Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/un/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120305/wl_nm/us_syria_un
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Tuesday, March 6, 2012
U.N. humanitarian chief says to visit Syria this week (Reuters)
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Reuters - U.N. humanitarian affairs chief Valerie Amos said on Monday that the Syrian government had agreed to allow her to visit later this week, an announcement that followed sharp international criticism of Damascus for not allowing her into Syria.
Will a genetic mutation cause trouble? Ask Spliceman
ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2012) ? New, free Web-based software described in the journal Bioinformatics analyzes DNA sequences to determine if mutations are likely to cause errors in splicing of messenger RNA. When gene splicing goes awry, a wide variety of diseases can result.
In a brief paper in the journal Bioinformatics, Brown University researchers describe a new, freely available Web-based program called Spliceman for predicting whether genetic mutations are likely to disrupt the splicing of messenger RNA, potentially leading to disease.
"Spliceman takes a set of DNA sequences with point mutations and computes how likely these single nucleotide variants alter splicing phenotypes," write co-authors Kian Huat Lim, a graduate student, and William Fairbrother, assistant professor of biology, in an "application note" published in advance online Feb. 10. It will appear in print in April.
Spliceman can be found at fairbrother.biomed.brown.edu/spliceman.
The software is based on research published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in which Fairbrother's group used Spliceman to show that perhaps as many as a third of the disease-causing mutations in the Human Genome Mutation Database do so by causing errant gene splicing.
Splicing of RNA, based on instructions in DNA, is like a film editing process. A gene includes raw footage and instructions on how it should be edited to produce a protein. If the editing instructions are faulty, the scenes extracted from the raw footage may be spliced together in the wrong order or the wrong scenes might be used.
Each of a person's 20,000 genes has about 20 splice sites. Sequences that regulate splicing often occur close to splice sites, and every possible "word" of DNA letters (e.g. AAA) has a signature distribution around the splice sites. But a mutation creates a new word. For example, an A-to-T mutation could change "AAA" to "ATA." In a normal genome, if AAA encodes proper splicing, its average distance to the nearest splice site will be short and if ATA doesn't encode proper splicing its distance would be longer. A mutation that changes a word close to splicing sites into one that is typically found far from splicing sites would be of particular concern because it could have a likely adverse effect on splicing.
"The bigger the distance, the more likely that it affects splicing," Lim said.
Spliceman makes its predictions about mutations by calculating that distance. It has successfully predicted the known effect of many mutations.
The software has genomic information about 11 species: humans, chimpanzees, rhesus monkeys, mice, rats, dogs, cats, chickens, guinea pigs, frogs, and zebra fish.
Fairbrother said he has already heard from colleagues and medical researchers who have been eager to integrate Spliceman into their efforts.
"I think it will mostly be used by medical geneticists seeking to understand the cause of disease," he said.
One use of the software, Fairbrother said, will be by a Harvard-based multidisciplinary team led by genetics researcher Shamil Sunyaev in this year's Children's Hospital Boston CLARITY challenge.
In the contest, competitors must discover the unknown genetic basis of rare disorders faced by three pediatric patients. Armed with the entire genome sequence of the patients and their parents, Spliceman will be used to interrogate discovered mutations and variants for their ability to disrupt splicing.
The National Institutes of Health has funded Fairbrother's research.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Brown University.
