Plant and Animal Science

For the longest time, researchers have wondered why humans have bigger and more developed brains compared to primates. A new study by researchers at Vanderbilt University has revealed that there is only one feature that distinguishes human and primate brains, which is the number of cortical neurons in the brain’s prefrontal cortex. Read more about their research here.

A team of scientists from Norway and NOAA Fisheries' Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle studied the effect of oil spills on the haddock, cod, and pollock species of fish. They discovered that the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in crude oil not only affected the development of the heart in fish but also led to extreme craniofacial deformities. Read more about their research here.

Researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, led by oceanographer Jules Jaffe, have developed a new type of underwater microscope that would enable researchers to study important biological processes in the natural settings. Read more about their new invention here.

Bear cubs are at a high risk of losing their life to infanticidal male bears who may want to impregnate a female who has just borne cubs. To protect the cubs, female bears in Scandinavia seem to have found a unique way. Swedish researchers from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences found the presence of female grizzly bears and cubs near human settlements and they wanted to find out whether this was a way of shielding the cubs from the male counterparts. Read more about their research here.

It is known that plastic waste has an adverse impact on marine life. But for the first time, researchers from Uppsala University have shown that microplastic particles i.e. plastic particles that are less than 5 mm in size change the behavior and development of larval fish. The researchers exposed larval perch to microplastic particles and discovered that their growth got stunted. Read more about their research here.

How any species inhabit Earth? The Indiana University researchers have answered this daunting question by collecting large datasets and basing their estimate using scaling laws. Read more about these findings here.

Birds living in urban areas are smarter than those living in the rural areas, according to a team of researchers from McGill University. In this first-ever study to find cognitive differences in birds from city and country, the researchers tested two groups of bullfinches on associative learning tasks and innovative problem-solving tasks. Read more about their research here.

Storks are no longer migratory birds, according to a new research conducted by the researchers at the University of East Anglia. Dr. Aldina Franco from UEA's School of Environmental Sciences and her research team observed the behavior of storks that are known to migrate from Europe to Africa. However, since the mid-1980s, an increasing number of these birds have stopped their migratory behavior. Read more about their research here.

Nicholas Whitney of Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Fla., and colleagues observed that nurse sharks are some of the most inactive species of shark that spend most of their time on the ocean bottom waiting in one spot. They only move at night when they have to hunt for food. This behavior interested the researchers in understanding how this affected the shark’s metabolism. Read more about their research here.

An international team of researchers belonging to Japan and the US studying American alligators found the presence of TRPV4, a thermosensitive protein, in alligator embryos. Found in the gonads of the embryos, this protein plays a crucial role in influencing the sex of the growing alligators. Read more about their research here.