Men shed more bacteria into their surroundings than women do, studies have shown. Now scientists have found that men and women have different effects on the variety of bacteria inside a home, too. The variation comes down to skin biology and "perhaps to body size and hygiene practices," note researchers who sequenced the genes in dust that had settled on the tops of doors in 1,200 homes across the U.S. Dogs apparently alter indoor bacteria more extensively than humans or cats. The bacterial signatures of each of these living beings are unique enough that by simply testing dust in a home, investigators can accurately predict if more women or men live there and if dogs or cats do as well.
When you leave the house, does your dog or cat even remember you?
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A Rat's Tenacious Memory
http://www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v17n1/...
"In the wild, rats scramble over the network of pathways they have created, combing their surroundings for food, water, mates, and shelter. Their movements may seem automatic to the untrained eye, simply a reflexive pattern. Decades ago, however, researchers established that rats know where they are going and remember where they have been."
Everyone hates mosquitos. Besides the annoying buzzing and biting, mosquito-borne diseases like malaria kill over a million people each year (plus horses, dogs and cats). And over the past 100 million years, they've gotten good at their job -- sucking up to three times their weight in blood, totally undetected. So shouldn't we just get rid of them? Rose Eveleth shares why scientists aren't sure.
Scientists once shied away from naming research animals, and many of the millions of mice and rats used in U.S. research today go nameless, except for special individuals. But a look at many facilities suggests that most of the other 891,161 U.S. research animals have proper names, including nonhuman primates, dogs, pigs, rabbits, cats, and sheep.
4:22 video Madagascar's top predator is a mysterious cat-like creature called the fossa. But dogs and humans are threatening its very existence. National Geographic's Luke Dollar investigates.
Learn the steps to completing a dihybrid cross! This video will show how to set up everyone's favorite 16 square Punnett square. This video uses vocabulary that was previously defined in the Amoeba Sisters Monohybrid Crosses video.
3:14 video November 7, 2011 - Watch as biologist Luke Dollar uses a blowgun to subdue and study Madagascar's top predator, the fossa. The catlike creature "will eat pretty much everything in the forest," but to survive, it'll still need help from conservationists like Dollar, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer.