The Wake Forest Baptist team isolated the two types of endocrine cells found in ovaries (theca and granulosa) from 21-day-old rats.
#Lemur lookalikes are two new species, DNA saysscientists have identified two new species of mouse lemur the saucer-eyed teacup-sized primates native to the African island of Madagascar.
The new study brings the number of recognized mouse lemur species to 20 making them the most diverse group of lemurs known.
But because these shy nocturnal primates look so much alike it's only possible to tell them apart with genetic sequencing.
The new mouse lemurs weigh 2. 5 to 3 ounces (about 65 to 85 grams)
and have grey-brown fur. You can't really tell them apart just looking at them through binoculars in the rainforest said senior author Peter Kappeler of the German Primate Center in Goettingen who earned his Phd at Duke in 1992.
The researchers named one of the new species the Anosy mouse lemur or Microcebus tanosi.
Anosy mouse lemurs are close neighbors with grey mouse lemurs and grey-brown mouse lemurs but the genetic data indicate they don't interbreed.
The researchers named the other new species the Marohita mouse lemur or Microcebus marohita after the forest where it was found.
In Malagasy the word marohita means many views. Despite its species'name this mouse lemur is threatened by ongoing habitat destruction
and'many views'of its members are unlikely the researchers write. The two new species were captured first by co-author Rodin Rasoloarison of the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar during trips to the eastern part of the country in 2003 and 2007.
Rasoloarison weighed and measured them and took tiny skin samples for genetic analysis in the lab. Co-authors Anne Yoder
and Dave Weisrock both at Duke university at the time analyzed two mitochondrial and four nuclear DNA genes to figure out where the animals fit into the lemur family tree.
During a 2012 return trip to the forest where the Marohita mouse lemur lives Rasoloarison discovered that much of the lemur's forest home had been cleared since his first visit in 2003.
The state of the lemur's habitat prompted the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to classify the new species as endangered even before it was described formally.
This species is a prime example of the current state of many other lemur species Kappeler said.
Mouse lemurs have lived in Madagascar for 7 to 10 million years. But since humans arrived on the island some 2500 years ago logging
and slash and burn agriculture have taken their toll on the forests where these tree-dwelling primates live.
which makes lemurs the most endangered mammals in the world according to the IUCN. Knowing exactly how many species we have is essential for determining
A better understanding of mouse lemur diversity could help humans too. Mouse lemurs are a closer genetic match to humans than mice and rats the most common lab animals.
At least one species--the grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus)--develops a neurological disease that is strikingly similar to human Alzheimer's so the animals are considered important models for understanding the aging brain.
But before we can say whether a particular genetic variant in mouse lemurs is associated with Alzheimer's we need to know
whether that variant is specific to all mouse lemurs or just select species said Lemur Center Director Anne Yoder.
Every new mouse lemur species that we sample in the wild will help researchers put the genetic diversity we see in grey mouse lemurs in a broader context she said.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Duke university. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference e
#Research provides clues to alcohol addiction vulnerabilitya Wake Forest Baptist Medical center team studying alcohol addiction has new research that might shed light on why some drinkers are more susceptible to addiction than others.
Typically when a drug like alcohol is given to a mouse every day the way the animals respond increases--they become more stimulated
Weiner said they used mice bred to be genetically variable like humans to make the research more relevant.
We found large variations in the development of locomotor sensitization to alcohol in these mice with some showing robust sensitization
and others showing no more of a change in locomotor activity than control mice given daily saline injections Weiner said.
Surprisingly when all of the alcohol-exposed mice were given an opportunity to voluntarily drink alcohol those that had developed sensitization drank more than those that did not.
In fact the alcohol-treated mice that failed to develop sensitization drank no more alcohol than the saline-treated control group.
and discovered that mice that showed robust locomotor sensitization had deficits in a form of brain neuroplasticity--how experiences reorganize neural pathways in the brain--that has been linked with cocaine addiction in other animal models.
The Translational Studies on Early-Life Stress and Vulnerability to Alcohol addiction project is funded an NIH collaborative grant which supports rodent nonhuman primate
#How does the price of cheese influence perceptions of wolves? Relationships between humans and wolves are linked often to conflicts with livestock breeding activities.
