Why Was The Racehorse Eclipse So Good?:
Scientists from the Royal Veterinary College and the University of Cambridge are researching what made the undefeated 18th Century horse, Eclipse, such a great champion. The genetics research is giving insights into the origins of the world's thoroughbred racing stock, including the sensational 1867 Derby winner, Hermit.
'Divorce' Among Galapagos Seabirds Investigated:
Being a devoted husband and father is not enough to keep an avian marriage together for the Nazca booby, a long-lived seabird found in the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador.
Biologists Unravel The Genetic Secrets Of Black Widow Spider Silk:
Biologists at the University of California, Riverside have identified the genes, and determined the DNA sequences, for two key proteins in the "dragline silk" of the black widow spider -- an advance that may lead to a variety of new materials for industrial, medical and military uses.
...and much more good stuff under the fold...
Siberian Tiger Gets First National Park In Russian Far East:
Following more than a decade of study and advocacy by World Wildlife Fund, the Russian Government recently created the 200,000 acre Zov Tigra National Park, the first national park for the Siberian tiger.
Eating Your Veggies May Provide Additional Health Benefits:
In a new physiological study of birds, a researcher at Arizona State University has found that carotenoids, the pigments that color carrots orange and corn yellow, have even deeper health benefits than originally thought. They appear to fight off the negative impacts that testosterone can have on an animal's health.
Leaderless Honeybee Can Organize, Undergraduate Research Shows:
Undergraduate education generally involves acquiring "received knowledge" -- in other words, absorbing the past discoveries of scholars and scientists. But University of North Carolina at Charlotte senior biology major Andrew Pierce went beyond the textbooks and uncovered something previously unknown. Pierce's discovery has to do with detecting a significant new detail concerning the behavior of the European honeybee -- perhaps the most studied and economically important insect on Earth. Beyond agriculture, the finding may also have key implications for understanding the dynamics of all social animals, including man.
Competition, Loss Of Selfishness Mark Shift To Supersociety:
How social or altruistic behavior evolved has been a central and hotly debated question, particularly by those researchers engaged in the study of social insect societies - ants, bees and wasps. In these groups, this question of what drives altruism also becomes critical to further understanding of how ancestral or primitive social organizations (with hierarchies and dominance fights, and poorly developed division of labor) evolve to become the more highly sophisticated networks found in some eusocial insect collectives termed "superorganisms."
Mother Mice More Attuned To Pup Sounds Than Others:
Researchers have shown for the first time that the behavioral context in which communication sounds are heard affects the brain's ability to detect, discriminate and ultimately respond to them. Specifically, the researchers found that the auditory neurons of female mice that had given birth were better at detecting and discriminating vocalizations from mouse pups than the auditory neurons in virgin females.
CT Scan Reveals Ancient Long-necked Gliding Reptile:
The fossilized bones of a previously unknown, 220 million-year-old long-necked, gliding reptile may remain forever embedded in stone, but thanks to an industrial-size CT scanner at Penn State's Center for Quantitative Imaging, the bone structure and behavior of these small creatures are now known.
Scientists Solve Genome Of Promising Marine Organism:
Salinispora was discovered in 1991 by Scripps Oceanography's Paul Jensen and William Fenical in shallow ocean sediment off the Bahamas. The bacterium produces compounds that have shown promising signs for treating cancers. Its product, "salinosporamide A," is currently in human clinical trials (Nereus Pharmaceuticals of San Diego) for treating multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells in bone marrow, as well as for treating solid tumors.
Plants Recognize Their Siblings, Biologists Discover:
The next time you venture into your garden armed with plants, consider who you place next to whom. It turns out that the docile garden plant isn't as passive as widely assumed, at least not with strangers. Researchers at McMaster University have found that plants get fiercely competitive when forced to share their pot with strangers of the same species, but they're accommodating when potted with their siblings.
Human interaction and stimulation enhance chimpanzees' cognitive abilities, according to new research from the Chimpanzee Cognition Center at The Ohio State University. The study (1) is the first to demonstrate that raising chimpanzees in a human cultural environment enhances their cognitive abilities, as measured by their ability to understand how tools work.
Studying The Status Of Black Bears In Missouri:
Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia are studying the status of black bears in Missouri. Black bears were abundant in the state during the 18th and 19th centuries, but have been considered almost extinct in Missouri since the late 19th century. The results of the MU study will be used by the Missouri Department of Conservation to help manage Missouri's black bear population.
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