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Journal References:
- K. H. Lim, L. Ferraris, M. E. Filloux, B. J. Raphael, W. G. Fairbrother. Using positional distribution to identify splicing elements and predict pre-mRNA processing defects in human genes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011; 108 (27): 11093 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1101135108
- K. H. Lim, W. Fairbrother. Spliceman - A computational web server that predicts sequence variations in pre-mRNA splicing. Bioinformatics, 2012; DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/bts074
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120305132440.htm
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Monday, March 5, 2012
Conflicting accounts over Afghan Quran burnings
FILE - In this Feb. 24, 2012 file photo, Afghans burn an effigy representing U.S. President Barack Obama during an anti-U.S. protest in Ghani Khail, east of Kabul, Afghanistan over the burning of Qurans at a U.S. military base. Two U.S. troops were gunned down by an Afghan soldier and his accomplice Thursday, March 1, 2012, the latest of six American service members killed by their Afghan partners since the burning of Muslim holy books last week sent anti-Americanism soaring in a nation that has long distrusted foreigners. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 24, 2012 file photo, Afghans burn an effigy representing U.S. President Barack Obama during an anti-U.S. protest in Ghani Khail, east of Kabul, Afghanistan over the burning of Qurans at a U.S. military base. Two U.S. troops were gunned down by an Afghan soldier and his accomplice Thursday, March 1, 2012, the latest of six American service members killed by their Afghan partners since the burning of Muslim holy books last week sent anti-Americanism soaring in a nation that has long distrusted foreigners. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 24, 2012 file photo, Afghans shout anti-American slogans during an anti-U.S. protest in Ghani Khail, east of Kabul, Afghanistan over the burning of Qurans at a U.S. military base. Two U.S. troops were gunned down by an Afghan soldier and his accomplice Thursday, March 1, 2012, the latest of six American service members killed by their Afghan partners since the burning of Muslim holy books last week sent anti-Americanism soaring in a nation that has long distrusted foreigners. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? An investigation into the burning of Muslim holy books at a U.S. military base has found it was a mistake involving at least five Americans who may face a disciplinary review, a Western official said Saturday, but Afghan investigators claimed it was an intentional desecration.
The conflicting accounts highlight rising tensions between the two countries despite apologies by President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials following the Feb. 20 discovery of charred Qurans and other religious literature in a burn pit at Bagram air base, north of Kabul.
Anger over the burnings already has led the deaths of more than 30 Afghans during violent protests as well as six U.S. soldiers who were shot and killed by ROGUE Afghan security forces.
A Western official told The Associated Press that preliminary findings from a joint investigation by senior Afghan and U.S. military officials that was ordered by Marine Gen. John Allen has convinced them that although mistakes were made, there was no intent to desecrate the Qurans or other material.
The official, who has knowledge of the investigation but spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said it could lead to a disciplinary review of at least five U.S. military personnel involved. The official did not elaborate, and it was unclear what such a review could recommend.
The controversy began when Qurans and other Islamic texts were removed from the library at the Parwan Detention Facility, then taken to the burn pit at the adjoining Bagram Air Field.
The Western official confirmed earlier reports that extremist inscriptions were found inside the texts, including notations apparently scribbled by detainees exchanging messages. He said that after the writings were discovered, two Afghan-American interpreters were assigned to go through the library materials, and 1,652 items were removed and placed in boxes.
A decision was made to dispose of the material because of a lack of storage space and the notes inside, but a group of three soldiers on a garbage detail removed the books before that could be done properly, the official said. He said the soldiers had no idea what they were throwing into the burn pit and insisted none of the material was destroyed before it was removed by Afghan workers.
However, Maulvi Khaliq Dad, a top Afghan religious leader who was on a different panel appointed by President Hamid Karzai to investigate the incident, claimed the burning was intentional.
Dad said U.S. officials informed Afghan authorities about their suspicions that notes inside the books were being used as a way for detainees to communicate with comrades outside the prison. The Americans believed that a bookseller, who had a contract to take care of the library, was acting as a mediator and told him not to show up for work on the day that two translators were scouring the materials.
The translators later told the Afghan delegation that U.S. officials had told them that the books pulled from the shelves were headed for storage.
According to Dad's account, the books were kept in a place where refuse is picked up and taken to a garbage burn pit on the base. Afghan workers at the base noticed that they were religious books and notified an Afghan army commander who questioned U.S. troops about the books and was satisfied when he was told they would be stored somewhere safe.
But the Afghan workers later noticed the books had been set on fire. The workers and two Afghan officers rescued 216 books, including 48 Qurans, from being burned, Dad said. They were shouting and pulling the books from the burn pit, preventing the U.S. troops from throwing the remaining four cartons of books into the fire, he said.
"They lied to the Afghan workers and the Afghan National Army officers, telling them they were going to store the books in a container, then they went and burned the books. If it was not intentional, they would not have lied," Dad said.
Dad also claimed the investigation had shown that some detainees had written their names, their father's names, their inmate identification numbers and the date they were detained in some of the books that were not destroyed. Some of the books written in Arabic also had definitions of Arabic words scribbled in Dari or Pashto, the two Afghan languages.
"I didn't see anything that suggested that messages were being exchanged between prisoners or with outsiders," he said.
