Tag: "nonhuman" at biology news

A gene's first 'kiss' sets off that affair known as puberty

...l receptor of GPR54, the researchers looked to the nonhuman primate, the only animal with a reproductive system in common with the human's. The onset of puberty becomes official when gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) is secreted and sets off a chain reaction of chemical messages. Inside the hypothalamus,...

Novel Enzyme Shows Potential As An Anti-HIV Target

...n comparison to the 3.2 gigabases of its human and nonhuman primate targets. The compact retrovirus encodes just 14 proteins, which play different roles in promoting viral infection and virulence. As a retrovirus, HIV uses the host’s cellular machinery—including RNA polymerases, which carry out transcription—...

A New Species of Monkey is Discovered in Tanzania: The First in Africa for More Than 20 Years

...le we know about our closest living relatives, the nonhuman primates," said Russell A. Mittermeier, who chairs the Primate Specialist Group of IUCN-The World Conservation Union's Species Survival Commission. ``A large, striking monkey in a country of considerable wildlife research over the last century has be...

Primates on the brink

...lagship Species" and our closest living relatives, nonhuman primates are important to the health of their surrounding ecosystems. Through the dispersal of seeds and other interactions with their environments, primates help support a wide range of plant and animal life that make up the Earth's forests. The 20...

Ebola virus: from wildlife to dogs

...l investigation conducted from 1980 to 2000 on 790 nonhuman primates from Cameroon, Gabon and the Republic of Congo, belonging to 20 different species, hence revealed that 12.9 % of wild chimpanzees carry Ebola virus antibodies, several of the positive samples dating from before the first epidemics in these c...

Monkeys understand numbers across senses

...egarding whether perception of numerical values by nonhuman animals or human infants was tied to the sense used to perceive the number. To resolve the question, said Brannon, the researchers decided to design an experiment that used socially relevant stimuli. "Our approach really derives from thinking about ...

Researchers report breakthrough against world’s deadliest viruses

...st vaccine system, or platform, that has protected nonhuman primates from both Ebola and Marburg. "In addition, the vaccine targets dendritic cells, which are the same cells that Ebola and Marburg attack," said Dr. Geisbert. "These cells are also important in generating a protective immune response. So the va...

Human brain is still evolving

...arched for sequence differences between humans and nonhuman primates. By doing statistical analysis on these sequence differences, they could demonstrate that the differences were due to natural selection that drove significant sequence changes in the lineage leading to humans. These changes accumulated presu...

Wild Gorillas Handy with a Stick

...ior in chimps in Guinea. By then it was clear that nonhuman primates used objects for many tasks, from intimidating rivals and predators to taking leaf sponge baths and processing food. Still, the notion that tool use was not the sole province of human intelligence was difficult for some to accept. Though ch...

Gene-specific Ebola therapies protect non-human primates from lethal disease

...Ebola virus infection that protected 75 percent of nonhuman primates exposed to the lethal disease. This is th...ral intervention against filoviruses like Ebola in nonhuman primates. The findings could serve as the basis for a new approach to quickly develop virus-specific...

Chimpanzee study reveals genome variation hotspots

...d on a genome-wide scale in a population sample of nonhuman primates," Perry says of the findings published May 15 in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Perry, who is the study's lead author, says: "These copy number variants may be very significan...

HIV-1's high virulence might be an accident of evolution

... among many species of monkeys, naturally infected nonhuman primates usually don't suffer the symptoms associated with AIDS. The evidence now revealed by an international team of researchers is the first to offer an explanation for this striking difference. The group found that a viral protein earlier shown ...

Stem cell expansion

...in humans, Kiem and colleagues therefore turned to nonhuman primates, an established preclinical model for HSC transplantation and gene therapy. The team showed that HOXB4 over-expression in populations of cells enriched for stem cells (i.e. those that are used for transplantation) for 6-9 days prior to tr...

Vaccine combined with short-term postexposure antibiotics protects monkeys from inhalational anthrax

...a short course of antibiotics completely protected nonhuman primates from inhalational anthrax, the most letha...ibiotics given postexposure can completely protect nonhuman primates from inhalational anthrax," said senior author Arthur M. Friedlander, M.D., of USAMRIID. "O...

Complexity constrains evolution of human brain genes

...nction evolved much more rapidly in humans than in nonhuman primates and other mammals because of natural selection processes unique to the human lineage. The comparative pace of organ-specific evolution, however, turns out to be difficult to measure. To assess the speed with which both humans and chimpanz...

Gene mutation linked to cognition is found only in humans

...at underlies the traits that set humans apart from nonhuman primates, recent studies have focused on identifying genes that have been positively selected during human evolution. They conclude, "The present results underscore the potential importance of the creation of novel splicing forms in the central nervo...

Ancient retrovirus sheds light on modern pandemic

...o a retrovirus that infected chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates 4 million years ago ironically may be at least partially responsible for the susceptibility of humans to HIV infection today. These findings, reported by a team of researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the June 22 issue o...

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