http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Scientists at Harvard University have found that tropical cyclones readily inject ice far into the stratosphere, possibly feeding global warming. http://www.physorg.com/news159447949.html Space & Earth Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:06:14 EST news159447949 A new study finds that it will take more than 75 years for the carbon emissions saved through the use of biofuels to compensate for the carbon lost when biofuel plantations are established on forestlands. If the original habitat was peatland, carbon balance would take more than 600 years. The study appears in Conservation Biology. http://www.physorg.com/news158927041.html Space & Earth Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:24:40 EST news158927041 Rainforest reserves - even those disturbed by roads - provide an important buffer against fires that are devastating parts of the Brazilian Amazon, according to a new study by a trio of researchers at Duke University published April 8 in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE. http://www.physorg.com/news158394763.html Space & Earth Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:33:07 EST news158394763 Six hurricanes are expected to churn through the Atlantic this year, a Colorado State University forecast team said Tuesday as it lowered its estimates for the upcoming storm season. http://www.physorg.com/news158344696.html Space & Earth Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:39:54 EST news158344696 giants of the fish world that strike terror only among tiny creatures like the plankton and krill they eat -- are imperiled by over-fishing of the species in parts of its ocean range. http://www.physorg.com/news158331934.html Biology Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:05:57 EST news158331934 With climate change looming, the hunt for places that can soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is on. http://www.physorg.com/news158256801.html Space & Earth Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:13:49 EST news158256801 New diseases directly affect human survival and food security, especially as population density climbs. Leaf-cutting ants, one of a few groups of social insects to cultivate crops, have harvested plant material to fertilize their underground fungal gardens for ~50 million years. New results from the Smithsonian show that both the ants and their fungal crop actively combat fungi coming into the nest inside leaves, thus ensuring the health of their mutualism. http://www.physorg.com/news157916918.html Biology Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:49:17 EST news157916918 In 2008, residents of Hispaniola experienced one of their worst hurricane seasons in recent memory. Hispaniola, the Caribbean island containing Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is located directly within the hurricane belt, and was pummeled by five tropical cyclones last year: Fay, Gustav, Hanna, Ike, and low over the Dominican Republic on Sept. 24 what would become Kyle after moving north. More than 800 people were reported dead or missing from these storms. http://www.physorg.com/news157900052.html Space & Earth Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:08:44 EST news157900052 Seeds of some tree species in the Panamanian tropical forest can survive for more than 30 years before germinating. That is 10 times longer than most field botanists had believed. http://www.physorg.com/news157817323.html Biology Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:09:08 EST news157817323 Couples hoping for a baby girl might be best advised to go and live in Africa, if a study published on Wednesday is correct. http://www.physorg.com/news157783734.html Biology Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:49:22 EST news157783734 All members of the household need to be treated for trachoma in order to prevent rapid re-infection, according to a new study published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news157732852.html Medicine & Health Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:41:18 EST news157732852 Cholera patients also infected with parasitic intestinal worms have a significantly reduced immune response to the cholera toxin, according to a report published March 31st in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. Results of the study from a collaborative team led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) suggest that parasitic infection could reduce immunity to future cholera infection and may compromise the effectiveness of cholera vaccines. http://www.physorg.com/news157705370.html Medicine & Health Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:06:41 EST news157705370 An international team of researchers led by Rodrigo Gonzalez of the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala reports that the transmission of onchocerciasis or river blindness has been broken in Escuintla, Guatemala, one of the largest endemic areas in the Western Hemisphere to date to stop the transmission of the parasitic disease. http://www.physorg.com/news157705145.html Medicine & Health Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:59:35 EST news157705145 A study to be published in the April issue of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene reports that desserts from restaurants in Mexico are likely to give patients travelers` diarrhea, and are yet another food to avoid when visiting developing countries where sanitation may not be optimal. http://www.physorg.com/news157226671.html Medicine & Health Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:10:32 EST news157226671 Oil palm cultivation is a significant driver of tropical forest destruction across Southeast Asia. It could easily become a threat to the Amazon rainforest because of a proposed change in Brazil's legislation, new infrastructure and the influence of foreign agro-industrial firms in the region, according to William F. Laurance, senior scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. http://www.physorg.com/news157115219.html Space & Earth Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:07:29 EST news157115219 Researchers have found living together the known carrier species for the Chagas disease-causing parasite Triatoma dimidiata (also known as "kissing bugs") and a cryptic species that looks the same - but is genetically distinct from - the known carrier species. The two species haven't interbred for as many as 5 million years, according to a report published March 10 in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news155887016.