Culture
Parrots are considered extraordinarily clever animals. Alex, the famous Harvard-based African grey parrot, communicated with a vocabulary of more than 500 human words, could answer questions and classify objects spontaneously. Scientists from the Max-Planck-Institute for Ornithology based at the research station outpost for parrot comparative cognition in the Loro Parque in Tenerife, Spain, have shown that parrots exhibit a high level of social intelligence and cooperativeness. They readily help others, even when there is no immediate opportunity for reciprocation.
Scientists at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and Georg August University Göttingen have succeeded in proving that a claw disease in cows is primarily genetic. Until now, the occurrence of interdigital hyperplasia has mostly been attributed to poor hygiene conditions in the barn. However, a team led by Professor Hermann Swalve discovered a farm in which the disease occurred frequently and was able to identify the gene responsible. As a result, the disease may now be contained through selective breeding.
Researchers at Radboud university medical center have developed a 'deep learning' system that is better than most pathologists at determining the aggressiveness of prostate cancer. The AI system, which uses tissue samples to arrive at its diagnosis, taught itself to identify prostate cancer based on data from over 1200 patients. The Radboud team is now working with researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and Kaggle, a Google subsidiary, with the intention to continue developing these methods as part of a major international competition.
Cardiff University scientists have shed new light on the Earth's climate behaviour during the last known period of global warming over 14 million years ago.
During this period, known as the middle Miocene Climate Optimum, global temperatures were as much as 3 to 4 degrees warmer than today's average temperatures, similar to estimates for 2100. The position of the continents were similar to today and the seas were flourishing with life.
As many as seven to 10 million people in the world are thought to live with Parkinson's disease (PD). Being the second most common neurodegenerative disease, PD severely affects patients' quality of life, not just brining movement abnormalities. Despite its prevalence and negative impact, current medical treatments for PD rely on alleviating PD symptoms with little efforts to explore ways to reverse the symptoms.
To date, biodiversity research primarily focused on the number of plant species present in ecosystems. "Most studies so far have used small, artificially established study plots. However, real-world landscapes are much more complex, and, in addition to natural areas, also contain human-dominated elements such as arable land and urban areas", says Pascal Niklaus, professor at the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zurich (UZH).
5,000 Swiss landscapes analyzed
The folding state of the proteins in live cells often reflect the cell's general health. Australian scientists have developed a molecular probe that senses the state of the proteome--the entire set of the proteins--by measuring the polarity of the protein environment. The fluorescence signal of the probe quantifies unfolding and its chameleon-like color shift maps the cellular regions of enhanced misfolding, says the study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.
Increased body temperature is the single-most commonly noted abnormal finding for the medical practitioner. While it may be a sign of something relatively innocuous, it can also be an indication of underlying critical illness. In cats, an elevated body temperature equates to a reading in excess of 39.2°C or 102.5°F and, as in humans, it can arise as a result of two major mechanisms: hyperthermia and fever. Hyperthermia refers to a sudden and uncontrolled increase in temperature owing to failure of the body's thermoregulatory mechanism.
Researchers from the University of Amsterdam and Tilburg University published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that assesses Retailer-Themed Super Saver Events and the effects they have on consumers.
The study forthcoming in the March issue of the Journal of Marketing is titled "Evaluating the Effectiveness of Retailer-Themed Super Saver Events" and is authored by Jonne Guyt and Els Gijsbrechts.
We all will experience it at some point, unfortunately: The older we get the more our brains will find it difficult to learn and remember new things. What the reasons underlying these impairments are is yet unclear but scientists at the Center for Regenerative Therapies of TU Dresden (CRTD) wanted to investigate if increasing the number of stem cells in the brain would help in recovering cognitive functions, such as learning and memory, that are lost during ageing.
Scientists have developed a new way to understand complex genetic diseases and have identified a gene that modifies the severity of inherited kidney disease, paving the way for personalised treatments.
Experts at Newcastle University, UK, have shown that the rate of kidney disease in people with Joubert syndrome is determined by the genetic makeup of the individual and each patient may respond differently to treatment.
Be it autism, sickle cell or other life-disrupting health conditions, being the parent of a child with a chronic condition takes a psychological toll. For too many families, however, emotional and behavioral health support has been far too difficult to obtain.
As early as 4 years old, children associate power and masculinity, even in countries considered to be more egalitarian like Norway. This is what scientists at the Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod (CNRS/Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1) report, in collaboration with the Universities of Oslo (Norway), Lausanne and Neuchâtel (Switzerland), in a study published on 7 January 2020 in Sex Roles. They also show that in some situations the power-masculinity association does not manifest in girls.
New research has demonstrated how food producers could change the surface texture of products to change people's perceptions and promote healthy eating.
The study, led by Consumer Psychologist Dr Cathrine Jansson-Boyd of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), investigated people's perceptions of identical biscuits with six different textures.
Researchers have found people on the brink of release from a prison sentence have lost any sense of being connected to the outside world and, as a result, become prejudiced towards wider society.
Seeing the outside world as this 'other' makes it more difficult to reintegrate and be rehabilitated, but new research has found a simple, structured conversation in the days leading up to a prisoner being released could dramatically turn their attitude and sense of belonging around.