The stock market is rising in early trading Monday on hopes for new measures to deal with the eurozone debt crisis. But investors on the stock market are awaiting a critical US jobs report, to be released Friday.
By The Associated Press / July 2, 2012
Specialists Frank Masello, left, and John T. O'Hara work on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York shortly before the closing bell on Friday, June 29, 2012. Stock market futures rose early Monday, July 2, 2012, with the Dow up 14 points to 12822.
David Karp/AP/File
Enlarge
U.S. stock futures are edging up on optimism about recently announced measures in Europe to stave off a debt crisis and hopes that interest rates there will be cut this week. But the gains are being tempered with more evidence of a slowdown in China.
Investors are also awaiting the U.S. jobs report set to be released Friday.
Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 14 points to 12,822 on Monday. Standard & Poor's 500 futures are up 2.1 points to 1,358.50 and Nasdaq futures gained 3.75 points to 2,613.50.
China's manufacturing grew at the slowest pace in seven months in June, according to a survey released over the weekend. That could signal limited power in Beijing to forestall a more rapid decline for the world's second largest economy.
Penn researchers improve living tissues with 3-D printed vascular networks made from sugarPublic release date: 1-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Evan Lerner elerner@upenn.edu 215-573-6604 University of Pennsylvania
PHILADELPHIA Researchers are hopeful that new advances in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine could one day make a replacement liver from a patient's own cells, or animal muscle tissue that could be cut into steaks without ever being inside a cow. Bioengineers can already make 2D structures out of many kinds of tissue, but one of the major roadblocks to making the jump to 3D is keeping the cells within large structures from suffocating; organs have complicated 3D blood vessel networks that are still impossible to recreate in the laboratory.
Now, University of Pennsylvania researchers have developed an innovative solution to this perfusion problem: they've shown that 3D printed templates of filament networks can be used to rapidly create vasculature and improve the function of engineered living tissues.
The research was conducted by a team led by postdoctoral fellow Jordan S. Miller and Christopher S. Chen, the Skirkanich Professor of Innovation in the Department of Bioengineering at Penn, along with Sangeeta N. Bhatia, Wilson Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and postdoctoral fellow Kelly R. Stevens in Bhatia's laboratory.
Their work was published in the journal Nature Materials.
Without a vascular system a highway for delivering nutrients and removing waste products living cells on the inside of a 3D tissue structure quickly die. Thin tissues grown from a few layers of cells don't have this problem, as all of the cells have direct access to nutrients and oxygen. Bioengineers have therefore explored 3D printing as a way to prototype tissues containing large volumes of living cells.
The most commonly explored techniques are layer-by-layer fabrication, or bioprinting, where single layers or droplets of cells and gel are created and then assembled together one drop at a time, somewhat like building a stack of LEGOs.
Such "additive manufacturing" methods can make complex shapes out of a variety of materials, but vasculature remains a major challenge when printing with cells. Hollow channels made in this way have structural seams running between the layers, and the pressure of fluid pumping through them can push the seams apart. More important, many potentially useful cell types, like liver cells, cannot readily survive the rigors of direct 3D bioprinting.
To get around this problem, Penn researchers turned the printing process inside out.
Rather than trying to print a large volume of tissue and leave hollow channels for vasculature in a layer-by-layer approach, Chen and colleagues focused on the vasculature first and designed free-standing 3D filament networks in the shape of a vascular system that sat inside a mold. As in lost-wax casting, a technique that has been used to make sculptures for thousands of years, the team's approach allowed for the mold and vascular template to be removed once the cells were added and formed a solid tissue enveloping the filaments.
"Sometimes the simplest solutions come from going back to basics," Miller said. "I got the first hint at this solution when I visited a Body Worlds exhibit, where you can see plastic casts of free-standing, whole organ vasculature."
This rapid casting technique hinged on the researchers developing a material that is rigid enough to exist as a 3D network of cylindrical filaments but which can also easily dissolve in water without toxic effects on cells. They also needed to make the material compatible with a 3D printer so they could make reproducible vascular networks orders of magnitude faster, and at larger scale and higher complexity, than possible in a layer-by-layer bioprinting approach.
After much testing, the team found the perfect mix of material properties in a humble material: sugar. Sugars are mechanically strong and make up the majority of organic biomass on the planet in the form of cellulose, but their building blocks are also typically added and dissolved into nutrient media that help cells grow.
