Fighting Diseases Of Aging By Wasting Energy, Rather Than Dieting -- Works For Mice:
By making the skeletal muscles of mice use energy less efficiently, researchers report that they have delayed the animals' deaths and their development of age-related diseases, including vascular disease, obesity, and one form of cancer. Those health benefits, driven by an increased metabolic rate, appear to come without any direct influence on the aging process itself, according to the researchers.
Gene Implicated In Human Language Affects Song Learning In Songbirds:
Do special "human" genes provide the biological substrate for uniquely human traits, like language?
Chipmunks And Shrews, Not Just Mice, Harbor Lyme Disease:
A study led by a University of Pennsylvania biologist in the tick-infested woods of the Hudson Valley is challenging the widely held belief that mice are the main animal reservoir for Lyme disease in the U.S.
Flies' Evasive Move Traced To Sensory Neurons:
When fruit fly larvae are poked or prodded, they fold themselves up and corkscrew their bodies around, a behavior that appears to be the young insects' equivalent of a "judo move," say researchers. They now trace that rolling behavior to neurons resembling those that sense pain.
Pheromones Identified That Trigger Aggression Between Male Mice:
A family of proteins commonly found in mouse urine is able to trigger fighting between male mice, a new study has found. The study is the first to identify protein pheromones responsible for the aggression response in mice. Pheromones are chemical cues that are released into the air, secreted from glands, or excreted in urine and picked up by animals of the same species, initiating various social and reproductive behaviors.
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