The extent of this algal bloom near Tasmania can only be seen using special sensors on ocean-observing satellites. The international science community must devote more resources to research into the effects climate change is having on ocean environments, according to a paper published today in the journal Science by researchers at CSIRO's Climate Adaptation National Research Flagship.

The research group led by Professor Makoto Tominaga and Research Assistant Professor Hitoshi Inada (National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan) found that a sour taste receptor, PKD1L3-PKD2L1 channel complex, could be activated by acid stimulus but opened gate only after the removal of acid stimulus. They call this new type of response as "off-response" of sour taste receptor. They reports their finding in an international journal, EMBO reports, on June 6, 2008.

Researchers have found that the circadian system may be able to distinguish between lights of different colors. Like a wristwatch that needs to be wound daily for accurate time-telling, the human circadian system — the biological cycles that repeat approximately every 24 hours — requires daily light exposure to the eye's retina to remain synchronized with the solar day. In a new study published in the June issue of Neuroscience Letters, researchers have demonstrated that when it comes to the circadian system, not all light exposure is created equal.

A rhea chick and its father stroll around the rheas' outside exhibit at the birdhouse of the Smithsonian's National Zoo. This rhea chick, along with three brothers and sisters, hatched at the National Zoo on April 20 and has been raised by its father. Although this parenting behavior is unusual, male rheas build the nest, incubate the eggs, and raise the chicks after they hatch. The bird originally comes from South America and can grow to be over five feet tall. Credit: Mehgan Murphy/Smithsonian’s National Zoo How will the only male rhea at the Smithsonian's National Zoo spend Father's Day? He will spend it much like he has spent the past eight weeks: as a proud papa nurturing and caring for his four chicks born April 20. This is the first time in some 30 years that rhea chicks have hatched at the Zoo.

SRNL researchers removed the top of a glass microsphere to show how palladium has easily passed through the sphere's pores and assembled itself into a new nanostructure. What looks like a fertilized egg, flows like water, gets stuffed with catalysts and exotic nanostructures and may have the potential of making the current retail gasoline infrastructure compatible with hydrogen-based vehicles of the future – not to mention also contributing to arenas such as nuclear proliferation and global warming?

Scientists who dig dinosaurs in Eastern Montana will now be able to chemically analyze fossils the same day they're excavated and before degrading begins.

The sensor is covered with 250,000 tiny plastic columns only five microns in diameter. When a cell creeps across the tips of the columns, it presses each column very slightly sideways. Credit: © Fraunhofer IFAM Even the slightest differences are important in competitive sport: To improve a ski jumper's performance, the trainer can analyze the jump very accurately using force sensors. Researchers in Jena and Bremen are planning something similar. However, their work is not with athletes but with tiny somatic cells. The experts have developed a low-cost optical sensor to measure the force with which migrating cells push themselves away from an underlying surface. Force analysis devices like these could one day help to identify specific cell types – more reliably than using a microscope or other conventional methods.

Boston, MA-Scientists at Schepens Eye Research Institute have identified specific molecules in the brain that are responsible for awakening and putting to sleep brain stem cells, which, when activated, can transform into neurons (nerve cells) and repair damaged brain tissue. Their findings are published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).

When forming attitudes about embryonic stem cell research, people are influenced by a number of things. But understanding science plays a negligible role for many people.

Gaining body fat may be a good thing, at least for people with type 1 diabetes, say researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. Their study, being presented at the 68th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association in San Francisco, followed 655 patients with type 1 diabetes for 20 years and found that patients who gained weight over time were less likely to die.