Researchers have found that the amphibious mangrove rivulus performs higher force jumps on land than some other fishes that end up on land. This new study shows that unlike the largemouth bass, which makes very few excursions on land, the mangrove rivulus, which can live out of water for extended periods, has a strong jumping technique on land to locate new food resources, avoid predators, escape poor water conditions and also to return to the water.
Body
Why did animals with limbs win the race to invade land over those with fins? A new study comparing the forces acting on fins of mudskipper fish and on the forelimbs of tiger salamanders can now be used to analyze early fossils that spanned the water-to-land transition in tetrapod evolution, and further understand their capability to move on land.
Research conducted by Sandy Kawano and Richard Blob at Clemson University compared terrestrial locomotion in tiger salamanders and mudskipper fish, which have similar characteristics to early tetrapod ancestors.
Bats are uniquely able to stretch and store energy in their bicep and tricep tendons during take-off and climbing flight, giving them an extra power boost. A new study on fruitbats, to be presented at the meeting of the Society for Experimental in Valencia on July 4, used cutting edge technology to image how these small mammals move through the air.
Why do so many mothers have difficulty making enough milk to breastfeed? A new study by scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the University of California Davis adds to their previous research implicating insulin's role in lactation success.
The study is the first to describe how the human mammary gland becomes highly sensitive to insulin during lactation. It is also the first study to get an accurate picture of how specific genes are switched on in the human mammary gland during lactation.
Many black or racially mixed women in Venezuela are undergoing nose jobs in an effort to look whiter, but the procedure only temporarily improves their self-esteem and body image in a culture that values whiteness, a Dartmouth College study finds.
The genes that code for proteins—more than 20,000 in total—make up only about 1 percent of the complete human genome. That entire thing—not just the genes, but also genetic junk and all the rest—is coiled and folded up in any number of ways within the nucleus of each of our cells. Think, then, of the challenge that a protein or other molecule, like RNA, faces when searching through that material to locate a target gene.
It's squishy, synthetic, flexible, mostly water and almost as tough as rubber.
No, it's not "flubber" — it's a hydrogel, and now scientists at The University of Akron are exploring new biomedical uses for this polymer-based product.
TORONTO - A team of Toronto-based researchers may be one step closer to a 'recipe' for large-scale production of stem cells for use in research and therapy.
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can be of great value for medical research because they can flexibly develop into many different types of cells. However, producing these cells is challenging because the proteins that control their generation are largely unknown.
ITHACA, N.Y. – With fewer than a dozen flowering plants out of 300,000 species accounting for 80 percent of humanity's caloric intake, people need to tap unused plants to feed the world in the near future, claims Cornell University plant geneticist Susan McCouch in the Comment feature of the July 4 issue of Nature.
Very little is known about the Sahamalaza sportive lemur (Lepilemur sahamalazensis), other than the fact it roosts during the day in rather open situations, such as tree holes, and therefore risks falling victim to predators from both the air and the ground.
BOWLING GREEN, O.—Lake Vostok, buried under a glacier in Antarctica, is so dark, deep and cold that scientists had considered it a possible model for other planets, a place where nothing could live.
TORONTO - A team of Toronto-based researchers may be one step closer to a 'recipe' for large-scale production of stem cells for use in research and therapy.
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can be of great value for medical research because they can flexibly develop into many different types of cells. However, producing these cells is challenging because the proteins that control their generation are largely unknown.
News agencies continue to have an edge over Twitter in being first with the news, a study found.
Research into reporting of news events by Twitter and newswire services has found that while Twitter can sometimes break news before newswires, for major events there is little evidence that it can replace traditional news outlets.
Twitter's main benefits for news are bringing additional coverage of events, and for sharing news items of interest to niche audiences or with a short lifespan, such as local sports results.
Risky behavior can lead to premature death – in humans. Anna Lindholm and her doctoral student Yannick Auclair investigated whether this also applies to animals by studying the behavior of 82 house mice. They recorded boldness, activity level, exploration tendency and energy intake of female and male house mice with two different allelic variants on chromosome 17, thereby testing predictions of "life-history theory" on how individuals invest optimally in growth and reproduction.
A policy known as sustainable intensification could help meet the challenges of increasing demands for food from a growing global population, argues a team of scientists in an article in the journal Science.