Bird in Biological News

Noise pollution negatively affects woodland bird communities, says CU-Boulder study

A new University of Colorado at Boulder study shows the strongest evidence yet that noise pollution negatively influences bird populations, findings with implications for the fate of ecological communities situated amid growing urban clamor. The study also is the first to indicate that at least...

Fly like a bird through boom and bust

The ability of Australian desert birds to adapt to cycles of drought, flood, feast and famine is highlighted in a new book launched today by CSIRO Publishing at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. Boom and Bust: Bird stories for a dry country sheds light on how desert birds survive cl...

Scientists identify human monoclonal antibodies effective against bird and seasonal flu viruses

February 22, 2009--Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Dana-Farber), Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have reported the identification of human monoclonal antibodies (mAb) that neutralize an unprecedented range o...

Village bird study highlights loss of wildlife knowledge from one

Our ability to conserve and protect wildlife is at risk because we are unable to accurately gauge how our environment is changing over time, says new research out today in Conservation Letters . The study shows that people may not realise species are declining all around them, or that their l...

Federal scientists recognized for contributions to knowledge of bird ecology and habitat

PORTLAND, Ore. February 6, 2009. Two federal scientists have won national awards for their research on the habitat and ecology of the marbled murrelet and the northern spotted owl. Martin Raphael and Eric Forsman, research wildlife biologists at the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Stat...

NIAID funds studies of how SARS and bird flu evade antiviral responses

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NAID), one of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded a contract to the University of Washington (UW) to use systems biology approaches to comprehensively analyze and model the virus-host interactions and cellular response networks ...

Study: Bird diversity lessens human exposure to West Nile Virus

This one's for the birds. A study by biologists at Washington University in St. Louis shows that the more diverse a bird population is in an area, the less chance humans have of exposure to West Nile Virus (WNV). Now, let's hear it for the birds. "The bottom line is that where there are more...

New research challenges long-held assumptions of flightless bird evolution

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Large flightless birds of the southern continents African ostriches, Australian emus and cassowaries, South American rheas and the New Zealand kiwi do not share a common flightless ancestor as once believed. Instead, each species individually lost its flight after diverg...

Smithsonian scientists discover new bird species

Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution have discovered a new species of bird in Gabon, Africa, that was, until now, unknown to the scientific community. Their findings were published in the international science journal Zootaxa today, Aug. 15. The newly found olive-backed forest robin (Stiph...

Newly described 'dragon' protein could be key to bird flu cure

ARGONNE, Ill. (July 15, 2008) -- Scientists and researchers have taken a big step closer to a cure for the most common strain of avian influenza, or "bird flu," the potential pandemic that has claimed more than 200 lives and infected nearly 400 people in 14 countries since it was identified in 200...

Diversity among bird populations found to reduce threat of West Nile virus

Santa Barbara, California - A biologist and undergraduate student have discovered that what's good for an area's bird population is also good for people living nearby. The research, by John P. Swaddle and Stavros E. Calos, published June 25 in the online peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, indica...

Male bird at Smithsonian's National Zoo has special reason to celebrate Father's Day

How will the only male rhea at the Smithsonian's National Zoo spend Father's Day? He will spend it much like he has spent the past eight weeks: as a proud papa nurturing and caring for his four chicks born April 20. This is the first time in some 30 years that rhea chicks have hatched at the Zoo. ...

MIT solves gravity-defying bird beak mystery

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--As Charles Darwin showed nearly 150 years ago, bird beaks are exquisitely adapted to the birds' feeding strategy. A team of MIT mathematicians and engineers has now explained exactly how some shorebirds use their long, thin beaks to defy gravity and transport food into their mout...

Human vision inadequate for research on bird vision

The most attractive male birds attract more females and as a result are most successful in terms of reproduction. This is the starting point of many studies looking for factors that influence sexual selection in birds. However, is it reasonable to assume that birds see what we see? In a study publ...

A model photochemical compass for bird navigation

A team of researchers at Arizona State University and the University of Oxford are the first to model a photochemical compass that may simulate how migrating birds use light and Earth's weak magnetic field to navigate. The team reports in the April 30, 2008, online issue of Nature that the photoch...

New vaccine may give long-term defense against deadly bird flu and its variant forms

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A new vaccine under development may provide protection against highly pathogenic bird flu and its evolving forms, according to researchers at Purdue University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who discovered the new preventative drug and have tested it in m...

New strategies against bird flu

The Spanish flu outbreak of 1918 killed between 30 and 50 million people. In the infected patients, the ultimate cause of death was acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). This fatal condition is a massive reaction of the body during which the lung becomes severely damaged. ARDS can be induced...

The song doesn't remain the same in fragmented bird populations

The song of passerine birds is a conspicuous and exaggerated display shaped by sexual selection in the context of male-male competition or mate attraction. At the level of the individual, song is considered an indicator of male quality. Paola Laiolo and colleagues at the Spanish Council of Res...

Exeter scientists pour cold water on EU bird policy

New research from the University of Exeter in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin published in the journal Science (22 February 2008) questions claims that EU conservation policy has been successful in protecting endangered birds. Introduced in 1979, the EU Birds Directive set...

Early environment may be key to determining bird migration location

How young migratory birds choose the nesting location of their first breeding season has been something of a mystery in the bird world. But a new University of Maryland/National Zoo study of the American redstart suggests that the environmental conditions the birds face in their first year may he...

