SCIENCE NEWS - An Ant Species Has Given Up Sexual reproduction Completely

The complete asexuality of a widespread fungus-gardening ant, the only ant species in the world known to have dispensed with males entirely, has been confirmed by a team of Texas and Brazilian researchers.

Most social insects—the wasps, ants and bees—are relatively used to daily life without males. Their colonies are well run by swarms of sterile sisters lorded over by an egg-laying queen. But, eventually, all social insect species have the ability to produce a crop of males who go forth in the world to fertilize new queens and propagate.

Queens of the ant Mycocepurus smithii reproduce without fertilization and males appear to be completely absent, report Christian Rabeling, Ulrich Mueller and their Brazilian colleagues."

Animals that are completely asexual are relatively rare, which makes this is a very interesting ant," says Rabeling, an ecology, evolution and behavior graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin. "Asexual species don't mix their genes through recombination, so you expect harmful mutations to accumulate over time and for the species to go extinct more quickly than others. They don't generally persist for very long over evolutionary time."

To read more on this , please CLICK ON THE TITLE above.

SCIENCE NEWS - Calorie Information from Restaurants, Packaged Foods might be unreliable

As a growing number of fast food and chain restaurants display the calorie content of their dishes on websites and menus, a study suggests some of this information may be unreliable.

On average, the calorie content information provided by the restaurants was 18 percent less than the researcher's calorie content analysis. Two side dishes exceeded the restaurant's reported calorie information by nearly 200 percent. The calorie content information reported by packaged food companies averaged 8 percent less than the researchers' analysis. "If people use published calorie contents for weight control, discrepancies of this magnitude could result in weight gain of many pounds a year," says senior author Susan B. Roberts, PhD, a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.

Sceince News - Echinoderms Contribute to Global Carbon Sink

The impact on levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere by the decaying remains of a group of marine creatures that includes starfish and sea urchin has been significantly underestimated.

Globally, the seabed habitats occupy more than 300 million million square metres, from the intertidal flats and pools to the mightiest deep-sea trenches at 11,000 meters. The benthos -- the animals living on and in the sediments -- populate this vast ecosystem.

Calcifying organisms incorporate carbon directly from the seawater into their skeletons in the form of inorganic minerals such as calcium carbonate. This means that their bodies contain a substantial amount of inorganic carbon. When they die and sink, some of the inorganic carbon is remineralised, and much of it becomes buried in sediments, where it remains locked up indefinitely.

To Read more on this please CLICK ON THE TITLE above.

SCIENCE NEWS - Sleeping Beauty Hooks Up With Herpes to Fight Brain Disease

Neuroscientists have forged an unlikely molecular union as part of their fight against diseases of the brain and nervous system.

To read more about this Click on the ORANGE TITLE above.

BIOBASICS Question of the Week?

BIOBASICS Question of the Week?

Which of the following is not a true moss?
1. Peat Moss
2. Apple moss
3. Club moss

4. None of these

Answer: True mosses belong to Class Bryopsida of Division BRYOPHYTA of Kingdom Plantae - Sphagnum sp commonly called Peat moss and Bartramia sp commonly called Apple moss belong to Bryopsida, so both these genera are classified under true mosses while Club moss or Spike moss is the common name for Selaginella sp which is categorized under Division PTERIDOPYTA of Kingdom Plantae - so it is not a true moss.