Contrary to a widespread belief among western environmentalists these conflicts don't only occur only in western countries
Indeed in many countries livestock breeding activities have been dealing with wolves for centuries and rural societies have developed paths to coexistence through protection of livestock and control of wolf populations.
However the world is changing and rural societies are facing changes that can affect the way they relate to large carnivores like wolves.
It is particularly obvious in countries which went through dramatic and rapid transition processes after the fall of USSR and Yugoslavia.
Researchers from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research conducted ethnological investigations based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews on human-wolf relationships in Kyrgyzstan (2003-2007
Wolf hunting was affected also in Kyrgyzstan as economic and logistical means supporting intensive wolf hunting were no longer available after the collapse of the USSR. The studies revealed that these changes in hunting
and husbandry practices have led to modifications of the human--wolf interactions as well as of the social and environmental contexts of human--wolf relationships.
In Kyrgyzstan wolves used to be seen as an intelligent alter ego of humans and were regarded as respectable enemies that had to be controlled
In this context wolves are perceived not as the main threat to their future but as an additional threat
and Yugoslavia have resulted in an increased vulnerability of local people to wolf damage and a concomitant reduced acceptance for wolves.
All these changes contribute to changes in the perception of the wolf and to an increase in the perception of conflicts even in countries where humans and wolves have coexisted continuously.
The results show that the human-wolf relationship is dynamic as well as highlighting the necessity of understanding the broader socio-economical context within which human-wildlife conflicts are embedded
and the challenge pastoralists are facing in a changing world. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Norwegian Institute for Nature Research.
#Hunting for meat impacts on rainforest, fruit tree seed dispersalhunting for meat in the African rainforests has halved the number of primates.
The decline in the number of primates causes a reduction in the dispersal of seed by the primates and this leads to a reduction in the numbers of important fruit trees and changes to the rainforest.
The animals that are hunted include almost all mammals including gorillas and chimpanzees and some small species of monkey.
Both apes and small monkeys play an important role in seed dispersal in the rainforest as they feed on a variety of different fruits.
As the number of primates declines as a result of hunting their seed spreading role also declines. If fewer fruit seeds are spread fewer fruit trees will grow in the forests.
Many of the trees which have seeds that are dispersed by primates are also important to people
because primates cannot live in a forest without fruit trees. Ola Olsson would like to see better protection for nature reserves and national parks and better information and education of local people in the villages.
if the carcasses can be sold in the towns where people are prepared to pay high prices for ape meat.
and featured on the cover their early study found that mice that were fed these tomatoes in freeze-dried ground form had less inflammation
Scientists fed the tomatoes to mice that lacked the ability to remove low-density lipoprotein (LDL or bad cholesterol) from their blood and readily developed inflammation and atherosclerosis when consuming a high-fat diet.
The researchers found that mice that ate the peptide-enhanced tomatoes which accounted for 2. 2 percent of their Western-style high-fat diet had significantly lower levels of inflammation;
Several hours after the mice finished eating the intact peptide was found in the small intestine
We still do not know why a dog says'bow-wow 'and a cat says'meow'Yoshimura says.
We are interested in the mechanism of this genetically controlled behavior and believe that chickens provide an excellent model.
Co-authors of the study are Mara Vitolins Dr. PH. Timothy Morgan Ph d. Caroline Blackwell B. S. Scott Isom M. S. Carolyn Pedley M d. of Wake
Recent research using mice confirms that genes from bird flu and human flu can combine to create dangerous new flu strains.
The research focused on two flu strains that studies in mice have shown can combine with lethal results:
#Mass strandings of pilot whales may not be driven by kinship, DNA profiles showbiologists since Aristotle have puzzled over the reasons for mass strandings of whales and dolphins in
which groups of up to several hundred individuals drive themselves up onto a beach apparently intentionally.
and often fatal beachings of otherwise healthy whales. One hypothesis regarding the reason for strandings is that care-giving behavior mediated largely by family relationships plays a critical role.
or a few whales because of sickness or disorientation triggers a chain reaction in which healthy individuals are drawn into the shallows in an effort to support their family members.
A recent study published in the Journal of Heredity questions this explanation using genetic data to describe the kinship of individual long-finned pilot whales involved in mass strandings in New zealand and Tasmania.
