Origins of 'modern' behavior might be linked to population pressures
BOSTON, MASS.- Some unique behaviors associated with modern humans--including a shift in diet and the earliest evidence of personal ornaments like beads--may be linked to an increase in human population density between 40 and 50 thousand years ago, Mary C. Stiner and Steven L. Kuhn repo...New theory of the evolution of bird flight linked to parental care
...ncept that sophisticated nest-building and feeding behaviors emerged much later in the development of parenting traits; and While Archaeopteryx had highly advanced feathers, its bone and muscle structure appear to have equipped it for only limited flight. This makes sense, according to the parental care theo...New rat resource and research center to help investigators understand human disease
... the human nervous system as it relates to various behaviors and drug addiction. Additional research has focused on the renal system, immunological systems, and reproduction, among others. "The mouse and rat genomes are currently being mapped and sequenced, and this activity is expected to facilitate deriva...Scientists use seals as 'underwater eyes'
...eet). The teams findings shed new light on the behaviors of the two species. For example, the researchers now believe, based on the seal cam data, that the silverfish migrate from deeper to shallower water using ambient light, even in the absence of a sunset during the Antarctic summer, as a cue. Never...Major stress during pregnancy linked to autism
... pattern of behaviors. These behaviors typically stay with the child throughout his or her life. "With this information there will be other studies that can hopefully determine what are the causes and influences of autism ...Female vulnerability to drugs tied to estrogen, U-M researcher reports
...m. These brain areas are known to be important in behaviors such as eating, sex, and compulsive drug use. "My ...d colleagues have found that estrogen enhances the behaviors that females engage in to slow male rats down. "So, the effects of estrogen to enhance sexual motiv...Mice with human protein, COX-2, exhibit age-related memory loss similar to Alzheimer's disease
... including mazes and swimming tests. The animals' behaviors in the test situations reflected how brain levels of the human COX-2 protein affected their learning and memory at different ages. "The effect of having lots of the human COX-2 protein is remarkable in these mice," says Andreasson. "At age seven m...Depressed heart attack survivors unlikely to change behavior
...e-evaluated to see if they were adopting healthier behaviors as recommended by their physician. Depression was observed in 31 patients (20 percent). Within that group, the worse the patients perceived their health to be, the higher their levels of depression, hypertension and diabetes. They also were more l...Children's book explores why animals stay home to help
... readers will be intrigued by animal stories about behaviors that pose many questions and offer some -- but not all -- of the answers. "It's never too early," Sherman says, "to get children hooked on the magic and mysteries of behavioral biology."......agnosis of autism and, in particular, the defining behaviors of children with autism. People with autism represent a broad spectrum of impairment, ranging from normal intelligence and good basic language skills to significant intellectual deficits and little or no language. A common diagnostic scheme for asses...African bone tool discovery has important implications for evolution of human behavior
...came out fully modern, with fully developed modern behaviors that had evolved much earlier than previously thought.The new evidence includes the recent discovery in a South African cave of a large set of specialized bone tools, all dated at more than 70,000 years old. The discovery conclusively proves that hum...Palatin Technologies' PT-141 increases sexual behavior in female animals
...effect on a variety of normal precopulatory sexual behaviors that are used by female rodents to heighten sexual...ncrease in a variety of these precopulatory sexual behaviors and actively solicited sexual contact from the males. Importantly, PT-141 treatment increased the fe...Researchers put their heads together to understand complex world of wild plants and animals
... by biologists. "Though biologists have models for behaviors of cells or individual organisms," says Stiller, "we need to devise larger, more integrated models, where you have many interacting species in different environments." Species of different sizes - say an insect and an elephant - perceive environment ...NSF awards $55 million in grants to study biocomplexity in the environment
...plete understanding of natural processes, of human behaviors and decisions in the natural world, and of ways to use new technology effectively to observe the environment and sustain the diversity of life on earth. Scientists, engineers, and educators must work in teams across diverse fields, s......s to use the vaccine as a reason to increase risky behaviors by counting on the vaccine to act as protection against HIV. Participating in this trial is one way to make an important contribution to HIV vaccine research, said Evans. It will take a sustained and probably lengthy effort to develop a vaccine that ...Age at first drink: What does it really mean?
... (AFD). An early AFD may in fact be one of several behaviors that comprise 'behavioral undercontrol.' Parents w...arily specific to alcoholism but is one of several behaviors that make up a more general, underlying problem of behavioral undercontrol. "It has been thought tha...Both smells and pheromones may arouse instinctive behaviors in mammals
...semiochemicals' -- signaling molecules that elicit behaviors that are advantageous to the sender or the receiver," Novotny said. "The house mouse provides a classic example of an elaborate pheromone communication system: to signal inter-male aggression and dominance, to show readiness for mating, to slow down ...Untangling the matrix of risk factors for alcoholism
...transmitter serotonin is believed to regulate many behaviors and emotions. Genetic variation in the serotonin transporter gene may partially determine overall levels of serotonergic function. Children of alcoholics (COAs) have a high risk of developing alcoholism, simply by virtue of their family history of a...Biting may drive division of labor among social wasp workers
...es seem to do little work. The range of biting behaviors observed varied, ranging from mild to highly aggre...g its best to escape. "These are not different behaviors but a continuum of the same behavior, and the intensity of biting can transition to a more aggressiv......med nest-building, we suspect that other motivated behaviors may also be rescued by treatment. Dopamine has many functions outside the caudate putamen, said Michelle Brot, a co-investigator on the study. Brot points out that restoration of feeding by viral treatment of the caudate putamen provides a uniqu...