Full details of the incident are expected to be included in the joint Afghan-U.S. probe that is being reviewed by a coalition legal expert. A date for its release has not been set. A more formal U.S. military investigation is still weeks away from completion.
The Quran burnings have brought relations between the U.S.-led military coalition and the Afghan government to an all-time low and spurred the most serious wave of anti-American and foreign sentiment across the country during the 10-year war.
Karzai's office said Saturday it had only seen the report drafted by the religious leaders and had not yet been given the joint report, so could not comment on it although the president has demanded that those involved be put on trial and punished.
"We are waiting for the result of the investigation by NATO, which will probably show who is involved in this and how many people are involved. After studying it we will announce our stance," said presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi. "What the Afghan president has requested from U.S. officials and the U.S. military is a trial and punishment."
Any action taken against American troops involved would have to come under the U.S. military justice system, officials with the international coalition have said.
Still, Karzai is likely to capitalize on the incident and use it as leverage in his government's talks over a strategic partnership document that Washington and Kabul are negotiating ahead of a planned withdrawal of most foreign combat troops by the end of 2014. As part of the negotiations, Karzai wants the U.S. to hand over prisons and stop unpopular night raids against the homes of suspect Taliban commanders and fighters.
___
Associated Press Writer Rahim Faiez and Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.
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Sunday, March 4, 2012
Unnecessary cancer treatment in men on the rise (Reuters)
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Reuters - Men with low-risk tumors and a life-expectancy of less than 10 years -- for instance, men in their 80s or 90s -- are not candidates for so-called curative therapies like radiation or prostate surgery because there's little evidence it would benefit them.
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Video: Continental Airlines? final flight
The last flight will mark the completion of the takeover of Continental by United. NBC?s Brian Williams reports.
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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46609313/
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Saturday, March 3, 2012
Nutritious Foods For Vegetarian Food Eaters | Online Marketing ...
There is a lot of delicious vegetarian food dishes available for everyone. They include useful snacks, desserts and which is more important they exclude meat dishes. Start your day with healthy and tasty breakfast that will provide your body with necessary satisfying elements and will make you energetic for the rest of the day. A green omelet is not only tasty, but it is an excellent option for vegetarians. So, begin assembling different colorful vegetables to be added to your omelet. The wider variety of colors you will manage to gather, the more nutritional components you will get, because colorful vegetables include a large amount of antioxidants and useful elements.
You can add mushrooms, pepper (red, yellow, green), cherry-tomatoes and spinach. Cut the vegetables and add some eggs in a bowl. Fry vegetables on sunflower oil.
Vegetarian snacks are easy to be cooked. You can munch nuts, fruits, chips, cheese, granola bars and put some salsa to your meals. For dinner you can cook something fresh that will not take lots of time for preparing. Some delicious options will involve carrot sticks, cucumber slices, sprouts and other greens. Vegetarians who eat cheese can also add feta cheese to pita.
A vegetarian dinner can be as easy as any other meal. You can use surplus vegetables which you have used for preparing dinner, cut them and fry on sunflower oil. In a pot, cook brown rice or other whole grain meals that you prefer. When the vegetables have been stewed, add tofu and crisp everything in the pan. You can cook special sauce. Blend lime juice, chili bits, jinjili oil and vinegar. Assemble vegetables, rice and spice up everything with sauce. If you want some desert, roast pear and add some pecans.
2. Fibre and Protein
Clean pistachios, almonds and walnuts. They have vital components that are very useful for your health. Fibre and protein contained in them will aid to fight heart-related problems.
In comparison to salted peanuts, they do not include cholesterol and soused fats. They can be served as cereal meals with milk.
3. Magnesium and Calcium Components
Green vegetables such as spinach and broccoli are excellent sources of magnesium and calcium components that help to avoid heart attacks.
Vegetarian meal recipes help healthy digestion and supply your body with energy. If you eat meat-free meals, you will avoid feeling sluggish and frowsy. By avoiding that feeling of exhaustion, you can drink less coffee and other energy increasing drinks.
Benefits For Your Health That You Can Reap From Vegetarian Foods
Different studies have proved that a diet which excludes meat decrease risk of getting various health related diseases. Consumption of meat has been proved to become a reason for cancer.