The largest of these strandings included more than 150 whales all of which died. The study found that stranded groups are not necessarily members of one extended family evidence that contradicts the hypothesis that stranding groups all descend from a single ancestral mother.
Long-finned pilot whales are the most common species to strand en masse and it has long been assumed this tendency was related to the species'social organization.
Previous studies have shown that pilot whales have a matrilineal social organization in which neither males nor females disperse from the group into
This group structure is also found in killer whales but is thought otherwise to be rare in mammals.
If kinship-based social dynamics were playing a critical role in these pilot whale strandings first we would expect to find that the individuals in a stranding event are in fact all related to each other.
Second we would expect that close relatives especially mothers and calves would be found in close proximity to each other
which are inherited from both parents from 490 whales involved in 12 stranding events. Contrary to the hypothesis that stranding groups consist of whales descended from a single ancestral mother (the extended matriline hypothesis) multiple matrilines were found in the groups stranded together.
In some strandings the researchers assessed the spatial relationships of individual whales on the beach.
The position of each stranded whale was mapped to determine if individuals found near each other were related.
No correlation was found between location and kinship even when considering only the location of nursing calves and their mothers who were separated often widely
and juveniles had no identifiable mother among the other beached whales. Several scenarios could account for the lack of spatial cohesion including the disruption of social bonds among kin before the actual strandings commented Oremus.
In fact the separation of related whales might actually be a contributing causal factor in the strandings rather than simply a consequence.
The results of this study have important implications for rescue efforts aimed at refloating stranded whales.
Often stranded calves are refloated with the nearest mature females under the assumption that this is the mother explained Scott Baker co-author and Associate Director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State university.
To answer this question the researchers conclude that genetic samples are needed from all whales involved in strandings including from those individuals that do eventually make it back to sea.
what is available for the mouse brain and make it publicly available. But they don't want to stop with tool development.
Choline deficiency has been tied to cognitive deficits in the mouse and human and we're developing a pig model to study the direct effects choline deficiency has on brain structure
In this study Murray and colleagues fed young pigs milk from goats that were modified genetically to produce in their milk higher levels of lysozyme a protein that naturally occurs in the tears saliva and milk of all mammals.
#Whales streaming baleen tangles to trap fooddiving and plunging through the waves to feed some whales throw their jaws wide
and engulf colossal mouthfuls of fish-laden water while other species simply coast along with their mouths agape (ram
or skim feeding) yet both feeding styles rely on a remarkable substance in the whales'mouths to filter nutrition from the ocean:
and decided to find out more about how the flexible material filters whale-sized mouthfuls of water.
He publishes his discovery that baleen is a highly mobile material that tangles in flowing water to form the perfect net for trapping food particles at natural whale swimming speeds in The Journal of Experimental Biology.
Whales usually carry 300 of these structures on each side of their mouths#arranged perpendicular to the direction of water flowing into the mouth
In addition the baleen fringes of the skim-feeding bowhead whale's bristles are twice as long as the lunging humpback's. Having obtained baleen samples from the body of a stranded humpback during graduate work at the New england Aquarium
and collected samples from ram-feeding bowheads in Alaska Werth began to compare how well the baleen trapped minute latex beads carried in flowing water.
First he tested a small section of each type of baleen in a flow tank as he varied the flow speed from 10 to 120 cm/s
which corresponds exactly with the swimming speed of bowhead whales skimming through shoals of copepods. However when he compared the porosity of the baleen of both species he was surprised by the similarity of the performances despite the whales'different feeding styles.
Having found that baleen filters best at the natural swimming speed of skim-feeding bowheads Werth is keen to scale up
and investigate how full-sized 4 m long baleen plates performstory Source: The above story is provided based on materials by The Journal of Experimental Biology.
#Bat disease: More accurate, sensitive DNA test allows early identification of fungus causing white nose syndromeeven after researchers studying White Nose Syndrome (WNS) established that a fungus called Geomyces destructans is at the heart
either on a bat or in soil has been difficult and time consuming because a variety of closely related Geomyces species found where bats hibernate have the potential to cause false positives using previous DNA testing.
