TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma
FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011, AT 3:07 PM Obama Gets Firsthand Look at a Tornado Damage
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
The Academy said Tuesday that 19 films have been submitted for consideration in the animated feature film category for the 86th Academy Awards.
The movies are (in alphabetical order):
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 The Croods Despicable Me 2 Epic Ernest and Celestine The Fake Free Birds Frozen Khumba The Legend of Sarila A Letter to Momo Monsters University O Apóstolo Planes Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie – Rebellion Rio: 2096 A Story of Love and Fury The Smurfs 2 Turbo The Wind Rises
If at least 16 of the 19 films fulfill all the requirements to qualify, then the Academy will nominate five films in the animated feature category.
The 86th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2014, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Mutual benefits: Stressed-out trees boost sugary rewards to ant defenders
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
5-Nov-2013
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Contact: PLOS Biology biologypress@plos.org Public Library of Science
When water is scarce, Ecuador laurel trees (Cordia alliodora) ramp up their investment in a syrupy treat known as honeydew imbibed by ants (Azteca pittieri) that nest in the laurels' stem cavities. Honeydew is not produced directly by the trees, but by tiny, sap-sucking bugs called scale insects. The higher availability of honeydew when conditions are dry sends resident ant defenders into overdrive, boosting their numbers, and the ants protect the trees more vigorously from defoliation by leaf-munching pests.
The mutually beneficial interaction between laurels and ants in the tropical forest is a well-known example of what ecologists call a mutualism. Theoretical studies predict that mutualisms should be stronger under resource-poor conditions, but until now there was little evidence to support that theory.
In a paper published 5 November in the open access journal PLOS Biology, University of Michigan ecologist Elizabeth G. Pringle and her colleagues identify a clear-cut case of a stress-strengthened ant-tree mutualism and suggest a possible mechanism underlying it, one based on interspecies carbon exchange. Their results suggest that trees at drier sites buy 'insurance' for their leaves, in the form of beefed-up ant protection, and 'pay' for it with carbon.
All plant-animal mutualisms may employ a similar "insurance model," according to Pringle, a postdoctoral fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows and an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the School of Natural Resources and Environment. In addition, Pringle suggests that the type of water-mediated stress response observed in the study may be more common in the future, if droughts become more severe with climate change.
"We show that trees and their defensive ants invest more in one another in drier, more stressful conditions," says Pringle. "We saw this happening along the coastline from Mexico to Costa Rica, and then we realized that carbon exchange can explain it."
To test whether water limitation strengthens the defensive mutualism between Ecuador laurel trees and Azteca ants, Pringle and her colleagues studied the interaction at 26 sites in seasonally dry tropical forests along the Pacific coast of southern Mexico and Central America. The coastal sites span 1,426 miles, with annual precipitation increasing fourfold from the northernmost to the southernmost site. The findings reported in PLOS Biology are based on observations as well as field experiments, physiological data and an evolutionary model.
Ecuador laurels are deciduous, shedding their leaves during the dry season and growing new ones each rainy season. Pringle and her colleagues found that the strength of the tree-ant mutualism as measured by investment of trees in sugar for ants and defense of leaves by ants was greater at sites with longer dry seasons.
Laurel trees don't feed ants sugar directly. Instead, they host scale insects, familiar to gardeners as common backyard pests, which produce the honeydew. Scale insects are the middlemen in this protection racket: through the scale insects, the trees indirectly pay a carbon fee, in the form of sugar-rich sap that is distilled into honeydew, to the ants in exchange for guard duty.
"When ants patrolling the surface of the tree encounter a leaf-eating insect, they bite the insect until it falls from the tree," Pringle said. "We found that at the drier sites, the larger ant colonies were more likely to find such intruders, and the colonies sent more ants to attack the leaf-eaters and chase them away."
The fact that laurel trees at drier sites pay their ant protectors higher "wages" suggests that the potential costs of defoliation outweighs the relatively modest price of supporting more ants. Pringle and her colleagues used a mathematical model to test this idea, looking at the relative costs and benefits of carbon trading between trees and ants under rainy seasons of varying durations.
Their insurance model, in which ants protect trees from rare but life-threatening defoliation events, best fit observations from the 26 sites. Like farmers buying crop insurance, the trees at drier sites appear to be hedging their bets: they pay a modest fee up front to avoid losing all their leaves to pests in the future.