Regular consumption of vegetables, on the other hand, decreases risk for developing such diseases as hypertension, cancer, and osteoporosis. Vegetarian diet supplies your body with essential nutrients such as fiber, carbs, minerals and vitamins, antioxidants.
If you are a vegetarian, then you know how difficult it is sometimes to get vegetarian food. Though, the Internet offers lots of healthy vegetarian food recipes but, and this is very comfortable, one can make use of such an option as vegetarian food online.
Source: http://www.marketnana.com/2012/03/02/nutritious-foods-for-vegetarian-food-eaters/
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Baobab Anti-Aging Epidermis Care Important Fatty Acids As Well As ...
The actual mighty Baobab, The African Forest of Lifestyle, provides people with many health and fitness, utility and spiritual solutions. The nutrient-rich fruit pulp and seed oil involve some amazing anti-aging properties for the skin.
Baobab Fresh fruit Pulp is really rich in Vitamin C, a robust antioxidant. Supplement C antioxidant is one of the few skin antioxidants that is enhanced when used topically along with internally. Research implies that vitamin C may stimulate the production of collagen and elastin, while reducing the looks of creases, great lines, and even scars. The particular dual-action associated with internal and external supplement C may help optimize the benefits and quicken their own visibility. (antioxidantskincare. org)
Additionally, the fiber content throughout Baobab Fresh fruit Pulp acts as a thickening realtor. Adding just a little water will produce a poultice that?s a perfect face mask!
Baobab Seedling Oil is cold pressed and is rich in Vitamins Any, G, as well as E, along with Omega a few, {6} & 9 Efa?s (Nutritional F). Let?s consider the acne treatment reviews benefits of these chemical substances.
Vitamins A: The particular vitamin required for healthy skin. Vitamins A applied right to your skin has been used to treat acne and skin wrinkling and mottled pigmentation caused by chronic sun exposure. Topical cream Vitamin A has been suggested to help build collagen fabric within the dermis as well as its much more superficial exfoliating property. This is actually the basis for the use within minimizing the appearance of good wrinkle collections. (Skin and Allergy Media)
Supplement D: Among the Vitamin G benefits would be to become a robust antioxidant. Nutritional D can may play a role in preventing the premature aging of skin and injury to your skin structure. Supplement D is stated in the skin because of sun direct exposure, which could have other deleterious consequences, causing many individuals to obtain too little sun to produce adequate Vitamin Deb. Topically applied Vitamin D could be absorbed by the skin and may help dietary supplement deficiency. (healthy-skincare. com)
Vitamin e: Vitamin e antioxidant is definitely an antioxidant. It can help prevent totally free radical harm. In line with the observation that skin damage brought on by sunlight and other environmental real estate agents are caused by free radicals, vitamin e antioxidant might be effective in preventing skin damage. It really is getting used in more and more skin preparations in an effort to fight this harm. (healthy-skincare. com)
Omega a few, {6}, & 9 Fatty acids (EFAs): EFAs are generally natural transmission enhancers because of the fluidizing impact on cell membranes. The combination of their particular physiological activities with their capability to increase transportation of bioactive agents through the skin creates a synergistic effect with other nutrients such as the aforementioned Vitamin supplements. Via these advantageous skin impact on on epidermis barrier function and penetration, EFAs help to improve the structure, function and appearance of aged skin and therefore are extremely of use in anti-aging recipes. (naturopathica. com).
Baobab Face Mask: Atacora Essential is building its SAVANNAH acne treatment reviews ? FACE MASK to maximize the acne treatment reviews benefits of Baobab. The simple mix of Baobab Fresh fruit Pulp, Baobab Seeds Oil and special clay-based will promote healthier, more youthful looking skin area!
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Thursday, March 1, 2012
Study shows earthworms to blame for decline of ovenbirds in northern Midwest forests
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Public release date: 29-Feb-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Lindsay Renick Mayer
202-633-3081
Smithsonian
A recent decline in ovenbirds (Seiurus aurocapilla), a ground-nesting migratory songbird, in forests in the northern Midwest United States is being linked by scientists to a seemingly unlikely culprit: earthworms.