In experiments with a mouse model of human immune function the scientists vaccinated mice for listeria a common bacterium that causes food-borne illness
Mice in which the critical differentiation period was allowed to occur unimpeded remained healthy protected from a potentially lethal infection.
In mice in which T-cell differentiation was blocked said Krummel it was as if the mice had never been vaccinated at all.
Krummel said the work also opens up new paths of research in immunology which his laboratory is currently pursuing.
while the mouse model of human immune response is robust and very well-grounded research will ultimately have to take place in humans
#Bitter melon juice prevents pancreatic cancer in mouse modelsa University of Colorado Cancer study published this week in the journal Carcinogenesis shows that bitter melon juice restricts the ability of pancreatic cancer cells to metabolize glucose
After studies in cell cultures the group showed that mouse models of pancreatic cancer that were fed bitter melon juice were 60 percent less likely to develop the disease than controls.
The Agarwal Lab is now applying for grants that will allow them to move the study of bitter melon into further chemoprevention trials in mouse models of pancreatic cancer.
and inhibiting the invasion of aggressive nonnative species including Scotch broom and hairy cat's ear.
which covers most of Arizona western New mexico and northern parts of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua.
and Senior Scientist Woods Hole Research center Falmouth USA Think of migration of birds to the Arctic in the summer and hibernation of bears in the winter:
African lions and villagers would benefit from fences to protect them from each other according to a new study by University of Minnesota researcher Craig Packer published online by Ecology Letters on March 5.
In an interview he called for an international Marshall Plan to erect fences where possible to protect people lions elephants
and wildlife from each other but without a massive increase in conservation funding nearly half of unfenced lion populations could decline to near extinction over the next 20-40 years.
And in the long run it would be more cost-effective to maintain lion populations in fenced reserves.
Fenced reserves maintained lions at 80 percent of their potential population capacity on annual management budgets of about $500 per square kilometer
Even though lion habitat has been reduced by at least 75 percent over the last century more still remains than can possibly be conserved said Packer a professor in the Department of Ecology Evolution and Behavior.
and zebra that could never be enclosed within a fenced reserve so the lions'last stand should be thought out carefully in terms of those places that can safely be fenced
and lions into much closer proximity the incidence of lion attacks on humans and livestock has increased substantially.
Not surprisingly villagers retaliate by killing lions to protect their families and their livestock. We must never lose sight of the fact that the costs of lion conservation ultimately derive from the need to protect people from these animals said Packer
And lions are not alone in causing widespread human misery. Elephants are in crisis too
and although they are largely being decimated by ivory poachers there's little support for elephant conservation in rural villages because of the enormous damage they cause to crops.
A fence that is lion-proof is also elephant-proof so a well-designed policy of fencing would protect more than just lions.
Because the findings from the Ecology Letters paper present such an enormous challenge for African governments and conservationists the best hope may be to advocate for a Marshall Plan for African wildlife conservation Packer said.
If we're serious about this it means establishing fences around very large areas such as the Selous Game Reserve
which is home to the largest remaining lion population in the world. Fencing the Selous
because fencing would protect humans as well as lions. Packer's own research has focused on lions in Serengeti National park for the past 35 years.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Minnesota. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
The species has a distribution falling entirely within the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Centre of Endemism in South africa where an extraordinary amount of endemic species is found with around 30 endemic reptiles and emblematic mammals such as the blue duiker antelope.
study findsa survey of bat activity in burned and unburned areas after a major wildfire in the southern Sierra nevada mountains found no evidence of detrimental effects on bats one year after the fire.
The study led by bat ecologist Winifred Frick of the University of California Santa cruz was published in the journal PLOS ONE on March 6.
or positive impacts on a suite of bat species Frick said. Studies that show how animals respond to fire help inform the ongoing public policy debate over the role of fire in ecosystem management
The study compared bat foraging activity in areas of unburned moderately burned and severely burned forest.
Of the 16 bat species known to live in the area some have distinctive sonic signatures
and coauthors Paul Heady of the Central Coast Bat Research Group and John Hayes of the University of Florida also contributed to the study.
#First in depth deer census highlights need for increased culls, UK research showscurrent approaches to deer management are failing to control a serious and growing problem according to new research by the University
and muntjac deer in a unique study spanning the border of Norfolk and Suffolk. The results published today in the Journal of Wildlife Management show for the first time that present management efforts are not enough to stop populations spreading out of control.
