Latest Sea lamprey Stories

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online According to a report in the journal Nature Genetics, an international team of geneticists has announced the successful sequencing of the sea lamprey genome. The sea lamprey makes for an interesting genetic case from an evolutionary standpoint, being a jawless vertebrate that diverged from jawed vertebrates millions of years ago. “The sea lamprey is a primitive jawless vertebrate that diverged from other jawed vertebrates early in...

Study of “contained, isolated” genes in sea lamprey may indicate how potentially deleterious genes can be controlled Research on a unique vertebrate called the sea lamprey shows that more than a thousand genes are shed during its early development. These genes are paradoxically lost all throughout the developing embryo except in a specialized compartment called “primordial germ cells” or PGCs. The PGCs can be thought of as embryonic stem cells and are used, ultimately, for making...

A new paper appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests that people, governments, and institutions that shape the way people interact may be just as important for determining environmental conditions as the environmental processes themselves."Tipping points," qualitative changes in an ecosystem that often result in reduced ecosystem health and are difficult and costly to reverse increasingly concern environmental scientists.The prevailing...

Michigan State University researchers are the first to identify a stress hormone in the sea lamprey, using the 500 million-year-old species as a model to understand the evolution of the endocrine system.Corticosteroid hormones control stress response in animals with backbones, including humans. While scientists have learned quite a bit about these so-called stress hormones in most modern animals, little was known about the hormones' earliest forms in prehistoric creatures such as...

A Great Lakes official says invasive Asian carp have made it miles beyond a Chicago barrier intended to keep the species out of Lake Michigan. Great Lakes Fishery Commission spokesman Marc Gaden said after genetic testing showed evidence of flying Asian carp five miles beyond the electric barrier of a Chicago canal, the power on the barrier was increased to prevent further incursions, The Detroit Free Press said Monday. These carp are clawing at the door now, Gaden said. The silver carp...

Growing lamprey embryos discard millions of units of their DNAResearchers have discovered that the sea lamprey, which emerged from jawless fish first appearing 500 million years ago, dramatically remodels its genome. Shortly after a fertilized lamprey egg divides into several cells, the growing embryo discards millions of units of its DNA.The findings were published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The lead author is Jeramiah Smith, a postdoctoral fellow in...

In addition to providing fundamental insights into the early evolution of the estrogen receptor, research by a team at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine may lead to a contraceptive for female lampreys "“ a jawless fish considered an invasive pest species in the Great Lakes region of the United States. This could prove important to the Great Lakes region, where lampreys aggressively consume trout, salmon, sturgeon and other game fish."Since the introduction of...

Researchers say they have begun placing a pheromone in Michigan streams in an attempt to lure female sea lampreys into traps. Researcher Nick Johnson of the Hammond Bay Biological Station said the pheromone was designed by scientists at Michigan State University to mimic a spawning scent emitted by male sea lampreys, the Detroit Free Press reported Sunday. Once they smell it, they follow it, Johnson said of the female of the prehistoric species. Since arriving in the Great Lakes eight...

Scientists say a synthetic chemical sex smell could help rid North America's Great Lakes of a devastating pest known as the "vampire fish."A laboratory version of a male sea lamprey pheromone was deployed to trick ovulating females into swimming upstream into traps, US researchers said.The vampire fish, known formally as the sea lamprey, has become a harmful parasite to native species of the Great Lakes since its accidental introduction in the 1800s.Recreational fishing of the Great Lakes on...

By MICHAEL OLIVEIRA (CP) - They look like something out of a sci-fi horror movie: slimy, snake-like creatures with sharp-toothed tongues that like nothing more than to suck blood. They've stalked the Great Lakes since the 1800s, leaving scores of dead in their wake, and even the best science hasn't been able to stop their incessant breeding. Scientists have mapped their genome, are experimenting with cutting-edge pheromone research and sterilization techniques, and have pulsed the waters...