oxides for some interesting electronic properties they have, something that can be both ferroelectric and ferromagnetic at the same time. Our work had nothing to do with looking for a pigment.

“Then one day a graduate student who is working in the project was taking samples out of a very hot furnace while I was walking by, and it was blue, a very beautiful blue,” he said. “I realized immediately that something amazing had happened.”

What had happened, the researchers said, was that at about 1,200 degrees centigrade – almost 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit – this otherwise innocuous manganese oxide turned into a vivid blue compound that could be used to make a pigment able to resist heat and acid, be environmentally benign and cheap to produce from a readily available mineral.

Read more at the GT, or at OSU News and Communications.

Ancient “Monster” Fly Discovered

Photo by George Poinar

A single, incredibly well-preserved specimen of the tiny but scary-looking fly was preserved for eternity in Burmese amber, and it had a small horn emerging from the top of its head, topped by three eyes that would have given it the ability to see predators coming. But despite that clever defense mechanism, it was apparently an evolutionary dead end that later disappeared.

OSU News Release: Ancient “monster” insect offers Halloween inspirations

Science Daily: Ancient ‘Monster’ Insect: ‘Unicorn’ Fly Never Before Observed

Linus Pauling Science Center launch

Check out this page on the OSU Foundation’s website containing news about the launch of the Linus Pauling Science Center. There’s a live webcam there, so you can watch construction as it happens! (Scroll to the bottom of the page to view the webcam.)

Science of a Tsunami – CBS News Video

OSU’s Dawn Wright, Professor of Geography and Oceanography, talks about the science behind the power of tsunamis. (If you are unable to view the video below, click here to see it at the CBS website.)

more about “Science of a Tsunami – CBS News Video“, posted with vodpod

Follow Dawn on Twitter: @deepseadawn

Grant awarded to Zoology Faculty for work on Alzheimer’s research and Circadian clocks

The committee for the Oregon Partnership for Alzheimer’s Research announces the recipients of the 2009 – 2010 OPAR grants.

Congratulations OPAR Grant Recipients!

The Oregon Partnership for Alzheimer’s Research Committee is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2009- 2010 OPAR grants. These grants are made possible through the Oregon Tax Checkoff program.  You can support this program when you file your state income tax.  Support researchers who are entering the field of Alzheimer’s disease research or who are pursuing new directions in Alzheimer’s research.

Jadwiga M. Giebultowicz, Ph.D. – “The Role of the Circadian Clock in Alzheimer’s Disease”
Humans and other animals have an internal clock system that regulates sleep-wake patterns.  This internal system is called a circadian clock.  Circadian clocks synchronize biological processes within an organism and coordinate them with the solar day/night cycle. Deregulation of circadian synchronization leads to sleep disturbances and age-related diseases. Recent data suggest that disruption of the circadian system and age-related pathologies are not understood. We recently showed that disruption of the circadian clock leads to increased levels of oxidative damage in the model organism, Drosophila melanogaster. Since impaired circadian rhythms and oxidative stress are linked to Alzheimer’s disease (AD), we initiated a novel study aimed to decipher how the circadian clock protects against age-related oxidative damage.

http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/research/centers-institutes/neurology/alzheimers/news-events/news-story.cfm

Biological clocks of insects could lead to more effective pest control

“We found that it took triple the dose of one pesticide to have the same lethal effect on fruit flies at the time of day their defenses were strongest, compared to when they were weakest,” said Louisa Hooven, a postdoctoral fellow in the OSU Department of Zoology and lead author on the study. “A different pesticide took twice the dose. This makes it pretty clear that the time of day of an exposure to a pesticide can make a huge difference in its effectiveness.”

The new findings, the OSU researchers said, are also another example of how circadian rhythms are important in other detoxification systems in biology.

Earth’s orbital changes affect freeze and thaw

From the Eugene Register Guard:

Researchers led by a professor at Oregon State University said they finally have confirmed what some scientists have believed for some time: that the last ice age ended because of a slight shift in the Earth’s orbit. The findings could help scientists predict how the planet’s remaining ice will be affected by global warming as well as when the planet will again be topped by miles-thick ice.

OSU geosciences professor Peter Clark is the lead author of a paper published this week in the journal Science. A joint project undertaken by several universities and government agencies, the study pinpointed the timing of the last ice age in an effort to determine which of several planet­wide changes brought the Earth out of the freezer.

YaleEnvironment360 interview with Jane Lubchenco

The oceans are still largely out of sight and out of mind for most of us, says Jane Lubchenco. The Oregon State University professor and head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was interviewed this month by The New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert for YaleEnvironment360. See http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2169

Transmissions from the Ice Sheet continue

Earlier this year, Ph.D. student Logan Mitchell spent two months working at the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide research station in Antarctica. Now, Ph.D. student Julia Rosen will spend three weeks this summer at the North Greenland Eemian Ice Core Drilling Project (NEEM), and she will continue the blog.

Julia took some photos from the aircraft (an LC-130, which can land on ice). Here’s a glimpse of two outlet glaciers.