Threatened bird species finds home at Western

Earlier this year, the bird was assessed with the designation of Threatened by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). COSEWIC is the scientific body that advises the federal government on the status of species at risk. Since 1967, the number of chimney swifts i...

Stanford researchers say climate change will significantly increase impending bird extinctions

Where do you go when you've reached the top of a mountain and you can't go back down? It's a question increasingly relevant to plants and animals, as their habitats slowly shift to higher elevations, driven by rising temperatures worldwide. The answer, unfortunately, is you can't go anywhere. H...

University biologist publishes book on bird speciation

A University of Chicago biologist and world-renowned expert on bird speciation has compiled eight years of research and writing into a recently published book, Speciation in Birds. Trevor Price, professor of ecology and evolution at Chicago, evaluates the contributions of sexual selection and n...

St. Jude influenza survey uncovers key differences between bird flu and human flu

Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have found key features that distinguish influenza viruses found in birds from those that infect humans. The St. Jude team used a mathematical technique to identify specific amino acid building blocks that are statistically more likely to app...

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

Mom may have been right all along, especially when we were hormone-raging teenagers, eat your veggies and good things will happen. In a new physiological study of birds, a researcher at Arizona State University has found that carotenoids, the pigments that color carrots orange and corn yellow, ...

UF scientists discover new genus of frogmouth bird in Solomon Islands

Your bird field guide may be out of date now that University of Florida scientists discovered a new genus of frogmouth bird on a South Pacific island. New genera of living birds are rare discoveries ?fewer than one per year is announced globally. David Steadman and Andrew Kratter, ornithologists...

New bird discovered on unexplored Columbian mountain

A new bird to science was recently discovered on an unexplored mountain range in northern Colombia by a team supported by the BP Conservation Programme. It was named "Yariguies Brush-Finch," with the scientific name Atlapetes latinuchus yariguierum. The new brush-finch was described by an Anglo-...

New drug blocks influenza, including bird flu virus

Opening a new front in the war against flu, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have reported the discovery of a novel compound that confers broad protection against influenza viruses, including deadly avian influenza. The new work, reported online this week (Oct. 4, 2006) in the J...

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

Global warming strikes again. A University of Illinois researcher reports that a red-winged black bird population in Ontario, Canada has decreased by 50 percent since 1972. The decrease is related to a positive shift in the North Atlantic Oscillation which has resulted in warmer, wetter winters in ...

Scientists find mutations that let bird flu adapt to humans

By comparing influenza viruses found in birds with those of the avian virus that have also infected human hosts, researchers have identified key genetic changes required for pandemic strains of bird flu. The new work, reported in the Nov. 16 issue of the journal Nature, illustrates the genetic ch...

Protowings may have helped bird ancestors cover rough terrain

Biologists have long argued about how birds evolved the ability to fly, because it is not immediately evident what improvement in fitness would result from ancestral, partly evolved wings. Two theories have recently dominated the debate: one postulates that flight evolved in tree-dwelling ancestors...

St. Jude test of bird flu vaccine proves successful

A commercially developed vaccine has successfully protected mice and ferrets against a highly lethal avian influenza virus, according to the investigator who led the study at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The vaccine was developed by Vical Incorporated in San Diego, California. This find...

New bird flu drug promises to beat the problem of resistance

A new kind of drug to fight bird flu that will not suffer from the same kind of resistance problems as current treatments should begin clinical trials within the next three years, thanks to a new research grant. Dr Andrew Watts from the University of Bath (UK) and Dr Jennifer McKimm-Breschkin fr...

Attractive birds more immune against bird flu

A research team at Uppsala University, Sweden has shown in a new study, published in the journal Acta Zoologica, that the size of the spot on a male collared flycatcher's forehead reflects how well the immune defence system combats viruses such as avian influenza. The white spot is also attractive ...

Cell barrier shows why bird flu not so easily spread among humans

Although more than 100 people have been infected with the H5N1 avian influenza virus, mostly from close contact with infected poultry, the fact that the virus does not spread easily from its pioneering human hosts to other humans has been a biomedical puzzle. Now, a study of cells in the human re...

Horse antibodies against the bird flu virus H5N1 are effective as treatment in mice

Antibodies against the bird flu virus H5N1, derived from horses, prevent mice infected with H5N1 from dying from the virus. A study published today in the open access journal Respiratory Research ( http://respiratory-research.com ) reveals that a dose of 100 µg of horse anti-serum effectively pr...

Sweetgum tree could help lessen shortage of bird flu drug

The sweetgum tree grows widely throughout the country and is known for its mace-like green fruit, which are sometimes called "gumballs." Now, this spiny fruit may become an important source of a chemical needed to make a lifesaving drug against bird flu ?a drug that is currently in short supply wor...

Duke to test bird flu vaccine dosing

A clinical trial to test different strengths of a vaccine designed to fight avian influenza will begin this month at Duke University Medical Center. The Duke study is part of a multicenter trial that will test a modified form of an investigational bird flu vaccine to determine whether the vaccine...

Expert dispels bird flu paranoia

The risk of human bird flu infection is small in Australia and people can still safely eat chicken and keep pet birds, according to bird medicine specialist Dr Bob Doneley. "The chances of getting bird flu off a pet bird or your neighbours birds are so infinitesimally small," UQ School of Veteri...

On a wing and a prayer - Alaska researchers seek clues to bird flu

While Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" made many of us uneasy at the sight of amassing gulls years ago, today public health officials around the world are beginning to cast an equally uneasy eye toward migratory birds, especially in Alaska, following recent outbreaks of avian influenza in Southeast A...