News by Subject Biology

In a new study published in GLIA , Virginia Tech neuroscientists at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC describe how the common Toxoplasma gondii parasite prompts the loss of inhibitory signaling in the brain by altering the behavior of nearby cells called microglia.

This is the story of three bird species and how they interact. The brown-headed cowbird lays its eggs in other birds' nests and lets them raise its young -- often at the expense of the host's nestlings. To combat this threat, yellow warblers have developed a special 'seet' call that means, 'Look out! Cowbird!' In a new study, researchers report that red-winged blackbirds respond to the seet call as if they know what it means.

A variety of sea animals can take up virus particles while filtering seawater for oxygen and food. Sponges are particularly efficient. That was written by marine ecologist Jennifer Welsh from NIOZ this week, in a publication in Nature Scientific Reports. This Monday, Welsh will defend her thesis at the Free University of Amsterdam, through an online connection.

Viruses have been well studied, but many mysteries linger. One such mystery is how a spherical virus circumvents energy barriers to form symmetric shells. A UC Riverside-led research team has made progress is solving this mystery. The team reports that an interplay of energies at the molecular level makes the formation of a shell possible.

In one of the first studies of its kind, bioscientists from Rice University and the University of Michigan have shown how to use the interactions between pathogens in individual hosts to predict the severity of multipathogen epidemics.