Studies explore how dog and cat guardians perceive more sustainable pet food options.

Pikas, small mammals that are closely related to rabbits, often greet hikers in the Rocky Mountains with loud squeaks. A new study finds hints that warming temperatures may already be taking a toll on pikas living in one habitat in Colorado.

Chronic Wasting Disease, a prion protein disease that is fatal in elk, deer, and other cervids,  has now reached Idaho near the Oregon border, causing concern for the Columbian white-tailed deer, a rare subspecies found only in two regions in Oregon. The deer have little genetic protection against CWD, but a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign shows that about half of Oregon elk carry a gene that makes them less susceptible to the disease. That could help slow down CWD’s progress into the state, but it is still important to monitor and manage cervid populations

Researchers from the University of Rochester’s Department of Biomedical Engineering will shed new light on tissue and organ development by studying how cells interact mechanically with the extracellular matrix, a biological polymer produced by cells that acts like scaffolding for building more complicated structures.

Yi Du and colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences published an article in the open access journal PLOS Biology on November 18^th detailing their findings about a new way our bodies naturally respond to music. Given a steady beat, our eyes blink in synchrony.

A new paper by post-doctoral researchers Emily Sperou and Renato Borras-Chavez in the journal Polar Biology discusses a unique phenomenon observed in a reclusive Antarctic animal: postmortem attentive behavior, or PAB, in the solitary leopard seal. Borras-Chavez and Sperou are members of URI’s CEAL Lab; their study presents one of the first detailed records of maternal behavior in leopard seals of South America, including the first detailed account of PAB in the species, and one of the longest PAB events recorded in mammals.