Bushmeat, the use of native animal species for food or commercial food sale, has been heavily documented to be a significant factor in the decline of many species of primates and other mammals. However, a new study indicates that more than half of the species being consumed are birds, particularly large birds like raptors and hornbills.
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Excavations at an archaeological site at Kathu in the Northern Cape province of South Africa have produced tens of thousands of Earlier Stone Age artifacts, including hand axes and other tools. These discoveries were made by archaeologists from the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa and the University of Toronto (U of T), in collaboration with the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa.
A sake brewery has its own microbial terroir, meaning the microbial populations found on surfaces in the facility resemble those found in the product, creating the final flavor according to research published ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. This is the first time investigators have taken a microbial census of a sake brewery.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — July 24, 2014 — A new study led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) provides insights into the interplay among bacteria, viruses and the immune system during HIV infection.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Lynn E. Taylor, M.D., director of The Miriam Hospital's HIV/Viral Hepatitis Coinfection program, states in the July, 2014 Rhode Island Medical Journal special edition, "RI Defeats Hep C" that eliminating hepatitis c virus infection (hep c or HCV) is feasible, can provide economic benefits, enhance capacity to address other health challenges, and improve health care disparities.
The planet's current biodiversity, the product of 3.5 billion years of evolutionary trial and error, is the highest in the history of life. But it may be reaching a tipping point.
In a new review of scientific literature and analysis of data published in Science, an international team of scientists cautions that the loss and decline of animals is contributing to what appears to be the early days of the planet's sixth mass biological extinction event.
When a foreign material like a medical device or surgical implant is put inside the human body, the body always responds. According to Northwestern University's Guillermo Ameer, most of the time, that response can be negative and affect the device's function.
TORONTO, June 23, 2014 – Some sticky research out of York University shows a surprisingly effective way to fight against a certain species of toxic grass fungus: moose saliva (yes… moose saliva).
Published in this month's Biology Letters, "Ungulate saliva inhibits a grass–endophyte mutualism" shows that moose and reindeer saliva, when applied to red fescue grass (which hosts a fungus called epichloë festucae that produces the toxin ergovaline) results in slower fungus growth and less toxicity.
MADISON — To share is human.
And the means to share personal news — good and bad — have exploded over the last decade, particularly social media and texting. But until now, all research about what is known as "social sharing," or the act of telling others about the important events in our lives, has been restricted to face-to-face interactions.
PITTSBURGH—Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University, working with high-throughput data generated by breast cancer biologists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, have devised a computational method to determine how gene networks are rewired as normal breast cells turn malignant and as they respond to potential cancer therapy agents.
This method for analyzing how genes interact with each other in laboratory-grown cells is described in a report published today by the online journal PLOS Computational Biology.
Reversing the increasing rate of global biodiversity losses may not be possible without embracing intensive, and sometimes controversial, forms of threatened species management, according to a New Zealand zoologist and colleagues writing in the leading international journal Science.
Research published today in PLOS Pathogens reveals how viruses called bacteriophages destroy the bacterium Clostridium difficile (C. diff), which is becoming a serious problem in hospitals and healthcare institutes, due to its resistance to antibiotics. The study, by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Hamburg, Germany, could help bring about a new way of fighting this and other bacteria.
A research team led by Jackson Laboratory Professor and Howard Hughes Investigator Susan Ackerman, Ph.D., have pinpointed a surprising mechanism behind neurodegeneration in mice, one that involves a defect in a key component of the cellular machinery that makes proteins, known as transfer RNA or tRNA.
While HIV is found in many body fluids, sexual transmission through semen is the most common route of infection. Consequently, the amount of virus in semen (the semen viral load) affects the likelihood of HIV transmission. Besides sperm, semen also contains immune factors and communities of bacteria, an environment that could influence the viral load.
PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University researchers say ancestral exposures to the pesticide methoxychlor may lead to adult onset kidney disease, ovarian disease and obesity in future generations.
"What your great-grandmother was exposed to during pregnancy, like the pesticide methoxychlor, may promote a dramatic increase in your susceptibility to develop disease, and you will pass this on to your grandchildren in the absence of any continued exposures," says Michael Skinner, WSU professor and founder of its Center for Reproductive Biology.