A new survey conducted in Minnesota's Chippewa National Forest and Wisconsin's Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest by a research team led by Scott Loss of the University of Minnesota and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has revealed a direct link between the presence of invasive European earthworms (Lumbricus spp.) and reduced numbers of ovenbirds in mixed sugar maple and basswood forests.
The results are detailed in a paper published online in the scientific journal, Landscape Ecology.
European earthworms are invading previously earthworm-free hardwood forests in North America the scientists say, and consuming the rich layer of leaf litter on the forest floor. In turn, herbaceous plants that thrive in thick leaf litter and provide cover for ground-nesting birds are thinning out, replaced by grasses and sedges.
As a result, ovenbird nests are more visible and vulnerable to predators and ovenbirds searching for nesting sites reject these low-cover areas outright. Areas of reduced leaf litter also contain fewer bugs for the ovenbirds to eat, requiring them to establish larger territories, resulting in fewer birds over a given area.
The worms invading northern Midwestern forests (and forests in the northeastern U.S. and Canada) have been in the U.S. since soon after the first European settlers arrived. Loss explains the worms were brought over inadvertently in the ballast of ships, in the root balls of agricultural plants or on purpose for use in gardening. Only now is the leading edge of their continued invasion, caused mainly by logging activities and fishermen dumping their bait, reaching interior wilderness areas such as parts of the study site in the remote forests of Wisconsin and Minnesota.
"Night crawlers [Lumbricus terrestris] and the slightly smaller red worms [also called leaf worms or beaver tails, Lumbricus rubellus], have the most damaging impacts to the soil, litter layer, and plants in forests that were historically earthworm-free," Loss says.
"Everyone has probably heard at one time or another that earthworms have really positive effects in breaking down soil and making it more porous," Loss explains. "This is true in agricultural and garden settings but not in forests in the Midwest which have developed decomposition systems without earth worms."
Because the forested areas of the Midwest U.S. were once covered in glaciers, there are no native earthworm species present in the soil. "These earthworm-free forests developed a slow fungus-based decomposition process characterized by a deep organic litter layer on the forest floor," Loss says.
Earthworms feed on this layer of leaf litter and make it decompose much faster, Loss explains. "As a result, we see the loss of sensitive forest-floor species such as trillium, Solomons seal, sarsaparilla and sugar maple seedlings and a shift in dominance to disturbance-adapted species like Pennsylvania sedge."
One result is reduced nest concealment for the ovenbird and increased predation by squirrel and bird predators.
The researchers found no decline in three other species of ground-nesting birds included in their surveythe hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus), black-and-white warbler (Mniotilta varia) and veery (Catharus fuscescens)nor did they find a correlation between ovenbird decline and invasive worms in other forest types, such as red oak, paper birch and aspen.
"Our results suggest that ovenbird density may decline by as much as 25 percent in maple-basswood forests heavily invaded by invasive earthworms," the researchers conclude. "Maple-basswood forests are among the preferred ovenbird habitats in the region, comprise a considerable portion of the region's woodlandsand are experiencing Lumbricus invasions across most of the northern Midwest."
Previous studies have demonstrated that invasive earthworms also are harmful to other native North American species, such as salamanders.
There is reason for concern that the overall population of ovenbirds could decline, Loss points out. "Ovenbirds migrate to Central America and the Caribbean and back every yea --a trip during which they can fly into buildings and towers or get nabbed by a cat as they rest on the ground--and they also face loss of habitat on their breeding and wintering grounds. Now, here is yet another potential threat to their survival."
###
The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center is dedicated to fostering greater understanding, appreciation, and protection of the grand phenomenon of bird migration. Founded in 1991, it is located at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C.
"Invasions of non-native earthworms related to population declines of ground-nesting songbirds across a regional extent in northern hardwood forests of North America" is co-authored by Scott R. Loss, Gerald J. Niemi and Robert B. Blair of the University of Minnesota.
[ | 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.
Public release date: 29-Feb-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Lindsay Renick Mayer
202-633-3081
Smithsonian
A recent decline in ovenbirds (Seiurus aurocapilla), a ground-nesting migratory songbird, in forests in the northern Midwest United States is being linked by scientists to a seemingly unlikely culprit: earthworms.
A new survey conducted in Minnesota's Chippewa National Forest and Wisconsin's Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest by a research team led by Scott Loss of the University of Minnesota and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has revealed a direct link between the presence of invasive European earthworms (Lumbricus spp.) and reduced numbers of ovenbirds in mixed sugar maple and basswood forests.
