News by Subject Biology

Some English bulldogs diagnosed with a common cancer may instead have a newly described, non-cancerous syndrome called polyclonal B?cell lymphocytosis. The discovery was made by Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers at Colorado State University during a study to better understand B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (BCLL). The team published their findings in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine.

Researchers have shown for the first time in wild birds that the capacity to use information from competing species when choosing a nest site depend partly on individual cognitive ability. In the collared flycatcher, females that learned to solve a cognitive task faster were more likely to copy the nest site choices of great and blue tits, species that breed in the same area and forage on the same insects.

In urban environments, allergic diseases are more common among dogs and their owners compared to those living in rural areas. Simultaneous allergic traits appear to be associated with the microbes found in the environment, but microbes relevant to health differ between dogs and humans.

Animals that have never been domesticated, such as kangaroos, can intentionally communicate with humans, challenging the notion that this behaviour is usually restricted to domesticated animals like dogs, horses or goats, a first of its kind study from the University of Roehampton and the University of Sydney has found.

Scientists have found the most elaborately dressed-to-impress dinosaur ever described and say it sheds new light on how birds such as peacocks inherited their ability to show off.

Despite their excellent auditory capacities, dogs do not attend to differences between words which differ only in one speech sound (e.g. dog vs dig), according to a new study by Hungarian researchers measuring brain activity with non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) on awake dogs. This might be a reason why the number of words dogs learn to recognize typically remains very low throughout their life.

Trained dogs are better at detecting explosives and narcotics than any technological device scientists have invented. However, training dogs to detect hazardous substances can be inconvenient for the trainer and dangerous for the dog. NIST scientists are working to solve this problem with a material that can catch odors and safely release them over time.