ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

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• Parched West is using up underground water: Study points to grave implications for Western U.S. water supply
• Biologist warn of early stages of Earth's sixth mass extinction event
• Pesticide linked to three generations of disease: Methoxychlor causes epigenetic changes
• Synchronization of North Atlantic, North Pacific preceded abrupt warming, end of ice age
• DNA mostly 'junk?' Only 8.2 percent of human DNA is 'functional', study finds
• Newly discovered gut virus lives in half the world's population

Parched West is using up underground water: Study points to grave implications for Western U.S. water supply Posted: 24 Jul 2014 02:21 PM PDT A new study finds more than 75 percent of the water loss in the drought-stricken Colorado River Basin since late 2004 came from underground resources. The extent of groundwater loss may pose a greater threat to the water supply of the western United States than previously thought.

Biologist warn of early stages of Earth's sixth mass extinction event Posted: 24 Jul 2014 02:19 PM PDT The planet's current biodiversity, the product of 3.5 billion years of evolutionary trial and error, is the highest in the history of life. But it may be reaching a tipping point. Scientists caution that the loss and decline of animals is contributing to what appears to be the early days of the planet's sixth mass biological extinction event. Since 1500, more than 320 terrestrial vertebrates have become extinct. Populations of the remaining species show a 25 percent average decline in abundance. The situation is similarly dire for invertebrate animal life.

Pesticide linked to three generations of disease: Methoxychlor causes epigenetic changes Posted: 24 Jul 2014 11:42 AM PDT Researchers say ancestral exposures to the pesticide methoxychlor may lead to adult onset kidney disease, ovarian disease and obesity in future generations.

Synchronization of North Atlantic, North Pacific preceded abrupt warming, end of ice age Posted: 24 Jul 2014 11:16 AM PDT Scientists have long been concerned that global warming may push Earth's climate system across a 'tipping point,' where rapid melting of ice and further warming may become irreversible -- a hotly debated scenario with an unclear picture of what this point of no return may look like. A new study suggests that combined warming of the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans thousands of years ago may have provided the tipping point for abrupt warming and rapid melting of the northern ice sheets.

DNA mostly 'junk?' Only 8.2 percent of human DNA is 'functional', study finds Posted: 24 Jul 2014 11:16 AM PDT Only 8.2 percent of human DNA is likely to be doing something important -- is 'functional' -- say researchers. This figure is very different from one given in 2012, when some scientists involved in the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) project stated that 80% of our genome has some biochemical function.

Newly discovered gut virus lives in half the world's population Posted: 24 Jul 2014 06:42 AM PDT Odds are, there's a virus living inside your gut that has gone undetected by scientists for decades. A new study has found that more than half the world's population is host to a newly described virus, named crAssphage, which infects one of the most common gut bacterial species, Bacteroides. This bacterium thought to be connected with obesity, diabetes and other gut-related diseases.

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