Biology

Water-borne algal blooms from farm fertilizer runoff can destroy aquatic life and clog rivers and lakes, but scientists will report today that they are working on a way to clean up these environmental scourges and turn them into useful products. The algae could serve as a feedstock for biofuels, and the feedstock leftovers could be recycled back into farm soil nutrients.

Movies like "Happy Feet" and "March of the Penguins" often remind us of how cute penguins are in the cold, Antarctic conditions where they live. These movies, however, fail to mention another species of penguin that reside in warmer climates and is slowly dying out: African penguins. Although they are on track to be extinct within the next 20 years, the Pueblo Zoo in Colorado and Colorado State University, Fort Collins recently performed cancer treatments on the oldest living African penguin in the world, ensuring that the penguin will be healthy enough to live a longer life.

Whether you're baking bread or building an organism, the key to success is consistently adding ingredients in the correct order and in the right amounts, according to a new genetic study by University of Michigan researchers.

Advances in computer hardware and software, data storage and processing, optics, systems and instrumentation, labeling agents, and reagents have all contributed to the current surge in imaging in the life sciences.

The University of Dundee is to lead a major project to help tackle one of four key biosciences `big data’ challenges identified by the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.















