Gap-climbing fruit flies reveal components of goal-driven behaviors
Like humans, other animals are faced with everyday obstacles in their physical environments and must engage appropriate decision-making and motor skills to deal with them. Navigating these obstacles can involve highly complex events in mammals and other vertebrates, but in new work, researchers have employed an ingenious obstacle-based system for studying the control and structure of goal-oriente...Brainstem blocks pain to protect key behaviors
Certain behaviors, such as eating, drinking and urinating, are so crucial to survival that the brains of all vertebrates contain clusters of nerve cells that can suppress pain long enough to allow the animal to eat, drink -- or pee -- in peace. A report from researchers at the University of Chicago, published early online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that...Fly's courtship sheds light on the formation of innate behaviors
By studying how genes influence the development and use of neural circuits that control a specific set of mating behaviors in the fruit fly, researchers have provided new insight into how instinctual behaviors ?those that are not based on prior experience ?arise in the developing nervous system. The work is reported by Jean-Christophe Billeter and other members of Stephen Goodwin's group at the U...Teenagers Take More Risk-Taking Behaviors In The Company Of Same Sex Friends
Teenage drivers may take risk-taking behaviors, like over speeding, more in company of same sex friends than in company of friends of opposite sex. The study was published on-line edition of the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention. // The findings indicate that teen risky driving increases in the presence of teen passengers, particularly male teen passengers. But more...Dieting Behaviors Changed Among Weight Losers
Weight losers pattern of dieting have shifted to high-fat and low-carbohydrate level.Researchers at The Miriam Hospital and Brown Medical School//, and University of Colorado have noticed from the National Weight Control Registry that fat content of many successful weight losers diet have increased over the past decade, while without any increase in the carbohydrate levels. The National...Assessing Diet and Exercise Behaviors in Adolescents
Do adolescents get enough exercise and eat the right foods? Is there too much fat in their diets? Researchers analyzed the behavior of almost 900 11-to-15 year-olds and found// that nearly 80% had multiple physical activity and dietary risk behaviors, almost half had at least three risk behaviors, and only 2% met all four of the health guidelines in the study. Using both physical meas...Healthy Behaviors Can Prevent at Least 50 Percent of Cancer Deaths
Following on the news of the drop in cancer deaths for the second consecutive year, the American Cancer Society is launching the Great American Health Challenge// to educate and motivate Americans to take action to reduce their cancer risk. Many Americans are concerned about potentially developing cancer, but in fact, at least 50 percent of cancer deaths could be prevented through hea...