Very small male zebrafish use sneaky sex strategy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/15010109

A brood apart: Household pet fish favourites turn tropical terrors if released into the wild

Their brightly-coloured skin and beautiful fins have made them a favourite pet.

But woe betide anyone who releases their guppy fish into the wild for these tropical creatures can upset the other inhabitants of British rivers and streams.

Researchers from the University of St Andrews, in Fife, have found that a lone female can create an entirely new population.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2039857/A-brood-apart-Household-pet-fish-favourites-turn-tropical-terrors-released-wild.html#ixzz1YZb7948t

Dive in and enjoy the life aquatic

Taking the plunge is easier than it might seem, with a range of enticing locations where you can learn the basics of scuba diving, from Red Sea resorts to idyllic Indonesian islands. Matt Barr explains

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/dive-in-and-enjoy-the-life-aquatic-2354168.html

Living life in a glowing goldfish bowl: Exhibition turns the humble aquarium into fantastic works of art

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2034468/Living-life-glowing-goldfish-bowl-Exhibition-turns-humble-aquarium-fantastic-works-art.html

Sleeping with the fishes! NFL star's amazing fish tank in his bedroom

Nobody really wants to be upstaged in the bedroom but it seems that's exactly what happened to the New England Patriots's wide receiver Chad Ochocinco.



Since he had an amazing fish tank installed in his bedroom in his Florida mansion, he says fiancee Evelyn Lozada cant stop looking at it.



Evelyn, who became a known face on the TV show Basketball Wives because of her previous engagement to ex-Celtic Antoine Walker, 'stares at these damn fish every time before bed,' Chad says.





Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2030666/NFL-stars-Chad-Ochocincos-amazing-fish-tank-bedroom.html#ixzz1WGGrTc1c

Kit Kat crushed in grapes: How aquarium staff weaned Gary the gourami off his addiction to chocolate

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2020998/Kit-Kat-crushed-grapes-How-aquarium-staff-weaned-Gary-gourami-addiction-chocolate.html

Princess of whales: How a naked female scientist tries to tame belugas in the freezing Arctic

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004042/Naked-female-scientist-tries-tame-beluga-whales-arctic.html

Chicago aquarium has a new resident: a bouncing baby dolphin

Chicago's Shedd Aquarium has a new resident: a newborn dolphin.

A Pacific white-sided dolphin named Tique gave birth to a healthy calf on Friday morning.

The aquarium reports that the calf quickly swam to the surface and began to swim around the Secluded Bay habitat with Tique.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1394508/Chicago-aquarium-new-resident-bouncing-baby-dolphin.html#ixzz1OTJG1jI6

Aquarium bosses stunned after discovering secretive shark has lived undetected in tank for YEARS

Stunned aquarium staff have discovered that a shark they did not know they had has been living undetected in their ocean tank for years.

Staff at Blackpool Sea Life Centre were baffled when two shark eggs were discovered in a tank occupied by sharks which give birth only to live young.

The centre's marine experts speculate that one of several former curators must have introduced a small tropical carpet shark to the display without recording the fact, and it has been in hiding ever since


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1388671/Blackpool-Sea-Life-Centre-shark-living-undetected-tank-years.html#ixzz1MoEgA7AD

Forget leap frog, I'm getting a piggyback! The lazy amphibian who hitched a lift with a goldfish

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1379176/Frog-tired-swim-hitches-lift-passing-goldfish.html

Fish fan turns cellar into Britain's biggest home aquarium

(lots more pictures)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369132/Fish-fan-Jack-Heathcote-turns-cellar-Britains-biggest-home-aquarium.html

Great Barrier Reef facing destruction 'within 20 years' say experts

http://wsmweather.co.uk/?p=1453

World's coral reefs 'will be wiped out by 2050', researchers warn

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1360116/Worlds-coral-reefs-wiped-2050-researchers-warn.html

Conservationists re-discover six species of amphibians in the cloud forest's of Haiti

Conservationists say they have found six rare frog species that are unique to the Caribbean nation of Haiti and have not been seen in about two decades. Above, the Macaya breast-spot frog, Eleutherodactylus thorectes, a critically endangered species in the Massif de la Hotte


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/8255032/Conservationists-re-discover-six-species-of-amphibians-in-the-cloud-forests-of-Haiti.html

Smithsonian Scientists Discover Seven New Species of Fish

[A female Starksia robertsoni - one of the seven new species of blenny discovered by Smithsonian scientist Carole Baldwin and her team. Photo: Smithsonian Institution]

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=44746

Plants star in these aquariums

http://www.mercurynews.com/home-garden/ci_17218402?nclick_check=1

Zebrafish Study With Human Heart Implications

ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2010) — Bony fish like the tiny zebrafish have a remarkable ability that mammals can only dream of: if you lop off a chunk of their heart they swim sluggishly for a few days but within a month appear perfectly normal. How they accomplish this -- or, more importantly, why we can't -- is one of the significant questions in regenerative medicine today.