"Water limitation, together with the risk of herbivory, increases the strength of a carbon-based mutualism," the authors conclude.
The insurance model suggests that infrequent but potentially lethal insect attacks may drive the evolution of tree-ant mutualistic strategies under different precipitation regimes. The observed differences between dry and wet sites may therefore reflect genetic adaptations to local conditions, the researchers suggest.
"It's important that the key environmental factor in this system is rainfall, which is likely to change dramatically over the coming years with climate change," said Pringle.
"As the climate changes, the increased frequency of extreme weather events, such as drought, may act together with rare biological events, such as outbreaks of insect pests, to profoundly alter the ecology and evolution of plant-animal interactions."
###
Funding: This work was supported by the Santa Fe Institute, the Stanford Field Studies Program, a grant from the Vice Provost of Graduate Education at Stanford University to EGP, a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to EGP, a Hubert Shaw and Sandra Lui Stanford Graduate Fellowship to EGP, a Michigan Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Fellowship to EGP, a NIMBioS postdoctoral fellowship funded by US National Science Foundation award EF-0832858 to EA and US National Science Foundation grant DEB-0918848 to DMG and RD. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Pringle EG, Akcay E, Raab TK, Dirzo R, Gordon DM (2013) Water Stress Strengthens Mutualism Among Ants, Trees, and Scale Insects. PLoS Biol 11(11):e1001705. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001705
PLEASE ADD THE LINK TO THE PUBLISHED ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001705
CONTACT:
Jim Erickson
U-Michigan News Service
(734) 647-1842
ericksn@umich.edu
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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.
Mutual benefits: Stressed-out trees boost sugary rewards to ant defenders
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
5-Nov-2013
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| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: PLOS Biology biologypress@plos.org Public Library of Science
When water is scarce, Ecuador laurel trees (Cordia alliodora) ramp up their investment in a syrupy treat known as honeydew imbibed by ants (Azteca pittieri) that nest in the laurels' stem cavities. Honeydew is not produced directly by the trees, but by tiny, sap-sucking bugs called scale insects. The higher availability of honeydew when conditions are dry sends resident ant defenders into overdrive, boosting their numbers, and the ants protect the trees more vigorously from defoliation by leaf-munching pests.
The mutually beneficial interaction between laurels and ants in the tropical forest is a well-known example of what ecologists call a mutualism. Theoretical studies predict that mutualisms should be stronger under resource-poor conditions, but until now there was little evidence to support that theory.
In a paper published 5 November in the open access journal PLOS Biology, University of Michigan ecologist Elizabeth G. Pringle and her colleagues identify a clear-cut case of a stress-strengthened ant-tree mutualism and suggest a possible mechanism underlying it, one based on interspecies carbon exchange. Their results suggest that trees at drier sites buy 'insurance' for their leaves, in the form of beefed-up ant protection, and 'pay' for it with carbon.
All plant-animal mutualisms may employ a similar "insurance model," according to Pringle, a postdoctoral fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows and an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the School of Natural Resources and Environment. In addition, Pringle suggests that the type of water-mediated stress response observed in the study may be more common in the future, if droughts become more severe with climate change.
"We show that trees and their defensive ants invest more in one another in drier, more stressful conditions," says Pringle. "We saw this happening along the coastline from Mexico to Costa Rica, and then we realized that carbon exchange can explain it."
To test whether water limitation strengthens the defensive mutualism between Ecuador laurel trees and Azteca ants, Pringle and her colleagues studied the interaction at 26 sites in seasonally dry tropical forests along the Pacific coast of southern Mexico and Central America. The coastal sites span 1,426 miles, with annual precipitation increasing fourfold from the northernmost to the southernmost site. The findings reported in PLOS Biology are based on observations as well as field experiments, physiological data and an evolutionary model.
Ecuador laurels are deciduous, shedding their leaves during the dry season and growing new ones each rainy season. Pringle and her colleagues found that the strength of the tree-ant mutualism as measured by investment of trees in sugar for ants and defense of leaves by ants was greater at sites with longer dry seasons.
Laurel trees don't feed ants sugar directly. Instead, they host scale insects, familiar to gardeners as common backyard pests, which produce the honeydew. Scale insects are the middlemen in this protection racket: through the scale insects, the trees indirectly pay a carbon fee, in the form of sugar-rich sap that is distilled into honeydew, to the ants in exchange for guard duty.