The results are detailed in a paper published online in the scientific journal, Landscape Ecology.
European earthworms are invading previously earthworm-free hardwood forests in North America the scientists say, and consuming the rich layer of leaf litter on the forest floor. In turn, herbaceous plants that thrive in thick leaf litter and provide cover for ground-nesting birds are thinning out, replaced by grasses and sedges.
As a result, ovenbird nests are more visible and vulnerable to predators and ovenbirds searching for nesting sites reject these low-cover areas outright. Areas of reduced leaf litter also contain fewer bugs for the ovenbirds to eat, requiring them to establish larger territories, resulting in fewer birds over a given area.
The worms invading northern Midwestern forests (and forests in the northeastern U.S. and Canada) have been in the U.S. since soon after the first European settlers arrived. Loss explains the worms were brought over inadvertently in the ballast of ships, in the root balls of agricultural plants or on purpose for use in gardening. Only now is the leading edge of their continued invasion, caused mainly by logging activities and fishermen dumping their bait, reaching interior wilderness areas such as parts of the study site in the remote forests of Wisconsin and Minnesota.
"Night crawlers [Lumbricus terrestris] and the slightly smaller red worms [also called leaf worms or beaver tails, Lumbricus rubellus], have the most damaging impacts to the soil, litter layer, and plants in forests that were historically earthworm-free," Loss says.
"Everyone has probably heard at one time or another that earthworms have really positive effects in breaking down soil and making it more porous," Loss explains. "This is true in agricultural and garden settings but not in forests in the Midwest which have developed decomposition systems without earth worms."
Because the forested areas of the Midwest U.S. were once covered in glaciers, there are no native earthworm species present in the soil. "These earthworm-free forests developed a slow fungus-based decomposition process characterized by a deep organic litter layer on the forest floor," Loss says.
Earthworms feed on this layer of leaf litter and make it decompose much faster, Loss explains. "As a result, we see the loss of sensitive forest-floor species such as trillium, Solomons seal, sarsaparilla and sugar maple seedlings and a shift in dominance to disturbance-adapted species like Pennsylvania sedge."
One result is reduced nest concealment for the ovenbird and increased predation by squirrel and bird predators.
The researchers found no decline in three other species of ground-nesting birds included in their surveythe hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus), black-and-white warbler (Mniotilta varia) and veery (Catharus fuscescens)nor did they find a correlation between ovenbird decline and invasive worms in other forest types, such as red oak, paper birch and aspen.
"Our results suggest that ovenbird density may decline by as much as 25 percent in maple-basswood forests heavily invaded by invasive earthworms," the researchers conclude. "Maple-basswood forests are among the preferred ovenbird habitats in the region, comprise a considerable portion of the region's woodlandsand are experiencing Lumbricus invasions across most of the northern Midwest."
Previous studies have demonstrated that invasive earthworms also are harmful to other native North American species, such as salamanders.
There is reason for concern that the overall population of ovenbirds could decline, Loss points out. "Ovenbirds migrate to Central America and the Caribbean and back every yea --a trip during which they can fly into buildings and towers or get nabbed by a cat as they rest on the ground--and they also face loss of habitat on their breeding and wintering grounds. Now, here is yet another potential threat to their survival."
###
The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center is dedicated to fostering greater understanding, appreciation, and protection of the grand phenomenon of bird migration. Founded in 1991, it is located at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C.
"Invasions of non-native earthworms related to population declines of ground-nesting songbirds across a regional extent in northern hardwood forests of North America" is co-authored by Scott R. Loss, Gerald J. Niemi and Robert B. Blair of the University of Minnesota.
[ | 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.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/s-sse022912.php
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Polyamory, Fidelity and Faithfulness By Jimmy Holloway ...
There are countless ways to break someone?s heart, and not all of them involve sleeping someone else. I am not going to argue that sexual infidelity is not hurtful, or even that it shouldn?t be. What I am going to say, however, is that it isn?t the act of sex itself which is hurtful, but the betrayal of trust. For me, and for both of my partners, sexual infidelity would not simply involve having sex with somebody from outside the relationship, it would have to involve doing so despite us having agreed that it should not happen, doing so despite having promised not to, or doing so and then lying about it. What we demand of one another, in terms of faithfulness, is honesty, consideration and respect. We do not ask for exclusivity, but we still need something which we call fidelity, and this is something I shall return to later.
