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Tag: "trait" at biology news

ASU research shows connection between testosterone, dietary antioxidants and bird coloration

... it relates to sexual signals, because it enhances trait production but comes at a health price to the animal.” “This study shows that testosterone may not be as costly as previously thought, so long as animals can nutritionally offset the immune detriments of testosterone. They may even experience a ne...

Researchers demonstrate way to control tree height

...ossible value, from that perspective, is that this trait might be used to help control the spread of exotic and potentially invasive trees that are commonly sold by nurseries. The initial studies were done with poplar, Strauss said. Similar results should be possible in any tree species, but are limited...

'Personality-gene' makes songbirds curious

...ted a promising link between the Drd4-gene and the trait curiosity (novelty-seeking). Scientists from the M...n in their level of curiosity. "The personality trait can be an important predictor of how individuals will respond to predictable and unpredictable chang...

Female-led infanticide in wild chimpanzees

...te that deadly aggression is not a gender-specific trait in this species. ...

Scientists seek useful traits in wild cottons

...p impart drought resistance and make more accurate trait selections in the future. Natalia Castill...ower blooms open. Determining whether this trait is dominant, co-dominant or recessive and finding its DNA location could help breeders develop uplan...

Researchers identify gene involved in dog size

...the researchers also concluded that the small size trait emerged relatively early in the history of domestic dogs. They hypothesize that small size may have facilitated the rapid diversification among domestic dog breeds by making it easier for humans to maintain them in the crowded confines of developing ...

Scientists find method to pick noncompetitive animals, improve production

...hey were able to confirm two-thirds more inherited trait variations that impact social interactions than could be identified with classical selection analysis. "Now we have a tool to explain how species in nature evolved in response to each other," Muir said. "It can be applied across species and can te...

The chimpanzee stone age

...ur on their own, or even that stone tool use was a trait inherited from our common ancestor. Julio Mercader, Christophe Boesch and colleagues found the stones at the Noulo site in Cote d'Ivoire, the only known prehistoric chimpanzee settlement. The stones they excavated show the hallmarks of use as tools...

Twin studies reveal genetic components leading to cardiac and kidney disease

...wing leakage of good molecules with the bad. This trait is linked to a heightened risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death. The study shows that both elevated blood pressure and changes to the kidney’s filters are caused by genetic variation at multiple points along the adrenergic pathway. Lin...

Making mice with enhanced color vision

...ate color enhancement, which may have allowed this trait to spread quickly. "If you gave mice a new sensory input at the front end, could their brains learn to make use of the extra data at the back end?" asks Jeremy Nathans M.D., Ph.D., professor of molecular biology and genetics, neuroscience, and o...

MicroRNA helps prevent tumors

...with one of its target genes can produce a certain trait in mammals. This is important because scientists are only beginning to learn the functions of microRNAs in animals. "Because hundreds of human genes appear to be regulated by the let-7 microRNA, we were afraid we wouldn't see any difference when...

Virtual duck bills demonstrate species coexistence

... morphology to lead to resource partitioning, each trait must impose both costs and benefits on foraging ducks. It is the trade-off between these costs and benefits that allows resources to be partitioned." "Foraging ducks are faced with the cost of separating food particles from detritus particles like ...

Why do insects like to eat some plants more than others?

... was surprising," Miller adds, "was how one single trait predicted the variation" The results also have implications for understanding the evolution of plant allocation strategies. Current thinking on the subject says that these strategies are a trade-off between current reproduction and future survival...

Newly discovered behavior in cancer cells signals dangerous metastasis

...cells from metastasizing, which is the most deadly trait of cancer," said the study's lead investigator, Mariano Garcia-Blanco, M.D., Ph.D., professor of molecular genetics and microbiology. The researchers will publish their findings in the Sept. 19, 2006, issue of the journal Proceedings of the National...

Male chimpanzees prefer mating with old females

...is characteristic may be an evolutionarily derived trait that arose in the human lineage sometime after the lineages giving rise to humans and chimpanzees diverged. ...

Dragonfly's metabolic disease provides clues about human obesity

... would weed out the submissive, poor flyers if the trait were genetically based. When the researchers looked in the gut of the dragonflies with poor muscle output, they found parasites. Healthy dragonflies can adjust their muscle performance according to how much fat they have available in their bodi...

Fruit fly aggression studies have relevance to humans, animals

...esults when there is some genetic control over the trait being selected. In this case, the genetic effect was not very strong ?the heritability, or genetic contribution to, aggressive behavior was about 10 percent. The other 90 percent had to be attributed to environmental variation. "This is definitely n...

Blue eyes -- A clue to paternity

...uld be more attracted towards a woman displaying a trait that increases his paternal confidence, and the li...may have unconsciously learned to value a physical trait that can facilitate recognition of own kin. ...

Nice guys do finish first in lizards' evolutionary race

... Sciences provides the first genetic evidence of a trait that the animals recognize and use ?even if that trait seems on the surface to be counterproductive. "Cooperation is a tricky thing in terms of evolutiona...

Important gene controlling tree growth and development found

...even display critical daylengths of 23 hours! This trait is genetically inherited and is kept if the tree is moved to a new climate. How the trees control their flowering, and why trees set bud at a certain time in the fall have been important questions for the scientists to answer. This is for two reaso...

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