"We tested many different sugar formulations until we were able to optimize all of these characteristics together," Miller said. "Since there's no single type of gel that's going to be optimal for every kind of engineered tissue, we also wanted to develop a sugar formula that would be broadly compatible with any cell type or water-based gel."
The formula they settled on a combination of sucrose and glucose along with dextran for structural reinforcement is printed with a RepRap, an open-source 3D printer with a custom-designed extruder and controlling software. An important step in stabilizing the sugar after printing, templates are coated in a thin layer of a degradable polymer derived from corn. This coating allows the sugar template to be dissolved and to flow out of the gel through the channels they create without inhibiting the solidification of the gel or damaging the growing cells nearby. Once the sugar is removed, the researchers start flowing fluid through the vascular architecture and cells begin to receive nutrients and oxygen similar to the exchange that naturally happens in the body.
The whole process is quick and inexpensive, allowing the researchers to switch with ease between computer simulations and physical models of multiple vascular configurations.
"This new platform technology, from the cell's perspective, makes tissue formation a gentle and quick journey," Chen said, "because cells are only exposed to a few minutes of manual pipetting and a single step of being poured into the molds before getting nourished by our vascular network."
The researchers showed that human blood vessel cells injected throughout the vascular networks spontaneously generated new capillary sprouts to increase the network's reach, much in the way blood vessels in the body naturally grow. The team then created gels containing primary liver cells to test whether their technique could improve their function.
When the researchers pumped nutrient-rich media through the gel's template-fashioned vascular system, the entrapped liver cells boosted their production of albumin and urea, natural components of blood and urine, respectively, which are important measures of liver-cell function and health. There was also clear evidence of increased cell survival around the perfused vascular channels.
And theoretical modeling of nutrient transport in these perfused gels showed a striking resemblance to observed cell-survival patterns, opening up the possibility of using live-cell data to refine computer models to better design vascular architectures.
Though these engineered tissues were not equivalent to a fully functioning liver, the researchers used cell densities that approached clinical relevance, suggesting that their printed vascular system could eventually be used to further research in lab-grown organs and organoids.
"The therapeutic window for human-liver therapy is estimated at one to 10 billion functional liver cells," Bhatia said. "With this work, we've brought engineered liver tissues orders of magnitude closer to that goal, but at tens of millions of liver cells per gel we've still got a ways to go.
"More work will be needed to learn how to directly connect these types of vascular networks to natural blood vessels while at the same time investigating fundamental interactions between the liver cells and the patterned vasculature. It's an exciting future ahead."
With promising indications that their vascular networks will be compatible with all types of cells and gels, the team believes their 3D printing method will be a scalable solution for a wide variety of cell- and tissue-based applications because all organ vasculature follows similar architectural patterns.
"Cell biologists like the idea of 3D printing to make vascularized tissues in principle, but they would need to have an expert in house and highly specialized equipment to even attempt it," Miller said. "That's no longer the case; we've made these sugar-based vascular templates stable enough to ship to labs around the world."
Beyond integrating well with the world of tissue engineering, the researchers' work epitomizes the philosophy that drives much of the open source 3D printing community.
"We launched this project from innovations rooted in RepRap and MakerBot technology and their supporting worldwide communities," Miller said. "A RepRap 3D printer is a tiny fraction of the cost of commercial 3D printers, and, more important, its open-source nature means you can freely modify it. Many of our additions to the project are already in the wild."
Several of the custom parts of the RepRap printer the researchers used to make the vascular templates were printed in plastic on another RepRap. Miller will teach a class on building and using these types of printers at a workshop this summer and will continue tinkering with his own designs.
"We want to redesign the printer from scratch and focus it entirely on cell biology, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications," Miller said.
###
In addition to Miller, Chen, Bhatia and Stevens, the research was conducted by Michael T. Yang, Brendon M. Baker, Duc-Huy T. Nguyen, Daniel M. Cohen, Esteban Toro, Peter A. Galie, Xiang Yu and Ritika Chaturvedi of Penn Bioengineering, along with Alice A. Chen of MIT. Bhatia is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Penn Center for Engineering Cells and Regeneration and the American Heart Association-Jon Holden DeHaan Foundation.
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Penn researchers improve living tissues with 3-D printed vascular networks made from sugarPublic release date: 1-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Evan Lerner elerner@upenn.edu 215-573-6604 University of Pennsylvania
PHILADELPHIA Researchers are hopeful that new advances in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine could one day make a replacement liver from a patient's own cells, or animal muscle tissue that could be cut into steaks without ever being inside a cow. Bioengineers can already make 2D structures out of many kinds of tissue, but one of the major roadblocks to making the jump to 3D is keeping the cells within large structures from suffocating; organs have complicated 3D blood vessel networks that are still impossible to recreate in the laboratory.
