There are no such things as "wild" horses anymore.
Research published in Science today overturns a long-held assumption that Przewalski's horses, native to the Eurasian steppes, are the last wild horse species on Earth. Instead, phylogenetic analysis shows Przewalski's horses are feral, descended from the earliest-known instance of horse domestication by the Botai people of northern...
In living color: Seeing cells from outside the body with synthetic bioluminescence
Glowing creatures like fireflies and jellyfish are captivating to look at but also a boon for science, as their bioluminescent molecules contribute to visualizing a host of biological processes. Now, scientists in Japan have supercharged these molecules, making them hundreds of times brighter in deep tissues and allowing for imaging of cells from outside the...
How bats carry viruses without getting sick
Bats are known to harbor highly pathogenic viruses like Ebola, Marburg, Hendra, Nipah, and SARS-CoV, and yet they do not show clinical signs of disease. In a paper published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe on February 22, scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China find that in bats, an antiviral immune...
Low-calorie diet enhances intestinal regeneration after injury
Dramatic calorie restriction, diets reduced by 40 percent of a normal calorie total, have long been known to extend health span, the duration of disease-free aging, in animal studies, and even to extend life span in most animal species examined. Further research has shown that animals fed restricted-calorie diets are also better able to regenerate...
Disease-bearing mosquitoes gain from shrinkage of green spaces
Urbanization and the resulting shrinkage of green spaces in cities can be considered a boon for mosquitoes that transmit diseases, such as Aedes aegypti (dengue) and Culex quinquefasciatus (lymphatic filariasis). More adapted to urban areas, they benefit from the decline in populations of other mosquito species.
In Brazil's biggest city, São Paulo, this relationship is no...
Locomotion of bipedal dinosaurs might be predicted from that of ground-running birds
A new model based on ground-running birds could predict locomotion of bipedal dinosaurs based on their speed and body size, according to a study published February 21, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Peter Bishop from the Queensland Museum, Australia and colleagues.
Previous research has investigated the biomechanics of ground-dwelling birds to better understand...