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Tag: "behavior" at biology news

Invasive ants territorial when neighbors are not kin

...esearchers found a very close relationship between behavior and genetics. Ants that were genetically similar had peaceful relations. Ants that were genetically different attacked each other. "Our results are strong evidence that lack of genetic diversity permits supercolonies to arise," said Melissa Thoma...

Power emerges from consensus in monkey social networks

...es on how individuals use signals to influence the behavior of receivers, thus primarily focusing on pairs of individuals. However, the role communication plays in the emergence of social structures is rarely studied. In a new paper from The American Naturalist, Santa Fe Institute researchers Jessica Flack an...

Math model predicts cancer behavior

... "Computational models like this, in which complex behavior emerges from computer simulations grounded in unde.... "Sandy (Anderson) was able to capture the random behavior of cells." In the model, when cells divide they randomly choose from a set of 100 different "pheno...

'Killer' B cells provide new link in the evolution of immunity

...ly attacking and eating foreign bodies, which is a behavior that, according to the current dogma, just shouldn't happen in B cells," said J. Oriol Sunyer, a professor in Penn Vet's Department of Pathobiology and leader of the research team. The researchers determined that these attack B cells account for mo...

British cattle give TB to badgers, finds UC Davis expert

...d doubled. "Culling disrupts badgers' territorial behavior so they travel further and interact with more other badgers; that is probably why disease spreads more rapidly," said Woodroffe, the leader of a team which also included researchers from Britain's Central Science Laboratory and Veterinary Laboratorie...

Why do some queen bees eat their worker bee's eggs?

... policing. This theory is widespread and in animal behavior textbooks. However, Hamilton's relatedness hypothesis was challenged in 2004 by researchers from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. They compared 50 species and found no evidence that multiple mating by the queen correlated with reduced rear...

New research identifies gene important for nicotine's effects on the brain

...nging their activity we can understand how overall behavior is changed. " Picciotto's work explored how the brain changes when it receives nicotine and, therefore, focused on the dopamine system in the brain. Dopamine is one of a number of neurotransmitters that plays an important role in motivation and re...

Researchers identify neurons that assign value during learning

...ssociative learning, animals learn to change their behavior in response to a particular stimulus that would otherwise have a neutral influence on behavior. For example, if an animal such as a fruit fly learns to associate a particular odor with a punishing stimulus, the odor itself can become repulsive. Conve...

Fishy cooperation

...develop cognitively demanding accounts for our own behavior and believe that absent the same cognition, the behavior simply cannot take place. It is very well possible, however, that our accounts overestimate the amou...

Fruit fly study identifies gene mutation that regulates sensitivity to alcohol

...& Research Center. The scientists examined the behavior of fruit flies (Drosophila) exposed to alcohol. Or...uit flies to vaporized alcohol and monitored their behavior and motion patterns with sensitive tracking instruments. They isolated the flies that were less sens...

LSD treatment for alcoholism gets new look

...ten marked a "rock bottom" or turning point in the behavior of alcoholics, and they felt LSD may be able to tr...selves and allowed them to see their own unhealthy behavior more objectively, and then determine to change it," said Dyck, who read the researchers' published a...

Researchers to develop active nanoscale surfaces for biological separations

...plying an electric field, we propose to change the behavior of the surfaces." In one approach, Kane and his colleagues are building a molecular obstacle course made up of nanoscale domains. When an electric field is applied at one end, DNA molecules will move across the surface and collide with the obstacles,...

Archerfish tune their shots to universal properties of prey adhesion

...y that shed light on how this impressive predatory behavior has evolved. The findings are reported by Thomas S...e strategy may reflect the evolution of archerfish behavior in accordance with a recently discovered scaling law: Among animals such as flies and lizards, an an...

Pheromone from mother's milk may rapidly promote learning in newborn mammals

...of actions when searching for milk. This searching behavior rapidly becomes increasingly directed, showing tha...lone would later elicit the typical food-searching behavior in the pups, the researchers were able to show that the pheromone is indeed effective at promoting t...

Plants give up answers in the war on bacteria

...ate student, in He's laboratory, shed light on the behavior of one the plant's first lines of defense against disease. Pores called stomata are like tiny mouths that open and close during photosynthesis, exchanging gases. In sunshine, the stomata open. In darkness, they close to conserve water. It has been...

Proteins may behave differently in natural environments

...stern Medical Center in Dallas, found such dynamic behavior in a mutant form of a protein called GroEL, which chaperones or helps misfolded protein molecules fold into the shape that allows them to achieve their purpose in the cells. Misfolded proteins have been implicated in a number of neurodegenerative and...

Inheritance outside DNA

...f IGF2 imprinting seems to particularly affect the behavior of the adult stem cells that continually regenerate the colon in mice. This probably plays a role in the increased risk of colon cancer, says Feinberg. Spotting epigenetic markers like lost IGF2 in humans could be used in future cancer-prevention ...

Some butterflies travel farther, reproduce faster

...y is a window to how genetic differences influence behavior and how the environment influences genetic change ...rences that may account for the more adventuresome behavior of certain of the females. The work is important because human activity is disrupting many animal ...

Climate change creates dramatic decline in red-winged black bird population

... Weatherhead, an ecologist who specializes in the behavior of birds and snakes, says that although some people may be in denial, global warming exists. "There are long-term records that show melting glaciers and altered ecological patterns like earlier migration and earlier nesting of birds. "When you fir...

Hormone linked to brain's cravings for food and other energy sources

...euronal activity, which controls reward-associated behavior to promote interest in food as a reward. As a default, ghrelin's action may also alter seeking of drugs and substances that work through the same pathways. "We found that if we selectively block ghrelin in this part of the brain, we can suppress f...

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