Culture
Knowing which direction to go in order to reach a food location or home is important for many animal species, including humans. For human foragers who travel long distances every day hunting and gathering, orientation skills are essential. Haneul Jang and her colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology set out to study how the Mbendjele BaYaka people in Republic of Congo orient themselves in the dense rainforest.
Previous studies showed that chimpanzees have excellent long-term memory abilities. However, little is known so far about their working memory abilities. To shed light on these abilities researchers presented chimpanzees with a task, in which they could search for food in a number of small, opaque boxes. The chimpanzees first watched how pieces of food were hidden in these boxes. Then the apes could start to search for the food items by pointing at these boxes one by one. If a chosen box contained food, the chimpanzees received this food reward.
In an open-label study of women in southern and eastern Africa, a vaginal ring that is inserted once a month and slowly releases an antiviral drug was estimated to reduce the risk of HIV by 39%, according to statistical modeling. In addition, the study found that participants appeared to use the ring more in the open-label study than in a previous clinical trial. These and other results of the HIV Open Label Extension (HOPE) study were presented today at the 10th IAS Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2019) in Mexico City.
Researchers at Tel Aviv University, led by Prof. Carmit Levy and Dr. Tamar Golan of the Department of Human Genetics and Biochemistry at TAU's Sackler School of Medicine, have discovered that fat cells are involved in the transformation that melanoma cells undergo from cancer cells of limited growth in the epidermis to lethal metastatic cells attacking patients' vital organs.
EAST LANSING, Mich -- Scientists think that green algae are plants water-living ancestors, but we are not sure how the transition to land plants happened.
New research from Michigan State University, and published in the journal eLife, presents evidence that algae could have piggybacked on fungi to leave the water and to colonize the land, over 500 million years ago.
Among the confounding challenges of diagnosing and treating Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the fact that patients with asymptomatic and symptomatic versions of the degenerative condition may share similar neuropathological burdens but experience significantly different rates of cognitive decline.
From searching for extraterrestrial life to tracking rainfall, non-experts are increasingly helping to gather information to answer scientific questions.
One of the most established hands-on, outdoor citizen science projects is the University of Washington-based Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, COASST, which trains beachgoers along the West Coast, from California to Alaska, to monitor their local beach for dead birds.
It's long been known that people who suffer a major concussion can lose their sense of smell temporarily and also develop affective problems, such as anxiety and depression. Now scientists have found that's true even for people who get a minor concussion.
Falling off a bike with a helmet on, having a fender-bender in one's car, taking a tumble on the ski slopes, slipping on ice and hitting one's head - these kinds of minor accidents can provoke the same kinds of olfactory and anxiety problems, the researchers found.
A recent study of over 1,000 healthy women with no symptoms of urinary tract infections showed nearly 9 percent carried multi-drug resistant Escherichia coli strains in their guts.
This is of clinical concern because disease-causing E. coli bacteria can transfer from the digestive tract to the female urinary tract via the urethra, the urine duct, which is shorter and positioned differently in females than in males. The bacteria can then make their way into the bladder and other parts of the urinary tract.
It seems like a great idea: Pay teachers more if their students learn more. But does it work?
Though teacher incentive programs are growing in popularity, no one knows for sure if they have a positive effect on student achievement, or if they are worth the extra expenditure of precious state education funds. A new study by an economist at the University of California, Riverside shows that, if properly designed, teacher incentive programs can both improve student achievement in some subjects and be cost-effective.
Bottom Line: Imaging shows differences in the brains of U.S. government personnel who were potentially exposed to unusual audible and sensory phenomena (sound, pressure or vibration) while serving in Cuba when compared with brain images from a group of healthy individuals without such exposure, although the clinical importance of these brain differences is uncertain. A preliminary report published by JAMA in 2018 described neurological signs and symptoms experienced by some of these government workers.
Bottom Line: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends screening for hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in pregnant women at their first prenatal visit. The USPSTF routinely makes recommendations about the effectiveness of preventive care services and this statement is a reaffirmation of its 2009 recommendation. Screening for HBV infection during pregnancy identifies infants who are at risk of acquiring this infection from their mothers before or after birth. Children infected with HBV during infancy or childhood are more likely to develop chronic infection.
PHILADELPHIA - Brain imaging of 40 U.S. government personnel who experienced a host of neurological symptoms after possible exposure of an unknown source while serving in Cuba revealed significant differences in brain tissue and connectivity when compared to healthy individuals, according to a new report from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. The findings are published today in JAMA.
A Mediterranean-style diet in pregnancy does not reduce the risk of overall adverse maternal and offspring complications, but may reduce weight gain during pregnancy and the risk of gestational diabetes, according to a new study published this week in PLOS Medicine by Shakila Thangaratinam of Queen Mary University of London, UK, and colleagues.
Current concentrations of fine particulate matter pollution, which mostly meet the national ambient air quality standard, are still associated with mortality and loss of life expectancy in the US, with larger impacts in poorer counties, according to a study published July 23 in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by an international team of researchers from the Center for Air, Climate, and Energy Solutions led by Majid Ezzati of Imperial College London, UK.