hunt in Biological News

Despite 'peacenik' reputation, bonobos hunt and eat other primates too

Unlike the male-dominated societies of their chimpanzee relatives, bonobo societyin which females enjoy a higher social status than maleshas a "make-love-not-war" kind of image. While chimpanzee males frequently band together to hunt and kill monkeys, the more peaceful bonobos were believed to res...

Len Hunt Joins Gallup Consulting Group

New Partner Aims to Add Greater Value to Consultancy in Automotive IRVINE, Calif., June 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Gallup Consulting announced today that Len Hunt, a veteran auto industry executive who has worked with Jaguar, Audi, Volkswagen, and Kia has joined the company as a Partner. The positi...

Using DNA, scientists hunt for the roots of the modern potato

MADISON -More than 99 percent of all modern potato varieties planted today are the direct descendents of varieties that once grew in the lowlands of south-central Chile. How Chilean germplasm came to dominate the modern potato-which spread worldwide from Europe-has been the subject of a long, cont...

NSF approves $1.3M for OSU and OU microbes hunt

The National Science Foundation has approved a $1.3 million grant for researchers at Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma to discover new kinds of microorganisms in natural habitats. The five-year grant will enable scientists to detect, identify, and isolate unique microorganis...

Chimpanzees found to use tools to hunt mammalian prey

Reporting findings that help shape our understanding of how tool use has evolved among primates, researchers have discovered evidence that chimpanzees, at least under some conditions, are capable of habitually fashioning and using tools to hunt mammalian prey. The work, reported by Jill Pruetz of I...

Large-scale genomics project will hunt genes behind common childhood diseases

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is launching an ambitious program to identify the genes responsible for common childhood diseases. Making use of advanced automated technology from the biotechnology company Illumina, Inc., the Hospital's new Center for Applied Genomics will house one of the ...

Predators prefer to hunt small-brained prey

They avoid more intelligent prey such as monkeys which have exceptionally large brains and are more capable of escaping attacks. The study, carried out by Dr Susanne Shultz, from the School of Biological Sciences, focused on predators from Africa and South America such as the jaguar, chimpanzee,...

'Dating agency' boosts hunt for disease genes

Doctors and scientists nationwide will today for the first time be able to join together over the internet to start the search for genes that underlie a range of chronic diseases. Patients across Britain with cancer, heart and other common diseases have been providing blood samples for research ...

15-year hunt finds cause of pseudothalidomide syndrome

A team of scientists from Colombia, the United States and elsewhere has successfully completed a 15-year-plus search for the genetic problems behind the very rare Roberts syndrome, whose physical manifestations often include cleft lip and palate and shortened limbs that resemble those of babies who...

Scary ancient spiders revealed in 3-D models, thanks to new imaging technique

... Cryptomartus hindi and Eophrynus prestvicii, closely related to modern-day spiders. The study reveals some of the physical traits that helped them to hunt for prey and evade predators. The researchers created their images by using a CT scanning device, which enabled them to take 3,000 x-rays of each f...

Research shows that 'invisible hand' guides evolution of cooperative turn-taking

...ndividual did in the previous period can explain synchronized cooperation, but cannot fully explain turn-taking. "For example, many predatory animals hunt in pairs or larger groups, and this involves synchronized cooperation. 'Tit for tat' has been shown to work very well in initiating and sustaining thi...

Geographic profiling applied to track hunting patterns of white sharks in South Africa

...-shark competition. "The study expands our knowledge of how large predators hunt and offers a new scientific reference for studying other predator-prey syst... prey with a sudden vertical rush that propels them out of the water. "They hunt solitary juvenile Cape fur seals when light levels are low, stalking them f...

From Jack the Ripper to great white sharks

...eam of US-based researchers have found that sharks hunt in a highly focused fashion, just like serial crim...rofiling, a mathematical technique usually used to hunt serial criminals, can be used to study the hunting...r our understanding of the ways in which predators hunt their prey." ...