"When ants patrolling the surface of the tree encounter a leaf-eating insect, they bite the insect until it falls from the tree," Pringle said. "We found that at the drier sites, the larger ant colonies were more likely to find such intruders, and the colonies sent more ants to attack the leaf-eaters and chase them away."
The fact that laurel trees at drier sites pay their ant protectors higher "wages" suggests that the potential costs of defoliation outweighs the relatively modest price of supporting more ants. Pringle and her colleagues used a mathematical model to test this idea, looking at the relative costs and benefits of carbon trading between trees and ants under rainy seasons of varying durations.
Their insurance model, in which ants protect trees from rare but life-threatening defoliation events, best fit observations from the 26 sites. Like farmers buying crop insurance, the trees at drier sites appear to be hedging their bets: they pay a modest fee up front to avoid losing all their leaves to pests in the future.
"Water limitation, together with the risk of herbivory, increases the strength of a carbon-based mutualism," the authors conclude.
The insurance model suggests that infrequent but potentially lethal insect attacks may drive the evolution of tree-ant mutualistic strategies under different precipitation regimes. The observed differences between dry and wet sites may therefore reflect genetic adaptations to local conditions, the researchers suggest.
"It's important that the key environmental factor in this system is rainfall, which is likely to change dramatically over the coming years with climate change," said Pringle.
"As the climate changes, the increased frequency of extreme weather events, such as drought, may act together with rare biological events, such as outbreaks of insect pests, to profoundly alter the ecology and evolution of plant-animal interactions."
###
Funding: This work was supported by the Santa Fe Institute, the Stanford Field Studies Program, a grant from the Vice Provost of Graduate Education at Stanford University to EGP, a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to EGP, a Hubert Shaw and Sandra Lui Stanford Graduate Fellowship to EGP, a Michigan Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Fellowship to EGP, a NIMBioS postdoctoral fellowship funded by US National Science Foundation award EF-0832858 to EA and US National Science Foundation grant DEB-0918848 to DMG and RD. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Pringle EG, Akcay E, Raab TK, Dirzo R, Gordon DM (2013) Water Stress Strengthens Mutualism Among Ants, Trees, and Scale Insects. PLoS Biol 11(11):e1001705. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001705
PLEASE ADD THE LINK TO THE PUBLISHED ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001705
CONTACT:
Jim Erickson
U-Michigan News Service
(734) 647-1842
ericksn@umich.edu
[
| 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.
Houston Texans head coach Gary Kubiak, center, his helped after he collapsed on the field during the second quarter of an NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2013, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Houston Texans head coach Gary Kubiak, center, his helped after he collapsed on the field during the second quarter of an NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2013, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Houston Texans head coach Gary Kubiak watches from the sidelines during the first quarter of an NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2013, in Houston. (AP Photo/Patric Schneider)
HOUSTON (AP) — Texans coach Gary Kubiak is out of the hospital after suffering what the team said was a mini-stroke, but there's no word on when he will resume coaching duties.
The team said the 52-year-old Kubiak suffered a transient ischemic attack at halftime of Sunday's loss to Indianapolis. He was released from the hospital on Tuesday and is expected to make a full recovery.
"I've been through an ordeal and my focus now is to get back to good health," Kubiak said in a statement released by the team. "Doctors have told me I will make a full recovery."
Kubiak collapsed on the field and was rushed to a hospital. The Texans blew an 18-point lead without him and the 27-24 setback was the team's sixth straight loss.
A transient ischemic attack, or TIA, occurs when blood flow to the brain is briefly interrupted, typically by a blood clot or narrowed blood vessels. TIAs are often called mini-strokes and can cause stroke-like symptoms including sudden dizziness, numbness, vision loss or unconsciousness, though symptoms last only a few minutes or a few hours and no permanent brain damage occurs. TIAs are often a warning sign for a future stroke.
"Someone who has a real TIA has a higher risk of stroke," said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a professor of neurology and the director of the Duke Stroke Center. "The highest risk is over the next in general 90 days or so. The highest risk is relatively soon afterward, over the first few days."
Goldstein said that patients who have a mini-stroke are evaluated to try to understand the cause and identify and treat any risk factors that might have led to it.
"By definition a TIA is transient so the symptoms go away in a few minutes, so from a physical standpoint there should be no long-lasting consequences," Goldstein said.
