Elephants imitate sounds as a form of social communication
...ct mimic for the chirp-like calls of his long-time zoo mates. The chirps are made by Asian elephants but not by African elephants. Calimero often mimicked the chirps but rarely made any other sounds. "Many species with similar social systems as elephants use vocal imitation to maintain individual-specifi...Primate virus jumps species barrier to humans for first time in Asia
...es of people being infected, through laboratory or zoo contact, or through bushmeat hunting in Africa. There are no known cases of human disease yet. However, Jones-Engel and her fellow researchers warn that there are other primate viruses known to be harmful that could jump the species barrier. They do...What is good for the goose or the gander?
...ed animal may mean lost revenue. From a tiger in a zoo to a dairy cow on a farm, students learn to scientifically evaluate a variety of animals living in different situations. "In the past, animal welfare was viewed as a very subjective type of discipline," Zanella said. "Too often we make assumptions o...New book expands biological classifications to account for 'alien' life
...le new biology," Ward said. "There's going to be a zoo of aliens on Earth in the next two decades just from what we make."...Bringing the zoos to the zebras
... Earthwatch makes keepers better able to teach the zoo public about the ecological issues confronting Gre...forward to continuing our close collaboration with zoo personnel in the effort to improve awareness and management of life on Earth." As part of WildCare I...Duke biologist/poet is up to 'animal mischief'
..., Jackson's new book explores in whimsical verse a zoo of penguins, sharks, fireflies, armadillos, sloths, octopi and other creatures. But on closer reading, each poem contains a tidbit of knowledge about each animal, slyly aimed at interesting young readers in their biology. For example, there's the dec...Common practices at petting zoos put visitors at risk
...d an observational survey of visitors to a petting zoo at the 2005 South Carolina state fair. Despite th...imately 28% of people observed exiting the petting zoo did not wash their hands. In a similar survey, researchers from the Tennessee Department of Health ......s get the girls. Now, an innovative study based on zoo animals all across America shows for the first tim...act, up to one-half of the length and density of a zoo lion's mane can be attributed to temperature, rather than nutrition, social factors, individual hist...Ocean microbe census discovers diverse world of rare bacteria
...t a swallow of seawater may be consuming an entire zoo of 1,000 different forms of bacteria!" Says co-author Julie Huber of the MBL: "We cannot know the implications of a major, long-term environmental shift if we do not know what species were there to start with. What is rare in one environment may p...Renewed dolphin slaughter prompts new campaign
...of Taiji and Futo, a consortium of scientists and zoo and aquarium professionals has launched a campaign to end the practices through public awareness and by appealing to the government of Japan to put an end to the hunts. The "Act for Dolphins" campaign--which includes members from The New York Aquariu...MIT engineers probe spiders' polymer art
...(She simply gathered some up from the grounds; the zoo does not exhibit golden orb spiders.) "This is pretty scary," he said. "I'd never seen a spider this big. I never grew up around anything with furry knuckles." But he quickly settled into dissecting the peanut-sized and -shaped protuberance on the ...Worms produce surprise insight into human fever
...ways as they came into direct contact with a small zoo of pathogenic microbes. The big surprise was the discovery that the HSF-1 pathway was required for C. elegans immunity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella enterica, Yersinia pestis, and Enterococcus faecalis. It indicated that HSF-1 is par...Human skin harbors completely unknown bacteria
... skin, the largest organ in our body, is a kind of zoo and some of the inhabitants are quite novel, accor...rs of the study. "The skin is home to a virtual zoo of bacteria," he says. This study is publishedFebruary 5, 2007, in the online edition of the Proceed...Crane hatching marks a first for Smithsonian's National Zoo
... There are 63 wattled cranes in the North America zoo population and an estimated 8,000 in the wild. Adult wattled cranes stand 6 feet tall and weigh approximately 14 pounds. In the wild, their primary diet consists of aquatic plants and insects. Wattled cranes are listed as "vulnerable" by The World Co...ACS News Service Weekly PressPac -- May 16, 2007
...or, that have housed everything from prisoners and zoo animals to the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom, scientists in the UK and Italy are reporting. The research is scheduled for publication in the June 15 issue of ACS Environmental Science & Technology , a semi-monthly journal. In the study, Peter...Stray penguins probably reached northern waters by fishing boat
...n't much chance the birds spotted in the wild were zoo escapees, the scientists said. Penguins used to be...d of flipper tag, so a penguin that escaped from a zoo should be able to be identified pretty easily," Van Buren said. She added that the more recent si...