Monthly Archives: January 2018

Animal carnivores living in and around human habitation are declining at an unprecedented rate -- but they may provide crucial benefits to human societies.

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[unable to retrieve full-text content]When people are awake, their pupils regularly change in size. Those changes are meaningful, reflecting shifting attention or vigilance, for example. Now, researchers have found in studies of mice that pupil size also fluctuates during sleep. They also show that pupil size is a reliable indicator of sleep states....

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Researchers have for the first time determined that hybridization between two bird species can give rise to several novel and fully functional hybrid genomic combinations. This could potentially be because hybrid species emerged through independent hybridization events between the same parent species on different islands....

[unable to retrieve full-text content]More needs to be done to educate audiences, including viewers at home and filmmakers, on the unethical nature of using primates in the film industry, says a leading expert in a new study....

How do decisions get made in the natural world? One possibility is that the individuals or components in biological systems collectively compute solutions to challenges they face in their environments. Consider that fish navigate complex environments to find food and escape predators. Some fish do this by moving together as a unit, sometimes forming incredibly...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Women have many options for oral contraceptives that are safe, effective and reversible, but despite decades of research, men have none. Now, scientists report a rat study that shows they finally have a good lead for a male birth control pill. It's based on ouabain, a plant extract that African warriors...