Smithsonian scientists find the frog legs trade may facilitate spread of pathogens
Most countries throughout the world participate in the $40-million-per-year culinary trade of frog legs in some way, with 75 percent of frog legs consumed in France, Belgium and the United States. view more (2009-11-20)
Forget all about it: Traumatic memories can be erased
It is well known that fear memories are permanent. However, a recent paper in Science, evaluated by three Faculty Members for F1000, reports an extraordinary finding that supports the use of a drug to control recollections of traumatic incidents. view more (2009-11-10)
The last European hadrosaurs lived in the Iberian Peninsula
Spanish researchers have studied the fossil record of hadrosaurs, the so-called 'duck-billed' dinosaurs, in the Iberian Peninsula for the purpose of determining that they were the last of their kind to inhabit the European continent before disappearing during the K/T extinction event that occurred 65.5 million years ago. view more (2009-11-06)
Losing your tongue
Elder Tommy George has not spoken his aboriginal language of Kuku Thaypan for three years, since his brother died. "It might die in the throat, but it stays alive in the heart," he said to the Queensland Courier-Mail in June, 2009. view more (2009-11-02)
Getting on 'the GABA receptor shuttle' to treat anxiety disorders
There are increasingly precise molecular insights into ways that stress exposure leads to fear and through which fear extinction resolves these fear states. view more (2009-10-22)
Catching a killer one spore at a time
A workshop at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama has dramatically improved the ability of conservationists and regulatory agencies to monitor the spread of chytridiomycosis-one of the deadliest frog diseases on Earth. view more (2009-10-20)
Do 3 meals a day keep fungi away?
The fact that they eat a lot - and often - may explain why most people and other mammals are protected from the majority of fungal pathogens, according to research from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. view more (2009-10-16)
Plant fossils give first real picture of earliest Neotropical rainforests
A team of researchers including a University of Florida paleontologist has used a rich cache of plant fossils discovered in Colombia to provide the first reliable evidence of how Neotropical rainforests looked 58 million years ago. view more (2009-10-16)
Conservation targets too small to stop extinction
Conservation biologists are setting their minimum population size targets too low to prevent extinction. view more (2009-10-14)
The first neotropical rainforest was home of the Titanoboa
Smithsonian researchers working in Colombia's Cerrejón coal mine have unearthed the first megafossil evidence of a neotropical rainforest. view more (2009-10-13)
A new day dawned fast
In 1980, Luis Alvarez and his collaborators stunned the world with their discovery that an asteroid impact 65 million years ago probably killed off the dinosaurs and much of the the world's living organisms. But ever since, there has been an ongoing debate about how long it took for life to return to the devastated planet and for ecosystems to... view more... (2009-10-05)
MU Researchers Use Computational Models to Study Fear
The brain is a complex system made of billions of neurons and thousands of connections that relate to every human feeling, including one of the strongest emotions, fear. view more (2009-10-01)
Global priority regions for carnivore conservation
Finding economical and practical solutions for conserving endangered carnivores is a continuous challenge for conservationists. view more (2009-08-27)
Animal sacrifice in Brazilian folk religion
Candomblé, a religion practiced primarily in South America and inspired by older African beliefs, makes much use of animal sacrifice. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine carried out interviews with priests, priestesses and adherents of the religion, documenting the role sacrifice... view more... (2009-08-26)
Humans lend a hand to critically endangered waterbird
Human impact on one of the world's most threatened bird species can be beneficial rather than destructive - and could even save it from extinction - according to counterintuitive new findings by the University of East Anglia (UEA). view more (2009-07-27)
Possible dinosaur burrows clues to survival strategies
Internationally renowned palaeontologist and Monash University Honorary Research Associate, Dr Anthony Martin has found evidence of a dinosaur burrow along the coast of Victoria, which helps to explain how dinosaurs protected themselves from climate extremes during the Cretaceous period - the final era for dinosaurs before their extinction. view more (2009-07-16)
Surviving mass extinction by leading a double life
Drifting across the world's oceans are a group of unicellular marine microorganisms that are not only a crucial source of food for other marine life - but their fossils, which are found in abundance, provide scientists with an extraordinary record of climatic change and other major events in the history of the earth. view more (2009-07-15)
Mangrove-dependent animals globally threatened
More than 40 percent of a sample of amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds that are restricted to mangrove ecosystems are globally threatened with extinction, according to an assessment published in the July/August issue of BioScience. view more (2009-07-01)
Sudden collapse in ancient biodiversity: Was global warming the culprit?
Scientists have unearthed striking evidence for a sudden ancient collapse in plant biodiversity. A trove of 200 million-year-old fossil leaves collected in East Greenland tells the story, carrying its message across time to us today. view more (2009-06-19)
Isolated forest patches lose species, diversity
Failing to see the forest for the trees may be causing us to overlook the declining health of Wisconsin's forest ecosystems. view more (2009-06-12)
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