Former Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker had a mini-stroke in 2012. Baker, who was initially hospitalized for an irregular heartbeat, returned to manage the Reds less than two weeks after his mini-stroke.
Houston didn't identify an interim coach as it prepared for Sunday's game at Arizona. Defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, a former head coach for Dallas, took over after Kubiak was taken to the hospital and he ran Houston's practice on Monday. Offensive coordinator Rick Dennison likely will take over the play-calling duties if Kubiak isn't back by Sunday.
The Texans don't think things will change much with Dennison calling the plays.
"If he's not here, then (Dennison) can handle it," receiver Andre Johnson said.
Kubiak's health problems are the latest blow to a team already in disarray in an underperforming season filled with numerous injuries and the benching of quarterback Matt Schaub. The six-game skid is tied for the longest losing streak in Texans history.
Now the Texans will try to regroup and adjust to Kubiak's likely absence on Sunday.
"It's been frustrating, especially after the past two seasons and the expectations," Johnson said. "But if you don't go out and play the way you're supposed to play you're not going to win. And we didn't do that so that's why we haven't been winning ... somehow some way we've got to go out and fix the mistakes we've been making and try to win a game."
Players said they believe Houston's assistant coaches will prepare them well for Sunday's game with Kubiak out.
"I think we're in great hands with whoever has to step up," linebacker Joe Mays said. "You're in great hands because we have a great group of coaches."
Kubiak was the second NFL coach with a severe medical issue this past weekend. Denver Broncos coach John Fox underwent heart surgery in North Carolina on Monday after being hospitalized on Saturday. Fox felt dizzy last week and doctors recommended immediate aortic valve replacement surgery.
Kubiak was hired in 2006 and is working under a three-year contract that runs through 2014. An eighth-round pick out of Texas A&M, he spent nine years as John Elway's backup in Denver and has made his mark as an offensive guru and quarterbacks mentor.
___
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner contributed to this report from Chicago.
Taking care of her daily exercise, Eva Longoria fit in a morning run in Los Angeles on Tuesday (November 5).
The "Desperate Housewives" beauty rocked a pair of orange capris and matching bra as she jogged by her house in the Hollywood Hills.
As previously reported by GossipCenter, 38-year-old actress is rumored to have a new boyfriend.
While her rep states that she is actually not back together with her ex Eduardo Cruz, Eva might be driven into the arms of a wealthy and successful business man from Mexico.
Stay linked with GossipCenter for more details about Miss Longoria's relationship status!
CLEVELAND (AP) — The first of three women kidnapped and held for a decade in Ariel Castro's Cleveland home was chained and raped by her captor, who struck her with a barbell to force a miscarriage when she became pregnant and snapped her dog's neck after it tried to protect her and bit Castro, the woman said in a taped interview Tuesday on the "Dr. Phil" show.
Michelle Knight recounted graphic allegations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse and said Castro kept her in filthy conditions, sometimes naked and freezing, after she was kidnapped in 2002, when she was about 20.
Knight said Castro lured her inside with the promise of a puppy for her young son. She said she was kept in a basement and a boarded-up bedroom and once tried to escape, using a needle to pick a lock on chains that bound her. She said she made it to a window before Castro returned and punished her.
Knight said she sometimes fell asleep praying that her lock would open, and she feels she survived because of her son, now a teenager.
"I want my son to know me as a victor, not a victim," Knight told the TV host. "And I wanted him to know that I survived, loving him. His love got me through."
Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus escaped from Castro's house May 6 when Berry pushed out a door and called for help. Knight has been the most public since, including a visit to Castro's neighborhood before his house was demolished.
Castro, 53, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. A month into his sentence, he was found dead in his cell. His hanging death was ruled a suicide, but a prison report indicated he may have died accidentally while choking himself for a sexual thrill.
In the "Dr. Phil" interview, Knight said Castro had a sexual fetish about choking her but never himself.
Knight also raised previously reported allegations that Castro had held someone else and said he'd told her that there was another girl before her. Authorities have said no remains were found at the home.
The second part of Knight's interview airs Wednesday.
Berry and DeJesus plan to share their stories in a book about their ordeal.
The eighth week of Dancing with the Stars was brought to us by Cher. The iconic diva herself took Len Goodman's place at the judging table, performed twice, and regally looked on as each of the remaining couples danced to one of her songs. She looked gorgeous, if a little dazed, and spent much of the night accepting compliments from awed contestants.
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