Search Results for: Ocean

Cadmium, commonly considered a toxic metal and often used in combination with nickel in batteries, has been found to have a biological use as a nutrient in the ocean, the first known biological use of cadmium in any life form.

Scientists have discovered cadmium within an enzyme from a marine diatom, an algae or plankton common in the ocean and a major source of food for many organisms. The finding, reported in the May 5 issue of Nature, suggests that certain trace metals, found

The ancient sea was more like a giant salty lake than a rolling ocean, report scientists from Imperial College London in the May edition of the Journal of the Geological Society. A new computer model that simulates how tides in North West Europe would have behaved 300 million years ago shows a sea with so little movement that it was unlike any on Earth today.

Using information on the ancient land masses and the tidal pull of the Moon, the new computer modelling system reveals a pi

Microbe in sea squirts key to process

In a project that could have far-reaching implications for natural-product drug development, scientists have shown how a microbe that lives inside sea squirts could be used to biosynthesize a chemical compound that may help fight cancer. The photosynthetic microbe, Prochloron didemni, lives as an endosymbiont inside the sea squirt Lissoclinum patella. So far, scientists have not been able to culture the microbe anywhere else.

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By designing a molecular bridge, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have forged a successful pathway through a complex ocean of barriers: They’ve changed the function of a protein using a co-evolution approach.

In a study to be published in the Journal of Molecular Biology, doctoral student Zhilei Chen and Huimin Zhao, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, describe what they call a “simple and efficient method for creation of novel

When University at Buffalo theorist Surajit Sen published his prediction that solitary waves, tight bundles of energy that travel without dispersing, could break into smaller, “baby” or secondary solitary waves, experts in the field acclaimed it as a fine piece of work. They also felt that these waves might never be seen experimentally.

But in a paper published this week in Physical Review Letters, Sen and his co-authors report that they have done just that. The new results contr

A University of Illinois agricultural economist who played a role in shaping a recent assessment of the world’s ecosystem and its future believes the study indicates “our children are at risk.”

“Those of us who are adults will see some of the effects of current stresses on our ecosystems but it is our children who will pay the price of our drawing down of our natural capital, unless we can find ways to make it sustainable,” said Gerald Nelson, a professor in the department of a