In a paper published in the March 25, 2010 issue of Nature, researchers working at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Center of Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona (CMRB) identified a fish heart cell population that is the source of this astonishing healing feat, a finding that could provide insight into how mammalian hearts might be coaxed into repairing themselves after injury brought on by heart attack.

Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, Ph.D., professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory, and colleagues report that it is not stem cells -- those "usual" regeneration suspects -- that patch up an injured fish heart. Instead, repair is accomplished by differentiated cardiac muscle cells known as cardiomyocytes, those cellular grown-ups whose normal job is to supply the contractile force of the heart.

"What the results of our study show is that mother nature utilizes other ways besides going all the way back to pluripotent stem cells to regenerate tissues and organs," says Izpisúa Belmonte, noting that at least in fish, the body may have evolved surprising repair strategies driven by cell types more seasoned than stem cells.

To identify which cells actually filled in excised zebrafish heart muscle, Izpisúa Belmonte's team first employed some genetic engineering to only make cardiomyocytes "transgenic" by inserting into them a tracer gene that made them glow green under a microscope.

They then literally chopped off about 20% of each fish ventricle and waited a couple of weeks for the hearts to regenerate: if regenerated heart muscle didn't glow, it would mean that cells other than cardiomyocytes, such as a cardiac stem cell population, had replaced the damaged muscle.

But in a striking finding, all regenerated heart muscle cells glowed green, indicating that well established cardiomyocytes remaining after injury had likely regressed to a more "youthful" state, started dividing again to replenish lost cells, and then matured a second time into new heart muscle. The group also showed cardiomyocytes recaptured lost youth in part by re-activating the production of proteins associated with cell proliferation, factors typically expressed in immature progenitors.

Human hearts cannot undergo these types of regenerative changes on their own. When damaged by heart attack, our heart muscle is replaced by scar tissue incapable of contracting. However, prior to heart failure, damaged mammalian heart muscle cells enter a save-yourself state known as "hibernation," in which they cease contracting in an effort to survive.

Chris Jopling, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow of Izpisúa Belmonte's at CMRB and first author of the study, sees human heart "hibernation" as significant. "During heart regeneration in the zebrafish we found that cardiomyocytes displayed structural changes similar to those observed in hibernating cardiomyocytes," he said, noting that those changes were actually necessary before the fish cardiomyoctes could start dividing. "Because of these similarities, we hypothesize that hibernating mammalian cardiomyocytes may represent cells that are attempting to proliferate."

So the good news is that mammalian hearts can undergo a kind of metabolic "downsizing" that is a prelude to cell division. "This idea fits nicely with the findings from a number of groups -- that forced expression of cell cycle regulators can induce cardiomyocyte proliferation in mammals," says Jopling. "Maybe all they need is a bit of a push in the right direction."

A search is on for factors that could supply that "push." Although he is optimistic about the outcome, Izpisúa Belmonte also feels that the study should caution researchers not to overlook potential contributions that mature cells might make to regeneration. "We can no longer view differentiated cells as being a static endpoint of the differentiation process," says Izpisúa Belmonte, who also directs the CMRB. "If we could mimic in mammalian cells what happens in zebrafish, perhaps we could be in a position to understand why regeneration does not occur in humans."

Also contributing to this work were Merce Marti, Ph.D., Angel Raya, M.D., Ph.D., Edward Sleep, and Marina Raya, all of the CMRB in Spain. The study was funded in part by Fundacion Cellex, the Ipsen Foundation, the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and Sanofi-Aventis.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100324141957.htm

Much in the news here in the UK today:

Recovering from a heart attack could soon be as simple as recovering from a broken leg

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8293320/Recovering-from-a-heart-attack-could-soon-be-as-simple-as-recovering-from-a-broken-leg.html