As I have implied, I am polyamorous. I live as part of a triad, a group of three people, each of whom is in a relationship with both of the others. It is far from the most common type of poly relationship, and it is not the easiest to get right. The starting conditions are unusual, and the modes of communication necessary to keep them stable and healthy are difficult to maintain. A lot of our friends, concerned for our welfare, have shared horror stories about triads which have gone terribly wrong, and each of us has personal experience of them having done so.
If you want a polyamorous relationship to remain healthy for any length of time at all, you need to spend a lot of time and effort on communication. Don?t get me wrong, monogamous relationships need communication just as badly if they are to stay healthy, but they have more which can be taken as read. If you are starting a new attachment in a polyamorous situation, then there are a thousand things that you simply have to talk about if you aren?t going to be doomed to pissing each other off forever; how do you want to deal with each others? partners, how much (or little) time do you want to spend together, are there any restrictions or requests you want to place on one another regarding new sexual or romantic engagements? While ?regular? relationships have variable factors too, such as whether you get to dance with other people, or how often you talk, there are many fewer possible variations to cover. For any polyamorous relationship which is being undertaken, as my folks would call it, ?properly?, one of the first things you do together as a couple is going to be an in-depth negotiation session, or at least a detailed discussion about why you don?t need or want one. For a very clear and well-written (and very nearly SFW) discussion of the advantages and drawbacks of each, I recommend you read GirlOnTheNet?s post on the subject. The only other place I know where this kind of communication is as vital is the BDSM subculture. Again, it?s a situation in which you cannot take for granted that your partner is going to be playing the same game that you are, by the same rules, and as such you have to talk things over exhaustively beforehand. If you are having ?standard-issue? sex with somebody, you can be confident that you?ll have a fairly good idea about what your partner will want, and how much of it they are likely to enjoy, at least within a certain margin of error. The further things get from ?normal?, the less sure you can be of what your playmate wants from you, and that they know what you want. In sex, just as much as in love, if you are not following ?a set of rules that is universally known, then you need to make damn sure that you know you are all following the same set of rules, or somebody is going to get badly hurt.
This kind of communication can be terrifying, and it can be hurtful, but it?s no less important, and no less right, for that. There are certain things, including but not limited to nightmares, neuroses, and sexual fantasies, which you will not feel comfortable sharing unless you trust your partner very deeply, and this is where we get back to the idea of fidelity being the act of honoring trust. Every piece of personal information that is shared within a couple is reciprocated with a promise that the knowledge will not be misused. The better you know somebody, the more you are able to hurt them, and the more important it is that you restrain yourself from doing so. By telling somebody your deepest fears, you are also telling them that you trust them not to cause you pain by playing upon them. By telling somebody your needs, you are telling them that you trust them not to cause you pain by denying them. If we are to talk in terms of remaining faithful to promises made, every single act of sharing results in another promise which you need to remain faithful to. ?Needless to say, it is important to keep the balance of trust in a relationship roughly equal to prevent the balance of power from becoming skewed. In other words, if one of you keeps sharing and the other does not, things are going to get uncomfortable pretty fast.
Exclusivity is something that a lot of people need from their partners and , for those people, sleeping with other people will constitute infidelity. In that case, claiming that you didn?t know exclusivity was required is usually deceitful, because beyond a certain stage of intimacy it is usual, but you cannot expect somebody to respect more complex or less usual desires unless you have expressed them. The more honest you are with your lover about what you want from them, the more opportunities they will have to hurt you, but the more faithful to you it is possible for them to be. How openly you communicate within your relationship, and how vulnerable you wish to be to your partner, are every bit as much a personal preference as the type of sex you enjoy or the level of exclusivity you desire. There is certainly no correct way of doing these things, but the more similar your desires are to one another?s, the less work it will be to get along, and the easier it will be to make each other happy. It is just as possible to remain faithful to your spouse while sleeping with somebody else as it is to deceive them while remaining sexually exclusive.
?Photo?Martin Beek/Flickr
Source: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/polyamory-fidelity-and-faithfulness/
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