Tag: "primates" at biology news

Reconstructing the biology of extinct species: A new approach

...s and locomotor pattern is evident both within the primates alone and within the entire mammalian sample. "How an animal moves is a basic adaptation," says Walker, an expert in primate locomotion. "Now we have a way to reconstruct how extinct species moved that is completely independent of analysis of the...

Ancient retrovirus sheds light on modern pandemic

...virus 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 of Science...

Implanting dopamine generators in brain cells obtains improvement in Parkinson's in monkeys

...rch was extended to a greater number of non- human primates and for a longer period of time. The procedure involved implanting cell fragments extracted from the carotid body in the striate area of the brain. The carotid body is a small structure located at the bifurcation of the carotid artery, at the level o...

Jefferson scientists find rabies-based vaccine could be effective against HIV

...the initial vaccination, four vaccinated non-human primates were protected from disease, even after being "challenged" with a dangerous animal-human virus. Two control animals developed an AIDS-like disease. Matthias Schnell, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and immunology at Jefferson Medical College of ...

Female chimps keep the bullies at bay

...avioral Ecology and Sociobiology. Most studies of primates to date have suggested that females synchronize their reproductive activities. However, it has been very difficult to demonstrate this analytically. Matsumoto-Oda and colleagues have developed a new index ?the estrus synchrony index* - to analyze w...

Metacognition: Faced with a test, rats can check their knowledge first

...on or concepts. But in past work, metacognition in primates had been successfully probed by employing an ingenious technique: Animals were familiarized with a test that assessed a certain kind of knowledge that they may or may not have obtained during a "study period," and were then given a choice of taking t...

Analysis of rhesus monkey genome uncovers genetic differences with humans, chimps

...hat important features that have been conserved in primates over time can be more easily seen by comparing rhesus to human, than chimp to human. By adding the rhesus genome to the primate comparison, researchers identified nearly 200 genes likely to be key players in determining differences among primate s...

Birth rate, competition are major players in hominid extinctions

...tition often spelled extinction. "The lineages of primates have some traits that make it hard for them to res...less seasonal. The beneficial environment allowed primates to evolve as relatively brainy animals that reproduce slowly. However, when climate changed so that...

Study uncovers a lethal secret of 1918 influenza virus

In a study of non-human primates infected with the influenza virus that killed 50 m...f Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory, seven primates were infected with the reconstructed 1918 virus. Clinical signs of disease were apparent within 24 h...

Uganda's mountain gorillas increase in number

...his world where a small population of a endangered primates is actually increasing.? According to the census, which also successfully used for the first time genetic samples from fecal specimens, Bwindi’s gorilla population now numbers 340 individual gorillas, up from 320 in 2002, and 300 in 1997. The ...

Making mice with enhanced color vision

...al generations to evolve new sight." Retinas of primates such as humans and monkeys are unique among mammal...ision. In contrast, among Old World (African) primates such as humans, the two different X chromosome genes duplicated so that each X chromosome now carrie...

New evidence of 'human' culture among primates

...evidence of material culture among the "new world" primates of Central or South America, which include Capuchi...pologists with a rare and highly-prized example of primates using stone technology, adding to the archaeological record of primate behaviour. Most items used by...

Targeting tumors the natural way

...rthand, while the cells of humans and other higher primates do not. What humans and primates do produce in abundance is an antibody against the carbohydrate, called anti-Gal. When scientists...

E. coli bacteria migrating between humans, chimps in Ugandan park

...d bacterial exchanges between humans and non-human primates ?particularly in areas where the animals are known...ed that the exchange of microbes between non-human primates and humans is not new. Two deadly viruses, HIV and Ebola, are believed to be linked to chimpanzees a...

Fishy cooperation

...is quite common in the animal kingdom—for example, primates have specialized signals to solicit each other's support in fights. What is truly spectacular about this study is that the entire interaction pattern—two actors who seemingly know what they are going to do and how this will benefit them—is not one we...

A buffet for early human relatives

... more adaptable in savanna environments than other primates which had a more restricted diet." Other studies have suggested that the diets of human ancestors and relatives became more varied about 3 million years ago when Africa's climate started getting drier and more seasonal. That was shortly before th...

Singing for survival

...his work is a really good indicator that non-human primates are able to use combinations of calls given in oth...e apes." Gibbons are renowned amongst non-human primates for their loud and impressive songs that transmit over long distances and are commonly used in their...

On the golf tee or pitcher's mound, brain dooms motion to inconsistency

...lve the problem more capably, but people and other primates simply aren't wired for consistency like computers or machines. Instead, people seem to be improvisers by default. A major conclusion of the study, in fact, is that movement variability is not primarily a mechanical phenomenon, as had widely been t...

Study suggests evolutionary link between diet, brain size in orangutans

... found what they say is the first demonstration in primates of an evolutionary connection between available fo...hemselves be tied to smaller brains in such higher primates as orangutans, van Schaik and Taylor wrote in their current report. "Larger-brained apes have slow...

Complexity constrains evolution of human brain genes

...olved 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 chimpanzees accum...

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