Eilat's corals stand better chance of resilience than other sites

Say Hebrew University, Bar-Ilan scientists

2013-09-30

(Press-News.org) Jerusalem, Sept. 29, 2013 – Israel's southern Red Sea resort of Eilat, one of whose prime attractions is its colorful and multi-shaped underwater coral reefs, may have a clear advantage in the future over rival coral-viewing sites around the world, scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University have found.

Coral reefs, earth's richest and most diverse ecosystem, are deteriorating rapidly. One of the most devastating causes for that deterioration is coral bleaching, which typically occurs when seawater temperatures exceed the local summer maximum by one-half to one and half degrees Celsius. At those higher temperatures, the coral's symbiotic algae are lost, leading to the coral's bleaching and eventually its death.

But, while the frequency of coral bleaching is globally increasing, no bleaching event has been observed in the Gulf of Eilat/Aqaba (Eilat sits at the northern end of the gulf), even when nominally bleaching conditions prevail. The Israeli scientists explain the enigmatic lack of bleaching in the Gulf by the existence of a "warm-water barrier" at the southern Red Sea, allowing only heat-tolerant genotypes of corals to enter the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden. This occurred following the disappearance of corals from the Red Sea during the last glacial period, some 15,000 years ago. The scientists predict that no bleaching is likely to occur in the Gulf of Eilat/Aqaba in the next 100 years, making it a unique refuge for coral reefs in the world's warming oceans.

INFORMATION:

The findings of the Israeli researchers, entitled "A Coral Reef Refuge in the Red Sea," was published on Sept. 23 in the journal Global Change Biology." The paper is the outcome of a joint study by Prof. Amatzia Genin of the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University; Prof. Hezi Gildor of the The Fredy & Nadine Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University; and Dr. Maoz Fine of the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan University. The work was carried out at the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

New approaches to testing cancer drugs needed -- ESMO press commentary

2013-09-30

Lugano, Switzerland, 28th September -- Research institutes, regulators and the pharmaceutical industry are urged to cooperate to develop new approaches to testing cancer drugs, in order to bring the revolution in personalised medicine to patients across Europe, says the European Society for Medical Oncology. It has become clear in recent years that each patient's cancer has individual characteristics that are potentially amenable to "personalised" treatments that target those characteristics. But there is still a great deal of work to be done to ensure patients benefit ...

A review concerning relationships and independence of human number, time and space processing

2013-09-30

Perception of NTS are basic cognitive processes for humans to interact with their environment. Whether a common magnitude system exits for NTS processing is such an important question to investigate. Following and guided by previous researchers, Dr. Yalin Chen and Chang Liu, from the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and the School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, China, reviewed present evidence and provided some comments concerning this question. Their work, entitled "Relationships and independence of human number, time, and space processing", was published ...

Climate change: Fast out of the gate, slow to the finish the gate

2013-09-30

Washington, D.C.— A great deal of research has focused on the amount of global warming resulting from increased greenhouse gas concentrations. But there has been relatively little study of the pace of the change following these increases. A new study by Carnegie's Ken Caldeira and Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures concludes that about half of the warming occurs within the first 10 years after an instantaneous step increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, but about one-quarter of the warming occurs more than a century after the step increase. Their work is published ...

Young children recognize cigarette brands in developing countries with most smokers

2013-09-30

Nearly two-thirds of young children in low- and middle-income countries can identify cigarette brand logos, according to a study from researchers at the University of Maryland School of Public Health (UMD SPH) and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH). The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, examined the reach of tobacco and cigarette marketing among some of the world's most vulnerable populations, sampling five and six year-old children from Brazil, China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Russia. These countries were selected because they have ...

Beyond the little blue pill: scientists develop compound that may treat priapism

2013-09-30

Bethesda, MD -- It's not the little blue pill famous for helping men get big results, but for those who need it, the outcome might be even more significant. A new research report published online in The FASEB Journal, offers hope to men who experience priapism. This condition, which is often seen in men with sickle cell disease, causes erections lasting so long that they cause permanent damage to the penis. Specifically, a compound, called "C6'" offered mice -- with and without sickle cell disease -- relief by normalizing nitric oxide levels in penile blood. In addition ...