Now, University of Pennsylvania researchers have developed an innovative solution to this perfusion problem: they've shown that 3D printed templates of filament networks can be used to rapidly create vasculature and improve the function of engineered living tissues.
The research was conducted by a team led by postdoctoral fellow Jordan S. Miller and Christopher S. Chen, the Skirkanich Professor of Innovation in the Department of Bioengineering at Penn, along with Sangeeta N. Bhatia, Wilson Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and postdoctoral fellow Kelly R. Stevens in Bhatia's laboratory.
Their work was published in the journal Nature Materials.
Without a vascular system a highway for delivering nutrients and removing waste products living cells on the inside of a 3D tissue structure quickly die. Thin tissues grown from a few layers of cells don't have this problem, as all of the cells have direct access to nutrients and oxygen. Bioengineers have therefore explored 3D printing as a way to prototype tissues containing large volumes of living cells.
The most commonly explored techniques are layer-by-layer fabrication, or bioprinting, where single layers or droplets of cells and gel are created and then assembled together one drop at a time, somewhat like building a stack of LEGOs.
Such "additive manufacturing" methods can make complex shapes out of a variety of materials, but vasculature remains a major challenge when printing with cells. Hollow channels made in this way have structural seams running between the layers, and the pressure of fluid pumping through them can push the seams apart. More important, many potentially useful cell types, like liver cells, cannot readily survive the rigors of direct 3D bioprinting.
To get around this problem, Penn researchers turned the printing process inside out.
Rather than trying to print a large volume of tissue and leave hollow channels for vasculature in a layer-by-layer approach, Chen and colleagues focused on the vasculature first and designed free-standing 3D filament networks in the shape of a vascular system that sat inside a mold. As in lost-wax casting, a technique that has been used to make sculptures for thousands of years, the team's approach allowed for the mold and vascular template to be removed once the cells were added and formed a solid tissue enveloping the filaments.
"Sometimes the simplest solutions come from going back to basics," Miller said. "I got the first hint at this solution when I visited a Body Worlds exhibit, where you can see plastic casts of free-standing, whole organ vasculature."
This rapid casting technique hinged on the researchers developing a material that is rigid enough to exist as a 3D network of cylindrical filaments but which can also easily dissolve in water without toxic effects on cells. They also needed to make the material compatible with a 3D printer so they could make reproducible vascular networks orders of magnitude faster, and at larger scale and higher complexity, than possible in a layer-by-layer bioprinting approach.
After much testing, the team found the perfect mix of material properties in a humble material: sugar. Sugars are mechanically strong and make up the majority of organic biomass on the planet in the form of cellulose, but their building blocks are also typically added and dissolved into nutrient media that help cells grow.
"We tested many different sugar formulations until we were able to optimize all of these characteristics together," Miller said. "Since there's no single type of gel that's going to be optimal for every kind of engineered tissue, we also wanted to develop a sugar formula that would be broadly compatible with any cell type or water-based gel."
The formula they settled on a combination of sucrose and glucose along with dextran for structural reinforcement is printed with a RepRap, an open-source 3D printer with a custom-designed extruder and controlling software. An important step in stabilizing the sugar after printing, templates are coated in a thin layer of a degradable polymer derived from corn. This coating allows the sugar template to be dissolved and to flow out of the gel through the channels they create without inhibiting the solidification of the gel or damaging the growing cells nearby. Once the sugar is removed, the researchers start flowing fluid through the vascular architecture and cells begin to receive nutrients and oxygen similar to the exchange that naturally happens in the body.
The whole process is quick and inexpensive, allowing the researchers to switch with ease between computer simulations and physical models of multiple vascular configurations.
"This new platform technology, from the cell's perspective, makes tissue formation a gentle and quick journey," Chen said, "because cells are only exposed to a few minutes of manual pipetting and a single step of being poured into the molds before getting nourished by our vascular network."
The researchers showed that human blood vessel cells injected throughout the vascular networks spontaneously generated new capillary sprouts to increase the network's reach, much in the way blood vessels in the body naturally grow. The team then created gels containing primary liver cells to test whether their technique could improve their function.
When the researchers pumped nutrient-rich media through the gel's template-fashioned vascular system, the entrapped liver cells boosted their production of albumin and urea, natural components of blood and urine, respectively, which are important measures of liver-cell function and health. There was also clear evidence of increased cell survival around the perfused vascular channels.
