News by Subject Biology

Dong and colleagues studied well-preserved plant fossils from the Middle-Late Jurassic Daohugou Bed in eastern Inner Mongolia, northeastern China. These fossils closely resemble the extant catkin-yews Amentotaxus. They provide unequivocal evidence that the catkin-yews have undergone little morphological change over at least ~160 million years. Like ginkgo, the catkin-yews are living fossils that provide an important new example of evolutionary stasis.

A groundbreaking study is the first to analyze the relationship between group behaviors, group type, group dynamics, and kinship of beluga whales in 10 locations across the Arctic. Results show that not only do beluga whales regularly interact with close kin, including close maternal kin, they also frequently associate with more distantly related and unrelated individuals. Findings will improve the understanding of why some species are social, how individuals learn from group members and how animal cultures emerge.

In Current Biology, Medical University of South Carolina researchers report the results of a study using artificial intelligence and human brain studies to compare brain areas involved in mental imagery and vision. Their findings suggest that mental imagery and vision are similar, but that low-level visual areas are activated in a less precise manner with mental imagery. This suggests that the brain is more tuned and sensitive to what it sees than what it imagines.

New research published in Cell Metabolism has identified for the first time the specific brain cells that control how much sugar you eat and how much you crave sweet tasting food. The study by researchers at the University of Iowa and the University of Copenhagen specifically identifies the brain cells that respond to the hormone FGF21 to regulate sugar intake and sweet taste preference.

Biologists from the University of Bayreuth have discovered a uniquely rapid form of regeneration in injured neurons and their function in the central nervous system of zebrafish. They studies the Mauthner cells, which are solely responsible for the escape behaviour of the fish, and previously regarded as incapable of regeneration. However, their ability to regenerate crucially depends on the location of the injury.

A team of scientists at the University of Vermont have invented a new tool--they call it a "nanocage"--that can catch and straighten out molecule-sized tangles of polymers --whether made of protein or plastic. This tool--that works a bit like pulling a wad of thread through a needle hole--opens a new way to create custom materials that have never been made before.

Thin film coatings do more than add color to walls. For example, they can be used as pharmaceutical devices. How these coatings dry can change their properties, which is especially important for films used in drug delivery. Lehigh University engineering researchers studying the in situ drying behavior of thin film coatings are visualizing particle interactions with groundbreaking precision. Their findings could impact the development of drug delivery technology.