http://www.biosentients.com Article & News for biology information Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:52:37 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The squirrels littering your lawn with acorns as they bound overhead will live to plague your yard longer than the ones that aerate it with their burrows, as per a University of Illinois study. Researchers know from prior studies that flying birds and bats live longer than earthbound animals ... http://www.biosentients.com/biology-information/tree-dwelling-mammals-climb-to-the-heights-of-longevity/ common pasture plant could help foraging ruminants ward off damaging gastrointestinal nematodes that can cause illness and death, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) researchers report. Animal scientist Joan Burke at the ARS Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center in Booneville, Ark., along with colleagues at several universities, has patented formulations ... http://www.biosentients.com/biology-information/forage-plant-fights-parasites/ In the tropics, carnivorous plants trap unsuspecting prey in a cavity filled with liquid known as a "pitcher". The moment insects like flies, ants and beetles fall into a pitcher, the plant's enzymes are activated and begin dissolving their new meal, obtaining nutrients such as carbon and nitrogen which ... http://www.biosentients.com/biology-information/from-carnivorous-plants-to-the-medicine-cabinet/ As a number of Asian countries prepare to celebrate Year of the Tiger beginning February 14, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reports that tigers are in crisis around the world, including here in the United States, where more tigers are kept in captivity than are alive in the wild throughout ... http://www.biosentients.com/biology-information/big-cats-in-serious-trouble-around-the-world/ A global initiative that includes key researchers from Oregon State University has successfully sequenced the genome of the wild grass Brachypodium distachyon, which will serve as a model to speed research on improved varieties of wheat, oats and barley, as well as switchgrass, a crop of major interest for ... http://www.biosentients.com/biology-information/genome-sequence-for-advancement/ Using an elaborate sleuthing system they developed to probe how cells manage their own division, Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that common but hard-to-see sugar switches are partly in control. Because these previously unrecognized sugar switches are so abundant and potential targets of manipulation by drugs, the discovery of ... http://www.biosentients.com/biology-information/sugar-plays-key-role-in-cell-division/ New research conducted at the University of Maryland's bat lab shows Egyptian fruit bats find a target by NOT aiming their guiding sonar directly at it. Instead, they alternately point the sound beam to either side of the target. The new findings by scientists from Maryland and the Weizmann ... http://www.biosentients.com/biology-information/egyptian-fruit-bat-finds-a-target/ A joke among two Texas AgriLife Research researchers later turned into a fully-funded study found Viagra can aid fetal development in female sheep. Female sheep (ewes) are an agriculturally important species, which can serve as an excellent animal model for studying the physiology of human pregnancy, the scientists said........ ... http://www.biosentients.com/biology-information/viagra-enhances-fetal-growth-in-female-sheep/ A 60-million-year-old relative of crocodiles described this week by University of Florida scientists in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology was likely a food source for Titanoboa, the largest snake the world has ever known. Working with researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, paleontologists from the Florida ... http://www.biosentients.com/biology-information/ancient-crocodile-likely-food-source-for-titanoboa/ Decaying corpses are commonly the domain of forensic scientists, but palaeontologists have discovered that studying rotting fish sheds new light on our earliest ancestry. The researchers, from the Department of Geology at the University of Leicester, devised a new method for extracting information from 500 million year old fossils ... http://www.biosentients.com/biology-information/new-light-on-our-earliest-fossil-ancestry/