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Categories: Biology: General, Ecology: Research

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With dengue on the spread, the new discovery helps explain why dengue viruses are so easily transmitted. The finding could also lead to new ways to prevent infection.

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Human culture and language may be the result of 'self-domestication': an evolutionary process that leads to less aggressive and more prosocial individuals. A research team argues that elephants -- like humans and bonobos -- may also be self-domesticated. Elephants show many traits associated with self-domestication, such as prosocial behavior, playfulness and complex communication skills. This makes elephants an interesting new animal model for the evolution of prosociality.

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An illusion involving a hidden thumb confounds capuchin and squirrel monkeys for the same reason it does humans -- it misdirects expected outcomes of actions they can carry out. However, marmosets have five equidistant digits, and were rarely fooled by the magician. The research adds to evidence that animals struggle to predict movements outside of their own 'biomechanical ability'.

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The number of insects has been declining for years. This has already been well documented for agricultural areas. In forests, however, temporal trends are mostly studied for insect species that are considered pests. Now, a research team has studied the trends of very many insect species in German forests. Contrary to what the researchers had suspected, the results showed that the majority of the studied species are declining.

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Fresh insights into how our bodies interact with the microbes living in our guts suggest that a two-drug combination may offer a new way to treat inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

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Marine predators have expanded their ranges into the Arctic waters over the last twenty years, driven by climate change and associated increases in productivity.

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Researchers provide open-access tool to capture new data on a global plant destroyer, Phytophthora.

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In the face of a warming climate that is having a profound effect on global biodiversity and will change the distribution and abundance of many animals, a research team has developed a statistical model that improves estimates of habitat suitability and extinction probability for cold-blooded animals as temperatures climb.

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While pollinator populations of many species have plummeted worldwide, one bee species is blowing up the map with its rapid population expansion. The key to this insect's success? Its passion for pumpkins, zucchinis, and other squashes, and the massive increase in cultivation of these crops across North America over the last 1,000 years. A new study found that the squash bee (Eucera pruinosa) has evolved in response to intensifying agriculture -- namely squashes in the genus Curcurbita. The research has demonstrated the role of agriculture as an evolutionary force acting on a wild insect pollinator and may have implications for food security.

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Researchers have discovered, using a recently developed technology, that genetically identical cells within a bacterial community have different functions, with some members behaving more docile and others producing the very toxins that make us feel ill.

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A family of 'promiscuous' proteins found in all land plants is responsible for many different plant functions, despite remaining relatively unchanged for over 450 million years.

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For more than 50 years, it has been suspected that fat cells constantly remodel the lipids they store. Researchers have now demonstrated this process directly for the first time using culture cells. Among other things, the study shows that the cells quickly eliminate harmful fatty acids. They refine others into molecules that can be used more effectively. In the long term, this turns the components of palm fat into the building blocks of high-quality olive oil, for example.

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Researchers show that rising temperatures in northern regions may damage peatlands: critical ecosystems for storing carbon from the atmosphere -- and could decouple vital processes in microbial support systems.

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A lower body temperature is one of the most effective mechanisms to prolong the lifespan of animals. New research has now described precisely how this works. The scientists show that cold can prevent the pathological aggregation of proteins typical for two aging-associated neurodegenerative diseases.

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Researchers are deploying the latest mapping techniques to identify the most important suburban habitat for North America's largest woodpecker. Wildlife habitat in congested places is becoming increasingly fragmented as forests give way to new construction. Eventually, this could spell trouble to an animal with specific habitat needs like the pileated woodpecker.

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Wastewater is a more potent environment for antibiotic resistance to evolve than previously known. A study shows that wastewaters have unique characteristics, allowing resistance genes to start their journey from harmless bacteria to those that cause disease.

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For tiny salamanders squirming skin-to-soil, big-picture weather patterns may seem as far away as outer space. But for decades, scientists have mostly relied on free-air temperature data at large spatial scales to predict future salamander distributions under climate change. The outlook was dire for the mini ecosystem engineers, suggesting near elimination of habitat in crucial areas.

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Researchers have succeeded in developing an E. coli-based 'smart microbe' that secretes therapeutic payloads, including antibodies, into the gut. The genetically modified beneficial strain of bacteria blocks intestinal inflammation in a preclinical model of inflammatory bowel disease and has the potential to treat intestinal-based diseases.

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Today, ants are pretty much everywhere. To learn more about how these insects conquered the world, scientists used a combination of fossils, DNA, and data on the habitat preferences of modern species to piece together how ants and plants have been evolving together over the past 60 million years. They found that when flowering plants spread out from forests, the ants followed, kicking off the evolution of the thousands of ant species alive today.

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Researchers have developed a technology for delivering a microrobot to a target point of a hippocampus in an in-vitro environment, connecting neural networks, and measuring neural signals. The findings are expected to contribute to neural network research and the verification and analysis of cell therapy products.