News from Latin America

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 6-May-2025 17:09 ET (6-May-2025 21:09 GMT/UTC)

23-May-2017

Stingless bees have specialized guards to defend their colonies, study reveals

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Several species of stingless bees have specialized guards or soldiers to defend their colonies from attacks by natural enemies. The differentiation of these guardian bees evolved in the last 25 million years and coincided with the appearance of parasitic 'robber' bees, which represent a major threat to many stingless bee species. These discoveries were made by a group of researchers in Brazil in collaboration with colleagues in Germany.

Journal

Nature Communications

Funder

São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (Brazil). Geochronologic research at the MIT Isotope Lab

23-May-2017

Friends help female vampire bats cope with loss

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

When a female vampire bat loses a close relative, she may starve, because she depends on her mother and daughters to share blood by regurgitation. Vampires who have more non-kin social bonds (friends), do better when this happens.

Journal

Biology Letters

Funder

American Society of Mammalogists, National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, Animal Behavior Society

22-May-2017

Success of stem cell therapy for diabetes depends on pre-transplant immune condition

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at the Center for Cell-Based Therapy at University of São Paulo (USP) show that the therapeutic effect is relatively short-lived in patients with more autoreactive lymphocytes before treatment.

Journal

Frontiers in Immunology

Funder

São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (Brazil). Geochronologic research at the MIT Isotope Lab

18-May-2017

Predators are real lowlifes

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

By deploying green clay caterpillar models across six continents, researchers unmasked an important global pattern. Their discovery that predation is most intense near sea level in the tropics provides a foundation for understanding biological processes from crop protection and carbon storage to the effects of climate change on biodiversity.

Journal

Science

Funder

Finnish Cultural Foundation, Instituto de Ecología, Academy of Finland, and Societas Entomologica Helsingforsiensis, A.C., National Environment Research Council (NERC), Oskar Öflunds Stiftelse sr, European Science Foundation

11-May-2017

Discovering the brain mechanisms to diagnose diseases and prescribe treatments

University of São Paulo Medical School
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Development of approaches to reduce medical errors.

Journal

Scientific Reports

9-May-2017

Study investigates collapse of natural or social systems

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A tipping point is a critical threshold at which a dynamical system undergoes an irreversible transformation, typically owing to a small change in inputs or parameters. A numerical simulations of tipping points did at the University of São Paulo's Physics Institute (IF-USP) in Brazil provide a better understanding of the characteristics of this point of no return and what happens to a system after its occurrence.

Journal

Scientific Reports

Funder

São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (Brazil). Geochronologic research at the MIT Isotope Lab

3-May-2017

Antibiotic doxycycline may offer hope for treatment of Parkinson's disease

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A study published in the journal Scientific Reports, an online journal published by Springer Nature, suggests that doxycycline, an antibiotic used for over half a century against bacterial infections, can be prescribed at lower doses for the treatment of Parkinson's disease.

Journal

Scientific Reports

Funder

São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (Brazil). Geochronologic research at the MIT Isotope Lab

3-May-2017

The Earth sank twice, flooding the Western Amazon

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A tiny shark tooth, part of a mantis shrimp and other microscopic marine organisms reveal that as the Andes mountains rose, the Western Amazon sank twice, each time for less than a million years.

Journal

Science Advances

Funder

NSF Division of Earth Sciences and Colciencias Jovenes AQ57AQ58 Investigadore, AQ56 Anders Foundation, Smithsonian Institution

19-Apr-2017

Astronomers perform largest-ever survey of high-mass binary star systems

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international group of astronomers led by researchers at the University of São Paulo's Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics & Atmospheric Sciences (IAG-USP) in Brazil, have just identified and characterized 82 new high-mass binaries located in the Tarantula Nebula, also known as 30 Doradus, in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Funder

São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (Brazil). Geochronologic research at the MIT Isotope Lab

13-Apr-2017

Scientists tag humpback whales in southeast Pacific

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Whales from both poles migrate long distances to breed in tropical waters. Smithsonian scientist Hector M. Guzman and Fernando Félix at the Salinas Whale Museum in Ecuador, tagged 47 humpbacks with satellite transmitters to understand how the humpbacks' Southeastern Pacific population moves within breeding areas.

Journal

Aquatic Mammals

Funder

Panama's National Office of Science and Technology, Candeo Fund, Whale Museum, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, International Community Foundation