The intricate social hierarchy of the California condor, an endangered species, is something that could not be studied until recently due to the severe reduction of this population in the wild. The first formal study on this species, based on remote video observation of reintroduced populations, indicates that the species has a complex system of interactions based on dominance.
Body
Scientists from Griffith University have taken part in an international study which has revealed the genetic secrets of how a small bird can survive in one of the most hostile environments on earth.
The ground tit (Parus humilis), lives in the Tibetan plateau, the largest high-altitude land mass in the world. This study has found molecular signatures in the ground tit genome which reveal how it copes with the extreme living conditions of this habitat.
NEW YORK (July 16, 2013) -- Smokers who've received a clean bill of health from their doctor may believe cigarettes haven't harmed their lungs. However, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have found that even smokers who seem healthy have damaged airway cells, with characteristics similar to cells found in aggressive lung cancer.
Identifying, and monitoring the fluctuations of thousands of species in tropical ecosystems is a difficult challenge, but newly developed technology now makes it much easier. Scientists report on new cyberinfrastructure which enables real-time acoustic recording and subsequent species identification in remote locations around the world. Thousands of audio recordings of tropical birds, frogs, monkeys, and insects in Puerto Rico and Costa Rica have been captured (using automated recording stations placed in their natural habitat) and analyzed to identify the species concerned.
Coral reefs face serious threats primarily arising from climate change, unsustainable fishing, and pollution. To better understand the underlying processes, a multidisciplinary series of studies is being conducted by researchers, investigating variability in coral reef community structure and microbial dynamics across gradients of natural and anthropogenic stress. Their results are published in the new PeerJ "Line Islands Collection – Microbial dynamics of coral reef robustness and decline" (named after their upcoming expedition to the Line Islands).
OAK BROOK, Ill. -- Excess fat around the belly has recently been identified as a risk factor for bone loss. Now, a new study has determined that excess liver and muscle fat also may be detrimental to bone.
The study, published online in the journal Radiology, found that obese people with higher levels of fat in their liver, muscle tissue and blood also have higher amounts of fat in their bone marrow, putting them at risk for osteoporosis.
Some strains of the avian H7N9 influenza that emerged in China this year have developed resistance to the only antiviral drugs available to treat the infection, but testing for antiviral resistance can give misleading results, helping hasten the spread of resistant strains.
Standard toxicity testing is inadequate to assess the safety of a new technology with potential for creating pesticides and genetically modifying crops, according to a Forum article published in the August issue of BioScience. The authors of the article, Jonathan G. Lundgren and Jian J.
Whether you're reading the paper or thinking through your schedule for the day, chances are that you're hearing yourself speak even if you're not saying words out loud. This internal speech — the monologue you "hear" inside your head — is a ubiquitous but largely unexamined phenomenon. A new study looks at a possible brain mechanism that could explain how we hear this inner voice in the absence of actual sound.
The vaccination programme against HPV infection began in 2008 in the UK, but only among girls, on the grounds that this would curb the spread of the infection to boys as well.
But, say the authors, from the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Homerton University Hospital, and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, gay men are more than 15 times as likely to develop genital cancer, particularly anal cancer, as a result of becoming infected with HPV, as are straight men.
Long-term use of alternate-day, low-dose aspirin may reduce risk for colorectal cancer in healthy women.
Evidence has recently emerged that daily aspirin may help to prevent several types of cancer, including colorectal, but there is little evidence for an alternate-day dosing strategy.
Between 1994 and 1996 researchers randomly assigned 38,876 women aged 45 years or older to take either 100 mg of aspirin or placebo every other day. Participants were sent annual supplies of monthly calendar packs containing aspirin or placebo.
Researchers at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital have found that more than 25 percent of children with cerebral palsy seen by physicians have moderate to severe chronic pain, limiting their activity. Findings indicate that pediatricians should be aware of chronic pain in this group and try to identify and treat its underlying causes.
The risk of elevated blood pressure among children and adolescents rose 27 percent during a thirteen-year period, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension.
Higher body mass, larger waistlines and eating excess sodium may be the reasons for the elevated blood pressure readings, researchers said.
High blood pressure is a risk factor for stroke, heart disease and kidney failure — accounting for about 350,000 preventable deaths a year in the United States.
Prosthetic valve endocarditis (inflammation and infection involving the heart valves and lining of the heart chambers) remains associated with a high one-year mortality rate and early valve replacement does not appear to be associated with lower mortality compared with medical therapy according to a study by Tahaniyat Lalani, M.D., M.H.S., of the Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth, Virginia, and colleagues.
A pair of studies by a team of University of Notre Dame researchers led by Crislyn D'Souza-Schorey, professor of biological sciences, sheds light on a biological process which is activated across a vast range of malignancies.
Wnt proteins are a large family of proteins that active signaling pathways (a set of biological reactions in a cell) to control several vital steps in embryonic development. In adults, Wnt-mediated functions are frequently altered in many types of cancers and, specifically, within cell subpopulations that possess stem cell-like properties.