And theoretical modeling of nutrient transport in these perfused gels showed a striking resemblance to observed cell-survival patterns, opening up the possibility of using live-cell data to refine computer models to better design vascular architectures.
Though these engineered tissues were not equivalent to a fully functioning liver, the researchers used cell densities that approached clinical relevance, suggesting that their printed vascular system could eventually be used to further research in lab-grown organs and organoids.
"The therapeutic window for human-liver therapy is estimated at one to 10 billion functional liver cells," Bhatia said. "With this work, we've brought engineered liver tissues orders of magnitude closer to that goal, but at tens of millions of liver cells per gel we've still got a ways to go.
"More work will be needed to learn how to directly connect these types of vascular networks to natural blood vessels while at the same time investigating fundamental interactions between the liver cells and the patterned vasculature. It's an exciting future ahead."
With promising indications that their vascular networks will be compatible with all types of cells and gels, the team believes their 3D printing method will be a scalable solution for a wide variety of cell- and tissue-based applications because all organ vasculature follows similar architectural patterns.
"Cell biologists like the idea of 3D printing to make vascularized tissues in principle, but they would need to have an expert in house and highly specialized equipment to even attempt it," Miller said. "That's no longer the case; we've made these sugar-based vascular templates stable enough to ship to labs around the world."
Beyond integrating well with the world of tissue engineering, the researchers' work epitomizes the philosophy that drives much of the open source 3D printing community.
"We launched this project from innovations rooted in RepRap and MakerBot technology and their supporting worldwide communities," Miller said. "A RepRap 3D printer is a tiny fraction of the cost of commercial 3D printers, and, more important, its open-source nature means you can freely modify it. Many of our additions to the project are already in the wild."
Several of the custom parts of the RepRap printer the researchers used to make the vascular templates were printed in plastic on another RepRap. Miller will teach a class on building and using these types of printers at a workshop this summer and will continue tinkering with his own designs.
"We want to redesign the printer from scratch and focus it entirely on cell biology, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications," Miller said.
###
In addition to Miller, Chen, Bhatia and Stevens, the research was conducted by Michael T. Yang, Brendon M. Baker, Duc-Huy T. Nguyen, Daniel M. Cohen, Esteban Toro, Peter A. Galie, Xiang Yu and Ritika Chaturvedi of Penn Bioengineering, along with Alice A. Chen of MIT. Bhatia is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Penn Center for Engineering Cells and Regeneration and the American Heart Association-Jon Holden DeHaan Foundation.
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Rising heat at the beach threatens largest sea turtles, climate change models showPublic release date: 1-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Rachel Ewing raewing@drexel.edu 215-895-2614 Drexel University
PHILADELPHIA (July 1, 2012)For eastern Pacific populations of leatherback turtles, the 21st century could be the last. New research suggests that climate change could exacerbate existing threats and nearly wipe out the population. Deaths of turtle eggs and hatchlings in nests buried at hotter, drier beaches are the leading projected cause of the potential climate-related decline, according to a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change by a research team from Drexel University, Princeton University, other institutions and government agencies.
Leatherbacks, the largest sea turtle species, are among the most critically endangered due to a combination of historical and ongoing threats including egg poaching at nesting beaches and juvenile and adult turtles being caught in fishing operations. The new research on climate dynamics suggests that climate change could impede this population's ability to recover. If actual climate patterns follow projections in the study, the eastern Pacific population of leatherback turtles will decline by 75 percent by the year 2100.
Modeling the Ebb and Flow of Turtle Hatching with Climate Variation
"We used three models of this leatherback population to construct a climate-forced population dynamics model. Two parts were based on the population's observed sensitivity to the nesting beach climate and one part was based on its sensitivity to the ocean climate," said the study's lead author Dr. Vincent Saba, a research fishery biologist with the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Northeast Fisheries Science Center, visiting research collaborator at Princeton University, and a Drexel University alumnus.
Leatherback turtle births naturally ebb and flow from year to year in response to climate variations, with more hatchlings, and rare pulses of male hatchlings, entering the eastern Pacific Ocean in cooler, rainier years. Female turtles are more likely to return to nesting beaches in Costa Rica to lay eggs in years when they have more jellyfish to eat, and jellyfish in the eastern Pacific are likely more abundant during cooler seasons. Turtle eggs and hatchlings are also more likely to survive in these cooler, rainier seasons associated with the La Nia climate phase, as this research team recently reported in the journal PLoS ONE. In addition, temperature inside the nest affects turtles' sex ratio, with most male hatchlings emerging during cooler, rainier seasons to join the predominantly-female turtle population.
