Monthly Archives: April 2018

Novel ecosystems provide use for some native birds

Ecosystems that have been altered by human activities can provide suitable habitat for native birds, according to scientists in the United States and Australia.

In a study published in the journal Ecosphere, the researchers concluded that while some native birds are sensitive to novel ecosystems, others don't seem to mind.

The study results shouldn't be interpreted that...

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Dinosaurs' tooth wear sheds light on their predatory lives

Predatory, bird-like theropod dinosaurs from the Upper Cretaceous (100.5-66 million years ago) of Spain and Canada all relied on a puncture-and-pull bite strategy to kill and consume their prey. But close examination of patterns of wear and modeling of their serrated, blade-like teeth reported in Current Biology on April 26 also suggest that these dinosaurs...

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Horses remember facial expressions of people they've seen before

A study by the Universities of Sussex and Portsmouth reveals that horses can read and then remember people's emotional expressions, enabling them to use this information to identify people who could pose a potential threat.

Published today, Thursday 26 April 2018, in the journal, Current Biology, the paper 'Animals remember previous facial expressions that specific humans...

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No chronic wasting disease transmissibility in macaques

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) did not cross the species barrier to infect cynomolgus macaque monkeys during a lengthy investigation by National Institutes of Health scientists exploring risks to humans.

CWD is a type of brain-damaging and fatal prion disease found in deer, elk and moose; in humans, prion diseases can take more than a decade to...

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Protect forest elephants to conserve ecosystems, not DNA

Although it is erroneously treated as a subspecies, the dwindling African forest elephant is a genetically distinct species. New University of Illinois research has found that forest elephant populations across Central Africa are genetically quite similar to one another. Conserving this critically endangered species across its range is crucial to preserving local plant diversity in...

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