Tag: "cope" at biology news

'Personality-gene' makes songbirds curious

...ble changes in their environment and how well they cope with these changes", explains Bart Kempenaers. "If we want to understand the ecological and evolutionary importance of variation in personality in natural, free-living animal populations, it would help a lot to know the molecular genetic mechanisms b...

Amphibians in losing race with environmental change

...s may be too intense and too new for amphibians to cope with them," the researchers wrote in their report. "Behaviors and ecological attributes that have probably persisted, and were probably beneficial, for millions of years . . . under today's conditions may subject amphibians to a variety of damaging a...

Corals -- More complex than you?

...mmune system is a black box at present. How corals cope with the worldwide upsurge in diseases, and the extent to which they are affected by other stresses caused by human activity are important questions. The similarity of the coral and human innate immune repertoires implies that they may function in si...

Super-fermenting fungus genome sequenced

...aid that yeast strains like Pichia have evolved to cope with the oxygen-limited environment rich in partially digested wood that is encountered in the gut of insects, from where the sequenced strain was originally isolated. FPL has a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) in place with ...

Ancient genes used to produce salt-tolerant wheat

...ate salt -- to identify wheat varieties that could cope with higher salinity. They were particularly interested in the premium-priced durum wheat, which is much more salt-sensitive than bread wheat. "We screened a hundred durum wheats from the Australian Winter Cereals Collection at Tamworth, which con...

How trees manage water in arid environments

...regions of the world such as India, residents must cope with a season of high temperatures, high winds and high moisture, resulting in potentially deadly weather. The Arizona monsoon usually begins around July 7 and continues for the next two months, resulting in about one-third of the region's yearly ...

Scientists find hormone activity explains adolescent mood swings

... stress for most teenagers, making it difficult to cope with this period of life. Until now, the specific causes of pubertal anxiety have not been identified, making it harder to understand and treat adolescent angst. In the current edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers led by Sheryl S...

Is there a pilot in the insect?

...imeters and variometers. An insect brain wouldn't cope with these cumbersome, heavy, energy-consuming devices. This important work shows that this new science called biorobotics, that the team from Marseille started in 1985, is important both for fundamental and applied research. The method consists i...

Protein sensor for fatty acid buildup in mitochondria

...ing carnitine supplements might help PKAN patients cope with this debilitating disease." "One of our challenges is how to develop an animal model of this disease that we can use to determine if reduced dietary fat and carnitine supplements offer hope in the treatment of PKAN in humans," said Suzanne Ja...

Living with water scarcity -- world must act now

...tter water systems will be a key to helping people cope with dry spells. Poverty, hunger, gender inequality, and environmental degradation continue to afflict developing countries not because of technical failings but because of political and institutional failings. There is need for drastic reform in...

Turning a cellular sentinel into a cancer killer

...pies aimed at reactivating p53 would still have to cope with the adaptability of cancers. "For any therapies based on these findings, you would have to imagine that sooner or later, resistance would develop," said Lowe. "And I think the challenge—which is true for any therapy where you can get resistance—...

Vaccine to cope with viral diversity in HIV

...re an efficient algorithm to develop vaccines that cope with the diversity of HIV or other variable pathogens. This computational method clarifies and analyzes the variation found in the strains of the virus by describing the molecules which stimulate the immune response to HIV (immunogens) that have mul...

Trying to control pain can be a double-edged sword, say scientists

...ications for how patients with persistent pain can cope with what is often a debilitating condition. Usin...eam set up an experiment to investigate how people cope with pain. In the first stage, volunteers were given an electric stimulus to the backs of their hand...

Cities change the songs of birds

...in the original habitat are replaced by those that cope well with urban conditions. Many species do not live in cities and do not breed close to highways, and indeed the birds of urbanized areas are highly similar: The same few species become common everywhere, while the area’s original species variety is...

Reef warns of sea level rise

...on: warning coastal dwellers what they may have to cope with under global warming. A fossil coral reef, lying several metres above today's high tide mark at Foul Bay near Margaret River, points to the high point of the last major sea level rise. Investigators from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral...

Train your brain to hear your friends at a party

...oss over time. Their brains are being "trained" to cope with the hearing loss and distinguish sounds much ...n, and sending messages back to the eye to help it cope with different situations. We think something very similar is happening with the ear in spatial hear...

Seals protect brain, conserve oxygen by turning off shivering response on icy dives

...e hypothermic) during a dive, presumably to better cope with a lack of oxygen (hypoxia). Research into hypothermia and hypoxia is important because they are problems that affect people under a variety of circumstances. Doctors often are called upon to treat people who have suffered accidental hypothermia,...

Too mellow for our predatory world

...nto the wild, animals are trained to recognise and cope with predators. But in most cases it is very difficult to predict the flexibility in behaviour because little is known about the underlying physiological mechanisms that control behaviour such as flight. The scientist around Thomas Roedl from the M...

Common carp sheds new light on surviving in extreme environments

...the summers are hot and steamy. "Its ability to cope with such extreme conditions of temperature, lack of oxygen and dirty, sediment-laden water makes it a particularly good subject for working out how animals can tolerate stress because the underlying mechanisms are so exaggerated and displayed so cle...

Parallel evolution: Proteins do it, too

... a pancreatic enzyme helped Asian colobine monkeys cope with an unusual diet. "Colobines are different from other monkeys in that they primarily eat leaves rather than fruit or insects, and leaves are very difficult to digest," Zhang said. The monkeys manage with a digestive system similar to a cow's. B...

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