A new study puts a fresh spin on what it means to "go with your gut." The findings, published in Nature, suggest that gut bacteria may control movement in fruit flies and identify the neurons involved in this response. The study was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of...
Origin of an isolated bird species on South Atlantic island
By wings or maybe riding on debris, that's how a now-flightless and rare species of tiny birds likely got to Inaccessible Island, an aptly named small island of volcanic origin in the middle of the South Atlantic.
And it turns out that the bird, a rail, listed scientifically as Atlantisia rogersi, needs a name change, says...
Dinosaurs put all colored birds' eggs in one basket, evolutionarily speaking
A new study says the colors found in modern birds' eggs did not evolve independently, as previously thought, but evolved instead from dinosaurs.
According to researchers at Yale, the American Museum of Natural History, and the University of Bonn, birds inherited their egg color from non-avian dinosaur ancestors that laid eggs in fully or partially open...
Major corridor of Silk Road already home to high-mountain herders over 4,000 years ago
Using ancient proteins and DNA recovered from tiny pieces of animal bone, archaeologists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH) and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography (IAET) at the Russian Academy of Sciences-Siberia have discovered evidence that domestic animals -cattle, sheep, and goat -- made their way into the...
Aging dormice shorten their hibernation for more reproduction
Edible dormice are extremely long-lived for their size thanks to their seasonal dormancy. The animals are veritable record holders in this "discipline," with hibernation periods lasting between at least six and a maximum of eleven months. The factors influencing the variable duration of the hibernation period, apart from the specific environmental conditions, have so far...
Estonian soil is surprisingly rich in species, researchers find
Due to its biodiversity and probably huge number of taxa waiting to be discovered, soil fauna has been called the poor man's rain forest. If a researcher cannot head for a collecting trip to the tropics at the moment but wishes to discover something new, one can take along a shovel and start digging in...