https://phys.org/ en-us Latest news from Hamilton College During his presidency, Donald Trump and members of his administration repeatedly accused federal civil servants of undermining their agenda through the "deep state." They sought to curtail career employees' workplace protections, sought to severely cut some agencies' funding, and in some cases attempted to undermine or alter agency missions. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-moral-tightrope-exploring-effect-trump.html Social Sciences Tue, 18 Jul 2023 14:52:04 EDT news608910721 Is brain fog a condition limited to humans? "Infectious disease and cognition in wild populations," a recently published paper in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, answers that question. In a review of the studies, it explores whether learning, memory, and problem-solving are impaired by infection, not just in humans, but in species across the animal kingdom. https://phys.org/news/2022-08-brain-fog-limited-humans.html Evolution Mon, 08 Aug 2022 15:26:03 EDT news579191161 Humans are not the only social animal struggling with new infectious diseases. When Hamilton College Associate Professor of Biology Andrea Townsend began studying the social behavior of American crows, her work was complicated by West Nile virus, an emerging disease with devastating effects on crow populations. Her research pivoted to investigating the effects of disease on crow social behavior. "It made me wonder how social animals should, in general, respond to novel diseases," Townsend said. "Do other animals 'socially distance' during disease outbreaks, like humans during the COVID-19 pandemic?" https://phys.org/news/2020-08-emerging-infectious-disease-social-distancing.html Plants & Animals Wed, 12 Aug 2020 16:00:06 EDT news516466803 What species is better at fighting an infection, a mouse or an elephant? Body size is one of the most noticeable differences among species, but relationships between immune defenses and body size have largely been unstudied. https://phys.org/news/2019-09-mouse-elephant-species-infection-effectively.html Plants & Animals Wed, 25 Sep 2019 16:09:49 EDT news488646579 Why do birds typically live longer than mammals? A new paper offers a hint, albeit not a conclusive answer. Assistant Professors of Biology Cynthia Downs and Ana Jimenez at Hamilton College and Colgate University respectively have co-authored a paper with nine students, "Does cellular metabolism from primary fibroblasts and oxidative stress in blood differ between mammals and birds? The (lack-thereof) scaling of oxidative stress" in press with Integrative and Comparative Biology. https://phys.org/news/2019-05-birds-typically-longer-mammals.html Plants & Animals Wed, 01 May 2019 10:15:35 EDT news475924526