Duke, Harvard researchers to monitor bonobo reintroduction

...r closest living relative. But, despite their endangered status, bonobos are virtually unknown. Unlike chimpanzees, who are male dominated, frequently hunt and sometimes kill other chimps, bonobos are relatively peaceful. They are female-dominated and use sex to resolve social tension. Ironically, this...

Afghanistan releases its first-ever list of protected species

...cause it is globally endangered. Now that the snow leopard is protected under Afghan law, it is also illegal for Afghan nationals or internationals to hunt or trade the species within Afghanistan. The protected species list also comes at a critical time for Afghanistan's wild species. The Presidential...

Slicing chromosomes leads to new insights into cell division

...e removed and the direction the chromosome moved," hunt said. "Not only did we observe a relationship, we ...mosomal movements in mitosis." To achieve this, hunt performed "nanoscale surgery," as he calls it, tak... from improper chromosome segregation. Mitosis, hunt says, is one of the most important targets of chem...

Komodo even more deadly than thought: Research

...ands where they live. The lizards are apex predators and dominate the ecosystems in which they live. Although Komodo dragons eat carrion, they also hunt and ambush prey including invertebrates, birds, and mammals. The dragon's large size and fearsome reputation has made it a popular zoo exhibit sinc...

Tufted bacteria cause infection in premature babies

... have been the object of increasingly intensive study, and are behind the development of the "hygiene theory". "It's thought that the past decades' hunt for disease-causing bacteria means that we now live too cleanly, which has contributed to the sharp rise in allergies and other 'luxury diseases'," co...

Poison: It's what's for dinner

...niper trees vanished from what is now the Mojave Desert, robbing packrats of their favorite food. Now, University of Utah biologists have narrowed the hunt for detoxification genes that let the rodents eat toxic creosote bushes that replaced juniper. "It was either eat it or move out," says biology Pr...

Study reveals potential to amass more carbon in eastern North American forests

... MADISON With climate change looming, the hunt for places that can soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is on. Obvious "sinks" for the greenhouse gas include the oceans and the enormous t...

Desert woodrats switch one dietary poison for another

...000 years ago, juniper trees vanished from what is now the Mojave Desert, robbing woodrats of their favorite food. Now biologists have narrowed the hunt for detoxification genes that let the rodents eat the toxic creosote bushes that replaced junipers. "It was either eat it or move out," says biolog...

Desert woodrats switch one dietary poison for another

...000 years ago, juniper trees vanished from what is now the Mojave Desert, robbing woodrats of their favorite food. Now biologists have narrowed the hunt for detoxification genes that let the rodents eat the toxic creosote bushes that replaced junipers. "It was either eat it or move out," says biolog...

Study reveals potential to amass more carbon in eastern North American forests

... MADISON With climate change looming, the hunt for places that can soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is on. Obvious "sinks" for the greenhouse gas include the oceans and the enormous t...

Poison: It's what's for dinner

...niper trees vanished from what is now the Mojave Desert, robbing packrats of their favorite food. Now, University of Utah biologists have narrowed the hunt for detoxification genes that let the rodents eat toxic creosote bushes that replaced juniper. "It was either eat it or move out," says biology Pr...

Bone deformities linked to inbreeding in Isle Royale wolves

...the average long-term population size. Not only are fewer moose surviving, making food harder for the wolves to find, but the wolves are having to hunt older, more arthritic moose, Vucetich and Peterson found. Three years ago, the average age of a moose killed by a wolf on Isle Royale during the winte...

Australia's most endangered snake might need burning

...s have shown that broad-headed snakes require sunny, hot-rocks for shelter. Shaded rocks do not reach sufficiently high temperatures for the snakes to hunt their lizard prey effectively in the evenings," he said. "The trend is clear as the vegetation cover increases, the snakes' available habitat decr...

Flight of the bumble (and honey) bee

... directly from one flower to an adjacent cluster of flowers in the same row of plants. The bees' flight paths have a direct affect on their ability to hunt for pollen and generate "gene flow", fertilization and seed production that results when pollen moves from one plant to another. The study of gene flo...

