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Warmer caves may save bats from deadly fungus

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Shivering bats need help to fight off white-nose syndrome Researchers are hoping that heated bat boxes can curtail the number of bats dying from white-nose syndrome — a condition that has decimated hibernating bats across the northeastern United States. As many as half a million bats have died from the poorly understood ailment since it was discovered in New York state in 2006. Because the bodies of emaciated bats are often found strewn around the entrances of affected caves, scientists have hypothesized that the bats are starving to death during hibernation. Now, a pair of ecologists has created a mathematical … Read more…

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Reading the fine print of the human face

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The expert behind a new hit TV series says tiny expressions reveal if someone is lying CHICAGO–Sometimes a curl of the lip can catch an unfaithful lover … or a murderer. In the new television series Lie to Me, deception expert Cal Lightman, played by British actor Tim Roth, reads people’s true feelings to uncover their lies. He and his team collaborate with law enforcement and government agents to crack their trickiest cases, solve murders and uncover scandal. Though it may seem unlikely that an upward glance or a slight shrug could catch a killer, most of the show’s science … Read more…

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Canadian research infrastructure receives support, but will it last?

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Investment in infrastructure typically brings to mind hard-hat projects such as the construction of highways. But to keep science on the fast track, focused funding of research infrastructure is necessary. Following this logic, in December the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) announced it would award C$45.5 million ($35.9 million) to specific Canadian research projects. The investment will support more than 250 projects, including those in the health field, by providing equipment to attract and retain researchers to Canadian institutions. The money will be distributed through two channels: the Leaders Opportunity Fund, which allows institutions to invest in research equipment for … Read more…

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Arctic Expedition: Life on the Amundsen

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When the CCGS Amundsen, a Canadian research ice breaker, left its home port of Quebec City in July 2007, it embarked upon a historic 15-month expedition that would have it travel across the Arctic and overwinter in the Beaufort Sea. The scientists on board the  Amundsen might spend their days hunting for ice algae, fishing for zooplankton, or surveying the contours of the nearby ice floes.   But it’s not all work and no play for the researchers and graduate students that call the Amundsen home. This slideshow was first published by The Gazette in December 2008. The World Federation of … Read more…

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Control Freaks

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Tiny genetic snippets called microRNAs may promote metastasis Biologists know quite a bit about the steps that turn a normal cell into a cancerous one. Their understanding of metastasis, on the other hand, is somewhat more hazy. Now a short stretch of genetic material has been implicated in the spread of breast cancer, according to a study in the Oct. 11 Nature. Molecular biologist Li Ma of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, in Cambridge, Mass., has identified a type of microRNA—a tiny genetic molecule—that can coax breast cancer cells to spread to other tissues. MicroRNAs regulate the expression of … Read more…