The researchers applied Saba's combined model of these population dynamics to seven climate model projections assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The climate model projections were chosen based on their ability to model El Nio Southern Oscillation (ENSO) patterns on the temperature and precipitation in the region of Costa Rica where this team has conducted long-term leatherback studies.
Hot Beaches, More Warm Years Threaten Turtles' Recovery
The resulting projections indicate that warmer, drier years will become increasingly frequent in Central America throughout this century. High egg and hatchling mortality associated with warmer, drier beach conditions was the most significant cause of the projected climate-related population decline: This nesting population of leatherbacks could decline by 7 percent per decade, or 75 percent overall by the year 2100.
The population is already critically low.
"In 1990, there were 1,500 turtles nesting on the Playa Grande beach," said Dr. James Spotila, the Betz Chair Professor of Environmental Science in the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel. "Now, there are 30 to 40 nesting females per season."
Spotila, a co-author of the study, has been studying leatherback turtles at Playa Grande in Costa Rica, the largest leatherback nesting beach in the eastern Pacific, with colleagues and Drexel students, for 22 years.
Poaching of turtle eggs was a major cause of the initial decline, and was once such a widespread problem that virtually no turtle hatchlings would survive at Playa Grande. Spotila and colleagues worked with the local authorities in Costa Rica to protect the leatherbacks' nesting beaches so that turtle nests can hatch in safety. Bycatch of juvenile and adult turtles in fishing operations in the eastern Pacific remains a threat.
For the population to recover successfully, Spotila said, "the challenge is to produce as many good hatchlings as possible. That requires us to be hands-on and manipulate the beach to make sure that happens."
Spotila's research team is already investigating methods such as watering and shading turtle nests that could mitigate the impact of hot, dry beach conditions on hatching success.
###
Link to this Nature Climate Change study: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE1582
Link to recent news release about a related study by this research team in PLoS ONE: http://www.drexel.edu/now/news-media/releases/archive/2012/May/El-Nino-Climate-Change-Threaten-Leatherback-Sea-Turtles/
Dr. James Spotila recently joined the faculty of Drexel University's new Department of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science (BEES), formed as a result of the University's unique affiliation with the Academy of Natural Sciences, the oldest natural history museum in the U.S. and a world leader in biodiversity and environmental research. Spotila is the author of the books Sea Turtles: A Complete Guide to Their Biology, Behavior, and Conservation (2004) and Saving Sea Turtles: Extraordinary Stories from the Battle Against Extinction (2011).
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Rising heat at the beach threatens largest sea turtles, climate change models showPublic release date: 1-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Rachel Ewing raewing@drexel.edu 215-895-2614 Drexel University
PHILADELPHIA (July 1, 2012)For eastern Pacific populations of leatherback turtles, the 21st century could be the last. New research suggests that climate change could exacerbate existing threats and nearly wipe out the population. Deaths of turtle eggs and hatchlings in nests buried at hotter, drier beaches are the leading projected cause of the potential climate-related decline, according to a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change by a research team from Drexel University, Princeton University, other institutions and government agencies.
Leatherbacks, the largest sea turtle species, are among the most critically endangered due to a combination of historical and ongoing threats including egg poaching at nesting beaches and juvenile and adult turtles being caught in fishing operations. The new research on climate dynamics suggests that climate change could impede this population's ability to recover. If actual climate patterns follow projections in the study, the eastern Pacific population of leatherback turtles will decline by 75 percent by the year 2100.
Modeling the Ebb and Flow of Turtle Hatching with Climate Variation
"We used three models of this leatherback population to construct a climate-forced population dynamics model. Two parts were based on the population's observed sensitivity to the nesting beach climate and one part was based on its sensitivity to the ocean climate," said the study's lead author Dr. Vincent Saba, a research fishery biologist with the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Northeast Fisheries Science Center, visiting research collaborator at Princeton University, and a Drexel University alumnus.
