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A study published Sept. 29 by Luis Populin, a professor of anatomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, shows that under specific conditions, a rhesus macaque monkey that normally would fail the "mark test" can still recognize itself in the mirror and perform actions that scientists would expect from animals that are self-aware.

It's a cute graphic, but not much more than that. You move the cursor and the simulated night sky moves in response - and it's a great example of how the Internet can take us in the wrong direction. Do you remember kids getting books and ... gasp ... going outdoors at night, looking upward and finding those constellations, instead of searching for them on an animation?

For theoretical neurobiologist and author Mark Changizi, "why" has always been more interesting than "how." While many scientists focus on the mechanics of how we do what we do, his research aims to grasp the ultimate foundations underlying why we think, feel and see as we do. Guided by this philosophy, he has made important discoveries on why we see in color, why we see illusions, why we have forward-facing eyes, why letters are shaped as they are, why the brain is organized as it is, why animals have as many limbs and fingers as they do, and why the dictionary is organized as it is.

It sounds like something a guided missile would do. Foxes seem to zero in on prey using Earth's magnetic field. They are the first animal thought to use the field to judge distance rather than just direction.

Cells within a tumour potentially not acting independantly, but more like an integrated organism.

ScienceDaily (May 4, 2011) - Using simple robots to simulate genetic evolution over hundreds of generations, Swiss scientists provide quantitative proof of kin selection and shed light on one of the most enduring puzzles in biology: Why do most social animals, including humans, go out of their way to help each other? In the online, open access journal PLoS Biology, EPFL robotics professor Dario Floreano teams up with University of Lausanne biologist Laurent Keller to weigh in on the oft-debated question of the evolution of altruism genes.

It's not quite Cyclops, the sci-fi superhero from the X-Men franchise whose eyes produce destructive blasts of light, but for the first time a laser has been created using a biological cell. The human kidney cell that was used to make the laser survived the experience. In future such "living lasers" might be created inside live animals, which could potentially allow internal tissues to be imaged in unprecedented detail. It's not the first unconventional laser. Other attempts include lasers made of Jell-O and powered by nuclear reactors (see box below). But how do you go about giving a living cell this bizarre ability? Typically, a laser consists of two mirrors on either side of a gain medium - a material whose structural properties allow it to amplify light. A source of energy such as a flash tube or electrical discharge excites the atoms in the gain medium, releasing photons. Normally, these would shoot out in random directions, as in the broad beam of a flashlight, but a laser uses mirrors on either end of the gain medium to create a directed beam. As photons bounce back and forth between the mirrors, repeatedly passing through the gain medium, they stimulate other atoms to release photons of exactly the same wavelength, phase and direction. Eventually, a concentrated single-frequency beam of light erupts through one of the mirrors as laser light.

Theodore Berger and his team at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Department of Biomedical Engineering have developed a neural prosthesis for rats that is able to restore their ability to form long-term memories after they had been pharmacologically blocked. In a dramatic demonstration, Berger blocked the ability to rats to form long-term memories by using pharmacological agents to disrupt the neural circuitry that communicates between two subregions of the hippocampus, CA1 and CA3, which interact to create long-term memory, prior research has shown. The rats were unable to remember which lever to pull to gain a reward, or could only remember for 5-10 seconds, when previously they could remember for a long period of time. The researchers then developed an artificial hippocampal system that could duplicate the pattern of interaction between CA3-CA1 interactions. Long-term memory capability returned to the pharmacologically blocked rats when the team activated the electronic device programmed to duplicate the memory-encoding function. The researchers went on to show that if a prosthetic device and its associated electrodes were implanted in animals with a normal, functioning hippocampus, the device could actually strengthen the memory being generated internally in the brain and enhance the memory capability of normal rats. "These integrated experimental modeling studies show for the first time that with sufficient information about the neural coding of memories, a neural prosthesis capable of real-time identification and manipulation of the encoding process can restore and even enhance cognitive mnemonic processes," says the paper. Next steps, according to Berger and Deadwyler, will be attempts to duplicate the rat results in primates (monkeys), with the aim of eventually creating prostheses that might help human victims of Alzheimer's disease, stroke, or injury recover function. Ref.: "A Cortical Neural Prosthesis for Restoring and Enhancing