Niacin, the fountain of youth

2013-09-30

Who would not want to live a long and healthy life? A freely available food supplement could help in this respect, scientists from ETH Zurich have demonstrated in roundworms. Vitamin B3 – also known as niacin – and its metabolite nicotinamide in the worms' diet caused them to live for about one tenth longer than usual. As an international team of researchers headed by Michael Ristow, a professor of energy metabolism, has now experimentally demonstrated, niacin and nicotinamide take effect by promoting formation of so-called free radicals. "In roundworms, these reactive ...

Erratic proteins: New insights into a transport mechanism

2013-09-30

The outer membrane of bacteria contains many proteins that form tiny pores. They are important for absorbing nutrients and transmitting signals into the cell. The research group of Sebastian Hiller, Professor of Structural Biology at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, has now shown for the first time at atomic resolution, that these pore proteins are transported in an unstructured, constantly changing state to the outer bacterial membrane. This landmark study was recently published in the scientific journal "Nature Structural and Molecular Biology". The cell membrane ...

Alcohol leaving the UK charts with a hangover

2013-09-30

London -- Are we allowing alcohol marketing to children and teens via the music they love? As many as one in five songs in the UK top ten today include references to alcohol -- a figure rising partly due to US-imported songs. What impact is this having on the youth of today? Experts warn that fresh evidence demonstrates that public health messages on alcohol may no longer be audible over the louder message from some sections of the music industry. Researchers from Liverpool John Moores University, UK led by Katherine Hardcastle discuss their findings in: "Trends in alcohol ...

Trial combining anti-cancer drug and radiotherapy may lead to treatment for brain tumor

2013-09-30

Results from a clinical trial of a new treatment for glioblastoma suggest that researchers may have found a new approach to treating this most aggressive of brain tumours, as well as a potential new biological marker than can predict the tumour's response to treatment. Presenting the research to the 2013 European Cancer Congress (ECC2013) [1] today (Monday), Professor Wolfgang Wick will say that combining radiotherapy with an anti-cancer drug called APG101 – a fusion protein similar to an antibody – blocks a cell-signalling pathway called CD95 that plays a crucial role ...

First estimate of radiotherapy dose wasted in compensating for between-treatment tumor growth

2013-09-30

For the first time, researchers have estimated the daily dose of radiotherapy that could be wasted in compensating for cancer cell growth that occurs overnight and during weekends in patients with early breast cancer. In research to be presented to the 2013 European Cancer Congress (ECC2013) [1] today (Monday), Professor John Yarnold will say that, until now, there has been contradictory evidence as to whether gaps between radiotherapy treatments, for instance overnight or at weekends, makes any difference to the overall effectiveness of radiotherapy on breast cancer, ...

Synthesis of seven quebracho indole alkaloids using "antenna ligands" in 7-10 steps, including three first-ever asymmetric syntheses

Lisbon to host world’s largest conference on ecosystem restoration in 2027, led by researcher from the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon

Electrocatalysis with dual functionality – an overview

Scripps Research awarded $6.9 million by NIH to crack the code of lasting HIV vaccine protection

New post-hoc analysis shows patients whose clinicians had access to GeneSight results for depression treatment are more likely to feel better sooner

Bimodal tactile tomography with bayesian sequential palpation for intracavitary microstructure profiling and segmentation

Disrupted connectivity of the brainstem ascending reticular activating system nuclei-left parahippocampal gyrus could reveal mechanisms of delirium following basal ganglia intracerebral hemorrhage

[Press-News.org] Eilat's corals stand better chance of resilience than other sites
Say Hebrew University, Bar-Ilan scientists

Eilat's corals stand better chance of resilience than other sites

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: