Author: admin123TerRe

Four faculty members from three departments in the College of Natural Resources and Environment have received $1.7 million from the National Science Foundation to fund research into the dynamics of socio-environmental factors impacting coastal fisheries.Credit: Photo by Lee Friesland for Virginia Tech. Four faculty members from three departments in the College of Natural Resources and Environment have received $1.7 million from the National Science Foundation to fund research into the dynamics of socio-environmental factors impacting coastal fisheries.Holly Kindsvater and Willandia Chaves of the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Craig Ramseyer of the Department of Geography, and Michael Sorice of…

Brief summary: Congenital heart defects are the most common human birth defect, affecting around 1% of newborns. People with heart defects often show low levels of a protein that helps transport a key metabolite, citric acid, in their cells. Now, researchers in China have shown that although this protein does not directly affect heart development in mice, its loss causes problems with placental growth, leading indirectly to heart defects. The researchers also suggest potential treatments. Image of a healthy 40-day-old mouse heart. Image credit: Wenli Fan Press release: Congenital heart defects are the most common form of human birth defect,…

Post provided by Michaël Beaulieu A cold Encounter in the Wild When talking about animal welfare to scientists who commonly use biologging tools to monitor the behaviour or physiology of wild animals in an ecological or conservation context, I have noticed that the first thing that usually comes to mind for them is the unwanted impact that biologging may have on animal welfare. Much has indeed been discussed and written in the last two decades about the side effects of biologging that may worsen the welfare of the studied animals. So, naturally, these effects can no longer be ignored by…

isbscience.org/news/2024/11/21/isb-study-highlights-ais-potential-and-pitfalls-in-analyzing-health-data/  Posted on November 21, 2024 ISB Associate Professor Dr. Jennifer Hadlock, left, and Dr. Alexandra Ralevski. Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) researchers have gained new insights into the strengths and limitations of using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify social determinants of health from electronic health records. Their peer-reviewed results were published on November 19. The ISB team, collaborating with Providence, leveraged large language models (LLM) developed from generative pre-trained transformers (GPT). Their research was conducted completely within the secure Providence internal environment. The study – aimed at detecting housing instability – was conducted on over 25,000 clinical notes from…

Although more common in dogs, 4 in 10 pet cats also choose to play fetch with their owners, Mikel Delgado from Purdue University, US, and colleagues report in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, publishing September 4, 2024.Credit: Leeza Kolesnikov, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Although more common in dogs, 4 in 10 pet cats also choose to play fetch with their owners, Mikel Delgado from Purdue University, US, and colleagues report in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, publishing September 4, 2024.Dogs are well-known for playing fetch, but some cats also engage in fetching behavior. Fetching may have its roots in the natural…

by Gertrud U. Rey During the first few months of life, residual maternal antibodies that crossed the placenta during gestation and antibodies from breast milk protect infants from infection with various microbes. This type of immune protection is known as “passive immunity,” and differs from “active immunity,” which develops in an individual following vaccination or natural infection with a pathogen. Active immunity involves the function of both antibodies and T cells. During a first exposure to a pathogen (or immunization against that pathogen), T helper cells sense the presence of one or more antigens as foreign and trigger the release…

No such thing as a standard career path – an interview with Maria Rostovskaya Maria Rostovskaya is a senior research scientist at the Babraham Institute, Cambridge, UK, studying development using human pluripotent stem cells. Between her undergraduate degree and her PhD, Maria was a dancer and dance teacher for a few years. What made her decide to switch careers and eventually follow an academic career path? How did her experience in dancing shape her subsequent career? We chatted to Maria to find out more. How has your career path been so far? I did my undergrad in molecular biology at…

Photo credit: John West. It was the end of August, and I was standing in the woods looking out on mountains, meadows, and a crisp blue sky. The scene was stunning in its serenity and beauty. Yet it was also haunted by sadness. I was standing amidst the ruins of the Berghof, Hitler’s infamous retreat near the German-Austrian border. This was where some of the worst atrocities in human history were planned. How could so much evil spring forth from a place of such incredible beauty? For me, the experience underscored how much our view of nature matters. At the…

isbscience.org/news/2024/11/26/2024-25-school-year-isb-education-highlights/  Posted on November 26, 2024 Each month throughout the 2024-2025 academic year, we will highlight some of the top projects the ISB Education team is working on. November Dr. Phil Bell and Dr. Deb Morrison were this year’s recipients of the Valerie Logan Leadership in Science Education Award. Ignite STEM! Thank you to all the friends of ISB Education   On November 13, ISB held the annual Ignite STEM event to celebrate our education program impacts. At the heart of this evening is the Valerie Logan Leadership in Science Education award. The two awardees for this 11th year are Dr.…

Young male northern elephant seals are captured on camera returning to a deep sea cabled observatory off Canada’s British Columbia coast, demonstrating new insight into fish foraging behaviorCredit: Ocean Networks Canada, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Young male northern elephant seals are captured on camera returning to a deep sea cabled observatory off Canada’s British Columbia coast, demonstrating new insight into fish foraging behavior### Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0308461 Article Title: Deep-sea cabled video-observatory provides insights into the behavior at depth of sub-adult male northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris Author Countries: Canada, USA, Spain Funding: Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) is funded through the Canada…