Leatherback turtle births naturally ebb and flow from year to year in response to climate variations, with more hatchlings, and rare pulses of male hatchlings, entering the eastern Pacific Ocean in cooler, rainier years. Female turtles are more likely to return to nesting beaches in Costa Rica to lay eggs in years when they have more jellyfish to eat, and jellyfish in the eastern Pacific are likely more abundant during cooler seasons. Turtle eggs and hatchlings are also more likely to survive in these cooler, rainier seasons associated with the La Nia climate phase, as this research team recently reported in the journal PLoS ONE. In addition, temperature inside the nest affects turtles' sex ratio, with most male hatchlings emerging during cooler, rainier seasons to join the predominantly-female turtle population.
The researchers applied Saba's combined model of these population dynamics to seven climate model projections assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The climate model projections were chosen based on their ability to model El Nio Southern Oscillation (ENSO) patterns on the temperature and precipitation in the region of Costa Rica where this team has conducted long-term leatherback studies.
Hot Beaches, More Warm Years Threaten Turtles' Recovery
The resulting projections indicate that warmer, drier years will become increasingly frequent in Central America throughout this century. High egg and hatchling mortality associated with warmer, drier beach conditions was the most significant cause of the projected climate-related population decline: This nesting population of leatherbacks could decline by 7 percent per decade, or 75 percent overall by the year 2100.
The population is already critically low.
"In 1990, there were 1,500 turtles nesting on the Playa Grande beach," said Dr. James Spotila, the Betz Chair Professor of Environmental Science in the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel. "Now, there are 30 to 40 nesting females per season."
Spotila, a co-author of the study, has been studying leatherback turtles at Playa Grande in Costa Rica, the largest leatherback nesting beach in the eastern Pacific, with colleagues and Drexel students, for 22 years.
Poaching of turtle eggs was a major cause of the initial decline, and was once such a widespread problem that virtually no turtle hatchlings would survive at Playa Grande. Spotila and colleagues worked with the local authorities in Costa Rica to protect the leatherbacks' nesting beaches so that turtle nests can hatch in safety. Bycatch of juvenile and adult turtles in fishing operations in the eastern Pacific remains a threat.
For the population to recover successfully, Spotila said, "the challenge is to produce as many good hatchlings as possible. That requires us to be hands-on and manipulate the beach to make sure that happens."
Spotila's research team is already investigating methods such as watering and shading turtle nests that could mitigate the impact of hot, dry beach conditions on hatching success.
###
Link to this Nature Climate Change study: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE1582
Link to recent news release about a related study by this research team in PLoS ONE: http://www.drexel.edu/now/news-media/releases/archive/2012/May/El-Nino-Climate-Change-Threaten-Leatherback-Sea-Turtles/
Dr. James Spotila recently joined the faculty of Drexel University's new Department of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science (BEES), formed as a result of the University's unique affiliation with the Academy of Natural Sciences, the oldest natural history museum in the U.S. and a world leader in biodiversity and environmental research. Spotila is the author of the books Sea Turtles: A Complete Guide to Their Biology, Behavior, and Conservation (2004) and Saving Sea Turtles: Extraordinary Stories from the Battle Against Extinction (2011).
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Oscar-winning composer AR Rahman, who is reuniting with Danny Boyle for London Olympics, will celebrate Indian influence inUKby including Punjabi track in the opening ceremony.
The 46-year-old has teamed up with Boyle, the artistic director of the games, for the gala ceremony.
? Clarifying the report on the Olympics track I am composing. It?s a track in Punjabi celebrating the Indian influence in the UK. ?It?s a part of a medley in the Olympics opening ceremony, according to Danny Boyle?s creative wishes!,? Rahman wrote on facebook page.
? It is the third collaboration between the Oscar-winning director and the Indian composer after the success of ?Slumdog Millionaire? and ?127 Hours?. This will be a glad news for Rahmaniacs who have been waiting for this.?The 2012 London Olympics will be held from July 27 to August 12.
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By Associated PressPublished: Jun 28, 2012 at 2:20 PM PDTLast Updated: Jun 28, 2012 at 2:20 PM PDTSAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Google's Chrome browser can now be used to surf the Web on the iPhone and iPad.
The Chrome application released Thursday is the latest volley in the escalating rivalry between Google and Apple, the maker of the popular mobile devices.
Google's attempt to supplant Apple Inc.'s own Safari browser comes a day after it unveiled its plans to sell a low-priced tablet computer to compete against the iPad and Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle Fire.
The arrival of Chrome on Apple's mobile operating system comes a month after Yahoo Inc. released a browser called Axis for the iPhone and iPad.
Chrome, though, is already dueling with Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer for the bragging rights as the world's most popular browser.
Google Inc. revealed Thursday that Chrome now has 310 million active users.
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Public release date: 1-Jul-2012
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