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:57:47 EST news155887016 Colorful poison frogs in the Amazon owe their great diversity to ancestors that leapt into the region from the Andes Mountains several times during the last 10 million years, a new study from The University of Texas at Austin suggests. http://www.physorg.com/news155883644.html Biology Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:01:26 EST news155883644 The Amazon is surprisingly sensitive to drought, according to new research conducted throughout the world's largest tropical forest. The 30-year study, published today in Science, provides the first solid evidence that drought causes massive carbon loss in tropical forests, mainly through killing trees. http://www.physorg.com/news155485964.html Space & Earth Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:34:20 EST news155485964 From geckos and iguanas to Gila monsters and Komodo dragons, lizards are among the most common reptiles on Earth. They are found on every continent except Antarctica. One even pitches car insurance in TV ads. They seemingly can adapt to a variety of conditions, but are most abundant in the tropics. http://www.physorg.com/news155333999.html Biology Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:20:19 EST news155333999 (PhysOrg.com) -- A "pre-existing condition" in the North Indian Ocean stoked the sudden intensification of last year's Tropical Cyclone Nargis just before its devastating landfall in Burma, according to a new NASA/university study. The cyclone became Burma's worst natural disaster ever and one of the deadliest cyclones of all time. http://www.physorg.com/news154892083.html Space & Earth Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:35:25 EST news154892083 Speakers at last week`s AAAS meeting presented abundant evidence that tropical rainforest destruction has accelerated in recent years, at least in part because of the worldwide push to produce more biofuels. http://www.physorg.com/news154625430.html Technology Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:31:08 EST news154625430 Could our mother's diet at the time we are conceived set the course for our future health? This intriguing question is at the heart of a new study based on an "experiment of nature" being conducted by Wellcome Trust-funded researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news154583371.html Medicine & Health Mon, 23 Feb 2009 03:50:17 EST news154583371 Severe fires in Indonesia - responsible for some of the worst air quality conditions worldwide - are linked not only to drought, but also to changes in land use and population density, according to a new study in Nature Geoscience led by Robert Field of the University of Toronto. http://www.physorg.com/news154540375.html Space & Earth Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:53:38 EST news154540375 An international team of scientists have discovered that rainforest trees are getting bigger. They are storing more carbon from the atmosphere in their trunks, which has significantly reduced the rate of climate change. http://www.physorg.com/news154186040.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:27:53 EST news154186040 Hurricanes and tropical cyclones develop in various places around the world all year 'round, and NASA's Hurricane/Tropical Cyclone Web page covers them. The web page offers daily storm updates and satellite images, latest research, stunning video animations, educational tools, scientist profiles and historic storm information, on all storms going back to 2005, including monsters like Katrina. http://www.physorg.com/news154120177.html Space & Earth Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:09:57 EST news154120177 Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have found that dengue transmission in Puerto Rico is dependent upon local climate and short-term changes in temperature and precipitation. Details are published February 17 in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news154079366.html Medicine & Health Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:49:59 EST news154079366 (PhysOrg.com) -- For decades there has been a controversy about whales eating fish in the tropics. The `whales eat fish` debate has been at the heart of policy decisions about the culling of whales and is pivotal to the future of commercial whaling in the region. Today, however, chalk one up for the whales. http://www.physorg.com/news154023335.html Space & Earth Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:17:10 EST news154023335 Farmers across the tropics might raze forests to plant biofuel crops, according to new research by Holly Gibbs, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment. http://www.physorg.com/news153853175.html Space & Earth Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:00:22 EST news153853175 Research led by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has identified the genetic basis for resistance to commonly-used insecticides in one of the major malaria-carrying mosquitoes in Africa. http://www.physorg.com/news152994268.html Biology Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:25:03 EST news152994268 Scientists have recovered fossils of a 60-million-year-old South American snake whose length and weight might make today's anacondas and reticulated pythons seem a bit cuter and more cuddly. http://www.physorg.com/news152969011.html Other Sciences Wed, 04 Feb 2009 11:24:21 EST news152969011