There are more deer in the UK than at any time since the ice age. In the absence of natural predators populations are continuing to expand--causing a serious threat to biodiversity as well as road traffic accidents and crop damage.
and fertility of roe and muntjac deer across 234 km2 of forested land and heathland in Breckland East Anglia to measure the effectiveness of deer management.
while deer management appeared to control numbers at a stable level this was only because thousands of deer are pushed out'to the surrounding countryside each year helping drive the further spread of deer.
In the Breckland study area researchers identified a necessary cull of 1864 muntjac from an estimated population of 3516 (53 per cent)
and 1327 roe deer out 2211 (60 per cent) just to offset productivity with greater numbers needing to be culled
if populations are to be reduced. These figures greatly exceed previous cull recommendations for muntjac (30 per cent) and roe (20 per cent.
Lead researcher Dr Paul Dolman from UEA's school of Environmental sciences said: Deer management is often based on guesswork.
This is the first time that a population has been quantified and studied in terms of how the deer are breeding--to measure the effectiveness of deer management.
Dr Kristin Wäber who conducted the study while a Phd student at UEA said:
Native deer are an important part of our wildlife that add beauty and excitement to the countryside but left unchecked they threaten our woodland biodiversity.
Trying to control deer without a robust understanding of their true numbers can be like sleepwalking into disaster.
In Thetford Forest despite an active programme of professional management culling thousand of deer the numbers culled did not offset productivity.
This is a particular problem for nonnative invasive species like muntjac. In recent years people have become more and more concerned about the impacts deer are having in North america Britain
and elsewhere in Europe Increasing deer populations are a serious threat to biodiversity--particularly impacting on woodland birds such as migrant warblers and the nightingale.
They also carry diseases such as Lymes and if numbers are managed not properly they can cause damage to crops as well as road traffic accidents.
when woodlands are under so much pressure from deer. Current approaches to deer management are failing to contain the problem--often
because numbers are being underestimated. Cull targets are often too low. This research shows that an annual cull of 53 per cent for muntjac
and 60 for roe deer is necessary to curb their continuing increase and spread. Story Source:
The above story is provided based on materials by University of East Anglia. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Pankaj Jaiswal Assistant professor of Botany and Plant pathology at Oregon State university Samuel Fox a Postdoctoral Associate in Jaiswal's laboratory and colleagues assembled transcriptomes of a noxious weed Brachypodium sylvaticum
Fox and colleagues have assembled the transcriptomes for two slender false brome populations from its native range (Greece Spain) and one population from its invasive range (Oregon.
Fox and Cruzan note The seed and genomic resources are publicly available so it would be relatively easy for any research group to establish a research program focused on slender false brome.
A team led by Rice physicist Ching-Hwa Kiang found that shear forces like those found in small arteries of patients with atherosclerosis cause snippets of nonclotting VWF to change into a clot-forming shape for hours at a time.
When I first heard what Dr. Kiang's team had found I was shocked said blood platelet expert Dr. Joel Moake a study co-author who holds joint appointments at Rice and BCM.
Kiang associate professor of physics and astronomy and of bioengineering studies the forces involved in protein folding.
Proteins are the workhorses of biology. Tens of thousands are produced each second in every living cell and each of these folds into a characteristic shape within moments of its creation.
Kiang is a pioneer in the use of atomic force microscopes (AFM) to shed light on the fundamental physical processes involved in protein folding.
Kiang's team uses the bobbing needle to grab and pull apart individual protein molecules. By stretching these like rubber bands her team has shown it can measure the precise physical forces that hold them in their folded shape.
we used those measurements to see what state the molecule was said in Kiang. In this way we were able to study the dynamics of the molecule to see how it changed over a period of time.
That is why Dr. Kiang's research is so important and makes it more likely that therapeutic interventions can be designed more rationally.
To study the problem Kiang's lab worked closely with Moake's team at Rice's Bioscience Research Collaborative
Kiang's team used AFMS to test the samples. Through a combination of experiments and deductive reasoning her team determined exactly
and initiate clot formation Kiang said. That will tell us even more about the physical properties of the proteins
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011