EurekAlert! News by Subject: Biology - News by Subject: Biology

Biology

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 4-May-2025 15:09 ET (4-May-2025 19:09 GMT/UTC)

Simple enrichment reduces boredom and boosts welfare in housed dairy cows

Understanding dairy cow behavior has been a hot topic of dairy science research in the last few decades. In a special issue of JDS Communications dedicated to behavior in dairy animals, a new study highlights the importance of environmental enrichment for improving the welfare of housed dairy cows. Researchers at the University of Nottingham found that introducing a simple novel object into the cows’ environment can significantly reduce boredom-associated behaviors, make the environment more engaging, and help the dairy science community better understand the effects of housing on behavior.

Bioengineered yeast microbes as targeted drug delivery systems

National University of Singapore, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (NUS Medicine) have developed a groundbreaking way to engineer yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to create microbial communities that can perform complex tasks and self-regulate their composition in response to external signals.

Journal: Nature Communications

Human civilization at a critical junction between authoritarian collapse and superabundance

System Shift Lab
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new scientific study published in the journal Foresight concludes that human civilisation is on the brink of the next ‘giant leap’ in evolution. However, progress could be thwarted by centralised far-right political projects such as the incoming Donald Trump administration.

"Industrial civilisation is facing 'inevitable' decline as it is replaced by what could turn out to be a far more advanced ‘postmaterialist’ civilisation based on distributed superabundant clean energy. The main challenge is that industrial civilisation is facing such rapid decline that this could derail the emergence of a new and superior 'life-cycle' for the human species", commented Dr Nafeez Ahmed, author of the paper, member of The Club of Rome, member of the Earth4All Transformational Economics Commission and Distinguished Fellow at the Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems.

Journal: foresight

The Crop Journal study uncovers impact of excess sugar on seed production in genetically modified rice

KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers in China achieve a deeper understanding of the reduction of healthy seeds in highly photosynthetic rice crops

Journal: The Crop Journal

Yeast as food emulsifier? Easily released protein as strong as casein

Osaka Metropolitan University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An Osaka Metropolitan University research team has discovered proteins with emulsifying action that can be readily released from yeast cell walls. One of them exhibited emulsifying activity comparable to that of casein, a milk-derived emulsifier.

Journal: Food Hydrocolloids
Funder: Public Foundation of Elizabeth Arnold-Fuji, Japan

Rapid evolution: Researchers discover surprising novelty in mechanisms that determine sex of the African clawed frog

McMaster University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at McMaster University have uncovered unexpected diversity in the genetic processes that determine the sex of the African clawed frog, a significant discovery in what was already one of the most widely studied amphibians in the world.

Journal: Molecular Biology and Evolution
Funder: Natural Science, Engineering Research Council of Canada

Completing the timetree of primates: a new way to map the evolutionary history of life on Earth

Frontiers
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a new article published in Frontiers in Bioinformatics, biologists Dr Jack M Craig, Dr Blair Hedges, and Dr Sudhir Kumar, all at Temple University, have built an evolutionary tree that encompasses 455 primates, every species for which genetic data are available. The tree, the most complete of its kind, shows the evolutionary timescale of the whole order of primates, including monkeys, apes, lemurs, lorises, and galagos. In the following guest editorial, Dr Craig describes the steps of obtaining an almost complete timetree for primates and explains the value of such data.

Journal: Frontiers in Bioinformatics