http://phys.org/biology-news/biology-other/ en-us Phys.Org provides the latest news on biology, natural sciences, environment (Phys.org) —At some point, scientists may be able to bring back extinct animals, and perhaps early humans, raising questions of ethics and environmental disruption. http://phys.org/news284625675.html Biology - Other Mon, 08 Apr 2013 08:10:03 EST news284625675 (Phys.org) —The term "survival of the fittest" refers to natural selection in biological systems, but Darwin's theory may apply more broadly than that. New research from the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory shows that this evolutionary theory also applies to technological systems. http://phys.org/news283760326.html Biology - Other Fri, 29 Mar 2013 07:18:57 EST news283760326 For the first time, researchers have been able to see a thought "swim" through the brain of a living fish. The new technology is a useful tool for studies of perception. It might even find use in psychiatric drug discovery, according to authors of the study, appearing online on January 31 in Current Biology. http://phys.org/news278854186.html Biology - Other Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:00:07 EST news278854186 (Phys.org)—Forget "slow and steady wins the race." A new study shows that, at least sometimes, the best way to conserve energy and reach your destination on time is to alternate between walking and running—whether your goal is the bus stop or a marathon finish line. http://phys.org/news278774567.html Biology - Other Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:22:57 EST news278774567 (Phys.org)—A research team in Germany has found that when given the choice, women prefer the smell of perfume that has chemicals in it that mimic the smell of their own immune proteins. In their study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the researchers found that female volunteers applying perfumes preferred those with a synthetic ingredient similar to major histocompatibility complexes (MHCs) found in their own cells. http://phys.org/news278238644.html Biology - Other Thu, 24 Jan 2013 08:40:01 EST news278238644 Getting "pruney fingers" from soaking in the bath is an evolutionary advantage, for it helps us get a better grip on objects under water, scientists suggest. http://phys.org/news276928782.html Biology - Other Wed, 09 Jan 2013 04:40:02 EST news276928782 A new study, published December 27 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, finds that vector-borne and parasitic diseases have substantial effects on economic development across the globe, and are major drivers of differences in income between tropical and temperate countries. The burden of these diseases is, in turn, determined by underlying ecological factors: it is predicted to rise as biodiversity falls. This has significant implications for the economics of health care policy in developing countries, and advances our understanding of how ecological conditions can affect economic growth. http://phys.org/news275848883.html Biology - Other Thu, 27 Dec 2012 17:00:12 EST news275848883 (Phys.org)—Men whacked punching bags for a University of Utah study that suggests human hands evolved not only for the manual dexterity needed to use tools, play a violin or paint a work of art, but so men could make fists and fight. http://phys.org/news275156841.html Biology - Other Wed, 19 Dec 2012 16:27:48 EST news275156841 The Green Revolution has stagnated for key food crops in many regions of the world, according to a study published in the Dec. 18 issue of Nature Communications by scientists with the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment and McGill University in Montreal, Canada. http://phys.org/news275059762.html Biology - Other Tue, 18 Dec 2012 13:29:33 EST news275059762 A technique designed to help criminologists catch serial killers is being used by scientists to locate sources of disease, control pests and study animal behaviour. Locating a serial killer's home is similar to finding the nests of animals or centres of disease outbreaks, explains an article in the December edition of the Society of Biology's magazine The Biologist. http://phys.org/news274448807.html Biology - Other Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:06:17 EST news274448807 (Phys.org)—Using new software developed at HHMI's Janelia Farm Research Campus, a computer can be trained to recognize characteristic animal behaviors like an experienced biologist. Rather than scrutinizing hours of video to catalog how often fruit flies chase one another, for example, scientists can quickly teach the software what to look for, and let it convert the video into useful statistics. http://phys.org/news274347464.html Biology - Other Mon, 10 Dec 2012 07:38:29 EST news274347464 A University of Utah study produced new mathematical support for a theory that explains why men in some cultures often feed and care for their sisters' children: where extramarital sex is common and accepted, a man's genes are more likely to be passed on by their sister's kids than by their wife's kids. http://phys.org/news273260236.html Biology - Other Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:37:27 EST news273260236 There are easier places to make wine than the spectacular, desolate landscapes of southeast Turkey, but DNA analysis suggests it is here that Stone Age farmers first domesticated the wine grape. http://phys.org/news273213726.html Biology - Other Tue, 27 Nov 2012 05:00:01 EST news273213726 There will be some beauties to be found—but you may first need to kiss a few toads. http://phys.org/news270565072.html Biology - Other Sat, 27 Oct 2012 14:10:01 EST news270565072 (Phys.org)—By force of habit we tend to assume computers are made of silicon, but there is actually no necessary connection between the machine and the material. All that an engineer needs to do to make a computer is to find a way to build logic gates—the elementary building blocks of digital computers—in whatever material is handy. http://phys.org/news269280067.html Biology - Other Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:02:23 EST news269280067 Children in smaller families are only slightly more likely to survive childhood in high mortality environments, according to a new study of mothers and children in sub-Saharan Africa seeking to understand why women, even in the highest fertility populations in world, rarely give birth to more than eight children. http://phys.org/news268407939.html Biology - Other Tue, 02 Oct 2012 19:00:01 EST news268407939 A seemingly unique part of the human and mammalian brain is the neocortex, a layered structure on the outer surface