Elephant shark genome sequence leads to discovery of color perception in deep-sea fish

...am responsible for this surprising discovery. Dr. Venkatesh is a scientist at Singapore's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB), while Dr. hunt is based at the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London (UCL). The research team found that the elephant shark had three cone pigme...

Earth's highest known microbial systems fueled by volcanic gases

...volcano summit -- including the thin atmosphere, intense ultraviolet radiation and harsh climate -- to the physical characteristics of Mars, where the hunt for microbial life is under way by NASA. The microbial communities atop Socompa -- which straddles Argentina and Chile high in the Atacama Desert -...

Caltech researchers help unlock the secrets of gene regulatory networks

... network is ancient and tightly conserved to the base of vertebrates," she says. The fourth of the Caltech papers, by Paul W. Sternberg, the Thomas hunt Morgan Professor of Biology at Caltech and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and his colleagues, looks at a postembryon...

Big cats, wild pigs and short-eared dogs -- oh, my!

...ment that provides access to otherwise isolated areas. Additionally, people hunt bushmeat to sell commercially in local markets, rather than simply for their own consumption. There is competition for food as people hunt the same prey species as the jaguar. If the prey species disappear, the jag...

CSHL scientists find a new class of small RNAs and define its function

...look more like terra incognita than conquered territory. To define the full set of genomic elements that perform functions in living cells and to hunt down their location amidst the thicket of genes and non-coding DNA, a multinational project known as ENCODE (an acronym for Encyclopedia of DNA Elemen...

Implants mimic infection to rally immune system against tumors

...pecific to the type of tumor being targeted. The dendritic cells then report to nearby lymph nodes, where they activate the immune system's T cells to hunt down and kill tumor cells throughout the body. "Much as an immune response to a bacterium or virus generates long-term resistance to that particul...

MUHC and McGill scientists explain genetic disease first discovered in Quebec 24 years ago

...l University have identified a gene essential for the uptake of vitamin B12 in human cells. The discovery of this gene finally completes a 24 year-old hunt for the cause of an incredibly rare genetic disorder called, cblF combined homocystinuria and methylmalonic aciduria (cblF-Hcy-MMA), first documented ...

Goose eggs may help polar bears weather climate change

...ng populations" under IUCN's Red List. Polar bears' habitat rings the Arctic south of 88˚ latitude. Most of this area is sea ice from which bears hunt seals, although the breakup of sea ice over the summer forces some bears to move north, to pack ice, or onto land. More often, it is subadult males th...

Whispering bats are 100 times louder than previously thought

... well-carrying shrieks for orientation in their complex forest environment. However, tiny M. macrophyllum's lifestyle is completely different. They hunt for insects over water, scooping them up with their tail. Surlykke says that she suspected that M. macrophyllum would be louder because she couldn't s...

Researchers shed new light on catalyzed reactions

... HOUSTON -- (Nov. 19, 2008) -- Rice University scientists on the hunt for a better way to clean up the stubborn pollutant TCE have created a method that lets them watch molecules break down on the surface of a catalyst a...

New gene-silencing pathway found in plants

...is whole RNA-directed silencing phenomenon." Since discovering these plant-specific RNA polymerases a few years ago, Pikaard's lab has been on a hunt to figure out what Pol IV and Pol V are making. In 2005, Pikaard and his collaborators published research showing that the major function of Pol IV i...

Intraspinal implant of mesenchymal stem cells may not heal the demyelinated spinal cord

... with axonal damage." Despite the disappointing results of this study, Dr. hunt feels that further experimentation with directly implanted MSCs is still ca...on capabilities in vitro, their in vivo behavior is unpredictable, said Dr. hunt and his co-authors. However, they agree that MSCs should still be consider...

Study sheds new light on dolphin coordination during predation

...ouths like baleen whales and swallow large amounts of food at once. They have to target individual fish and it's too difficult and energy-consuming to hunt solo." "It's tough to make a living in the subtropical ocean, which is something of a biological desert," she added. "They've had to adapt these un...