Lizards, mice, bats and other vertebrates are important pollinators, too
Bees are not the only animals that carry pollen from flower to flower. Species with backbones, among them bats, birds, mice, and even lizards, also serve as pollinators. Although less familiar as flower visitors than insect pollinators, vertebrate pollinators are more likely to have co-evolved tight relationships of high value to the plants they service,...
Rare coastal martens under high risk of extinction in coming decades
The coastal marten, a small but fierce forest predator, is at a high risk for extinction in Oregon and northern California in the next 30 years due to threats from human activities, according to a new study.
The study, published today in the online journal PeerJ, will be available to federal and state wildlife agencies for...
New coronavirus emerges from bats in China, devastates young swine
A newly identified coronavirus that killed nearly 25,000 piglets in 2016-17 in China emerged from horseshoe bats near the origin of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), which emerged in 2002 in the same bat species. The new virus is named swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV). It does not appear to infect people,...
Ancient origins of viruses discovered
Research published today in Nature has found that many of the viruses infecting us today have ancient evolutionary histories that date back to the first vertebrates and perhaps the first animals in existence.
The study, a collaboration between the University of Sydney, the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Shanghai Public Health Clinical...
Enhanced therapeutic vaccine platform achieves 2 proof-of-concepts in veterinary medical use
Scientists from the Universities of Bern, Zurich and Oxford as well as the Latvian Biomedical Research & Study Centre led by Prof. Martin F. Bachmann (University Clinic of Rheumatology, Immunoloy and Allergology, University of Bern) have developed a new therapeutic vaccine technology based upon enhanced virus like nanoparticle conjugates. These vaccines are being developed by...