ScienceDaily (June 27, 2011) - While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration notes "some concern" with the controversial chemical BPA, and many other countries, such as Japan and Canada, have considered BPA product bans, disagreement exists amongst scientists in this field on the effects of BPA in animals and humans. The latest research from the University of Missouri shows that BPA causes male deer mice to become demasculinized and behave more like females in their spatial navigational abilities, leading scientists to conclude that exposure to BPA during human development could be damaging to behavioral and cognitive traits that are unique to each sex and important in reproduction.

The field of agriculture encompasses a wide range of activities wherein the cultivation of plants, animals, fungi and other life forms is done for fulfilling the requirements of food, medicine, fiber, bio fuel etc. to sustain and improve human life.

Stem cells are generally present in the body of humans and several animals. They divide themselves into some other cells as well with time, which are important for the survival of humans.

Across the globe mainly in developing countries, milk is produced by small farmers, and it is a source of livelihood for them. Mr. mahendra trivedi through his spiritual energy transmission power has not only impacted human beings but also other forms of life like animals, plants, birds, etc.

Catalogue of Life website: gateway to our database of the world's known species of animals, plants, fungi and micro-organisms

ScienceDaily (June 9, 2011) - On rare occasion, the light-sensing photoreceptor cells in the eye misfire and signal to the brain as if they have captured photons, when in reality they haven't. For years this phenomenon remained a mystery. Reporting in the June 10 issue of Science, neuroscientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered that a light-capturing pigment molecule in photoreceptors can be triggered by heat, as well, giving rise to these false alarms.

Researchers say they have created the first ever animal with artificial information in its genetic code.

A study was conducted to examine fodder yield and silage quality of maize (Zea mays L.) and climbing bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) intercropping with different planting structure. Maize was cultivated alone and intercropped with climbing bean as follows;1 row maize to 1 row climbing bean (1M1K), 1 row maize to 2 rows climbing bean (1M2K) and 2 rows maize to 1 row climbing bean (2M1K). The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with four treatments and three replications. The crops were harvested when the maize reached at milk stage and climbing bean at R7 stage. The results indicated significant increase in fresh biomass and dry matter production of maize fodder alone as compared to maize intercropped with climbing bean fodder. However, no difference (p>0.05) was observed in ether extract (EE), and ash (%) of nutrient composition of fodder among the four treatments After 45 days of ensiling period, silage samples were analysed for pH, organic acids (lactic, acetic, and butyric), ammonia-N(NH3-N), dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), ether extract (EE), neutral detergent fibre (NDF), acid detergent fibre (ADF), water soluble carbohydrate (WSC), calcium (Ca), sodium (Na) and potassium (K). All intercropped silages had higher CP values (1M1K, 12.0%; 1M2K, 12.3%; 2M1K, 11.1%) than the monocrop maize (SM, 8.9%) silage. Higher organic acids and ammonia-N (p<0.05) were produced in the 1M2K silages as compared to others silages. The study showed that among all intercropped silages the 1M2K (1 row maize to 2 rows climbing bean) was preferable according to nutrient composition than other intercropped silages. This research work has been done by Maw Ni Soe Htet1, Rab Nawaz Soomro 2,Hai Jiang bo under College of Agronomy, Northwest A & F University, Yangling Shaanxi, P.R China and College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A & F University, Yangling Shaanxi, P.R. China.

"Among the five ape species tested, the "universal" primers detected an average of 6 species per animal. The Archaea-specific primers revealed an average of 95.... By simply looking more closely and more specifically for Archaea, Raymann and her colleagues revealed a conspicuous gap in microbiome research"