26. October 2007
Microbial biofilms evoke Jackal & Hyde effects
Microbes such as bacteria tend to live in complex colonies called biofilms, where there can resist antibiotics and cause more problems for the immune system. Biofilms comprising millions of bacteria are at the root of many serious chronic infectious diseases such as cystic fibrosis and periodontal... [more]
17. October 2007
ESF, VR, FORMAS sign MOU to promote Global Environmental Change Research
The European Science Foundation (ESF), the Swedish Research Council (VR), and the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS) have agreed to join forces to promote Global Change Research through an international, interdisciplinary conference series.... [more]
16. October 2007
Unmasking the methane eaters
Soil bacteria that consume the powerful greenhouse gas methane could be important in fighting climate change. A team of European scientists is beginning to understand how communities of them work together in real soils. Methane is a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. It is... [more]
16. October 2007
Making more hay – what farmers can learn from ecology
Farmers all over Europe could get higher yields and fewer weeds in their intensive grasslands, if they planted more species. A new European study has shown that this basic ecological pattern holds true for planted pastures. It is now well established in biodiversity science that when you lose... [more]
12. October 2007
Nitrogen – the silent species eliminator
Nitrogen pollution from agriculture and fossil fuels is known to be seriously damaging grasslands in the UK. A new European study is starting to show that the effect is Europe-wide, confirming that current policies to protect ecosystems may need a re-think. When Carly Stevens finished her PhD in... [more]
12. October 2007
Buying and selling habitats to help wildlife
Tradable permits are all the rage in environmental policy. They are already used internationally to reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality. A group of economists and ecologists from the UK, the Netherlands and Germany, are working together to find out whether such schemes could work for... [more]
11. October 2007
European lead in reading past climates from ice cores
Climate change is a reality today, but how can we find out about the future dangers it poses? What we really need is a full record of the Earth’s climate for several hundred thousand years, complete with samples of air from different epochs that can be taken to the lab for analysis. Incredibly,... [more]
12. September 2007
Podcast: The Chair of the EuroDYNA Scientific Committee speaks about his achievements and his involvement
Coling Logie, Chair of the EuroDYNA Scientific Committee, speaks about scientific achievements through the EUROCORES Programme EuroDYNA (Dynamic Nuclear Architecture and Chromatin Function) and his personal experiences, at the ELSO Conference, Dresden, Germany in September. [more]
22. August 2007
New Breakthroughs in Geological Dating Imminent
A breakthrough in geological dating can be expected within the next few years, combining existing methods to yield higher accuracy over longer time scales closer to the earth’s origin. This will bring great benefits not just for earth sciences, but also for other fields that rely on accurate dating... [more]
25. July 2007
Call for EU to launch major project to map out all our proteins
Biologists still have no clear idea how many active genes there are coding for proteins in humans and other organisms, even though for some species the genomes have been completely sequenced. This is because many of the genes and their protein products have only been predicted by computer... [more]