of the organ where most higher-order processing is thought to occur. But new research at the University of Chicago has found the cells similar to those of the mammalian neocortex in the brains of birds, sitting in a vastly different anatomical structure. http://phys.org/news268309737.html Biology - Other Mon, 01 Oct 2012 15:00:23 EST news268309737 Captivated by a strange coiling behavior in the grasping tendrils of the cucumber plant, researchers at Harvard University have characterized a new type of spring that is soft when pulled gently and stiff when pulled strongly. http://phys.org/news265550100.html Biology - Other Thu, 30 Aug 2012 14:00:31 EST news265550100 (Phys.org)—Everyone has an internal clock, that mysterious process which controls sleeping and hunger patterns, but now researchers are finding out that because the internal clock also controls metabolism, it would be helpful to be able to easily chart out a person's personal rhythm because it appears many drugs work better or worse at certain stages of their cycle. Until now, charting out a person's clock has involved taking blood samples every twenty minutes or so over a twenty four hour period and measuring melatonin levels. Now new research by a team in Japan has found what appears to be an easier way. They measure, as they describe in their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, certain metabolites using just two blood samples over a 12 hour period to prduce an accurate clock. http://phys.org/news265443622.html Biology - Other Wed, 29 Aug 2012 07:20:42 EST news265443622 (Phys.org) -- Over the years, research has shown that when two people, or animals, are evenly matched opponents, both tend to resort to more savagery to win than if one is clearly superior to the other. Now new research by a team in the Netherlands has shown that the same appears to be true for groups, or teams of people engaged in sports. In a study, the researchers found, as they describe in their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, when two teams are evenly matched, they tend to resort to more illegal tactics resulting in more penalties, than do players on teams that are not so evenly matched. http://phys.org/news264328684.html Biology - Other Thu, 16 Aug 2012 09:38:23 EST news264328684 When it comes to sperm meeting eggs in sexual reproduction, conventional wisdom holds that the fastest swimming sperm are most likely to succeed in their quest to fertilize eggs. That wisdom was turned upside down in a new study of sperm competition in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), which found that slower and/or longer sperm outcompete their faster rivals. http://phys.org/news263053238.html Biology - Other Wed, 01 Aug 2012 15:20:45 EST news263053238 Even Usain Bolt, currently the fastest man in the world, couldn't outpace greyhounds, cheetahs, or the pronghorn antelope, finds a light-hearted comparison of the extraordinary athleticism of humans and animals in the Veterinary Record. http://phys.org/news262633819.html Biology - Other Fri, 27 Jul 2012 18:50:26 EST news262633819 As organisms develop, their internal organs arrange in a consistent asymmetrical pattern--heart and stomach to the left, liver and appendix to the right. But how does this happen? http://phys.org/news261669294.html Biology - Other Mon, 16 Jul 2012 15:00:04 EST news261669294 Research from the University of Melbourne has shown that two different vaccine viruses- used simultaneously to control the same condition in chickens- have combined to produce new infectious viruses, prompting early response from Australia's veterinary medicines regulator. http://phys.org/news261315925.html Biology - Other Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:00:29 EST news261315925 (Phys.org) -- Ever wonder why Jimi Hendrix's rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" moved so many people in 1969 or why the music in the shower scene of "Psycho" still sends chills down your spine? http://phys.org/news258745338.html Biology - Other Tue, 12 Jun 2012 20:30:01 EST news258745338 Humans, fish and frogs share neural circuits responsible for a diversity of social behavior, from flashy mating displays to aggression and monogamy, that have existed for more than 450 million years, biologists at The University of Texas at Austin found. http://phys.org/news257689885.html Biology - Other Thu, 31 May 2012 14:00:05 EST news257689885 White Americans' heads are getting bigger. That's according to research by forensic anthropologists at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. http://phys.org/news257596000.html Biology - Other Wed, 30 May 2012 11:27:02 EST news257596000 (Phys.org) -- Biologists have long been familiar with luminescence in organisms, where plants and animals produce visible light, but more intriguing perhaps is the newer field of study centered around biophotons, whereby cells in organisms produce photons, but in numbers that are too few to be seen. How they do so and why, is an area that has come under more scrutiny of late. Now, new research by Sergey Mayburov, of the Lebedev Institute of Physics in Moscow, has uncovered a pattern in photons being generated by cells in fish eggs that gives credence to the theory that some cells use biophotons to communicate. He has written a paper describing his results and has posted it on the preprint server arXiv. http://phys.org/news256979465.html Biology - Other Wed, 23 May 2012 08:11:25 EST news256979465 People walking normally, women tottering in high heels and ostriches strutting all exert the same forces on the ground despite very differently-shaped feet, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. The finding suggests that prosthetic lower limbs and robots' legs could be made more efficient by making them less human-like and more like the prosthetics used by 'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius. http://phys.org/news255696898.html Biology - Other Tue, 08 May 2012 19:00:02 EST news255696898 The idea of discovering a new form of life has not only excited astronomers and astrobiologists for decades, but also the wider public. The notion that we are the only example of a successful life form in the galaxy has, for many, seemed like an unlikely statistic, as we discover more and more habitable planetary bodies and hear yet more evidence of life's ability to survive in extreme conditions. A new essay, published May 8 in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology, examines what really constitutes 'life' and the probability of discovering new life forms. http://phys.org/news255711530.html Biology - Other Tue, 08 May 2012 17:00:01 EST news255711530