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[b][color=black][size=2][If this gets cut off before the end (as sometimes happens in these forums), you can find the whole thing [url=http://www.msb-science.com/ScienceNews/Science-Current-Events-2016Nov06.pdf]here[/url]. [/size][/color][/b]
[b][color=black][size=2][url=http://www.msb-science.com/ScienceNews/Science-Current-Events-2016Nov06.pdf]http://www.msb-science.com/ScienceNews/Science-Current-Events-2016Nov06.pdf[/url] ][/size][/color][/b]
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[b][color=black][size=4]Life Science[/size][/color][/b]
[i][size=4]New evolutionary finding: Species take different genetic paths to reach same trait [/size][/i]
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[color=#494949][size=3]Did species with a common, beneficial trait undergo the same genetic changes to evolve that trait? Or did the trait develop through different, and therefore unpredictable, genetic paths? Using modern molecular tools and fieldwork, researchers have demonstrated for the first time that different species can take different genetic paths to develop the same trait. It turns out that natural selection, a primary evolutionary process, can dependably produce similar, beneficial traits in different species. But at the molecular level, the evolutionary changes tend to be highly variable, and are therefore far less predictable. To find that out, researchers turned to birds living in South America's Andes Mountains. Comparing high-altitude bird species with their lowland counterparts, his team determined that the high-altitude birds had evolved red blood cells with hemoglobin proteins that more readily attach to oxygen molecules. This trait benefits species living in low-oxygen settings, such as the mountains. Researchers tested the hemoglobin proteins from numerous high-altitude bird species and identified which differences, or mutations, in the proteins' makeup were responsible for the high-altitude trait. In most cases, the change in protein function among the different species was caused by different mutations. This indicates that there are many possible mutations that can all produce the same trait.[/size][/color]
[url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161020165128.htm]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161020165128.htm[/url] [size=2] [/size]
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[b][color=black][size=4]Environmental Science [/size][/color][/b]
[i][color=#191e2b][size=4]Radioactive waste can be immobilized in glass [/size][/color][/i]
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[size=3][font=Cambria]How do you handle nuclear waste that will be radioactive for millions of years, keeping it from harming people and the environment? It isn't easy, but scientists have discovered ways to immobilize such waste -- the result of decades of nuclear weapons production -- in glass and ceramics. According to researchers, glass is a perfect material for storing the radioactive waste with excellent chemical durability. Some radioactive waste is highly complex, containing many radioactive elements. One of the methods for stabilizing radioactive waste involves mass-producing chemically durable apatite minerals, or glasses, with the radioactive material incorporated into the glass. Another is to infuse radioactive waste into borosilicate glasses that resist crystallization. The research may lead to ways to safely dispose of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel that is currently stored at commercial nuclear power plants.[/font][/size]
[url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161103091233.htm]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161103091233.htm[/url] [size=2] [/size]
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[b][color=black][size=4]Earth Science [/size][/color][/b]
[i][color=#535353][size=4]A 60-year pattern in the stratosphere changes[/size][/color][/i]
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[size=3][font=Cambria]High above the earth's tropics, a pattern of winds changed recently in a way that scientists had never seen in more than 60 years of consistent measurements. This disruption to the wind pattern did not have any immediate impact on weather or climate as we experience it on the earth's surface. But it does raise interesting questions for the scientists who observed it: If a pattern holds for six decades and then suddenly changes, what caused that to happen? Will it happen again? What effects might it have? It's as though Old Faithful stopped for a day; you'd begin to wonder about what was happening under the ground. Winds in the tropical stratosphere, an atmospheric layer that extends from about 10 to 30 miles above the earth's surface, circulate the planet in alternating easterly and westerly directions. This pattern repeats every 28 months, and the pattern never changed -- until late 2015. A new pattern held for nearly half a year, and by July
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