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413 news posts in Life sciences

Life sciences

07 Apr 2021

Study demonstrates the need to monitor the bit area of event horses

University of Helsinki A new study published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science found that event horses that wear thin or thick bits in events had a greater risk of moderate or severe oral lesions compared to horses wearing medium-sized bits, while straight bits were associated with lesions in the bars of the horse’s mouth. “Our recommendation is to use a jointed bit of moderate thickness, that is 14 to 17 millimetres, if the size of the mouth is not known, paying particular attention to the handling of mares and both warmblood and coldblood event horses. They were seen to have a greater risk of mouth lesions compared to geldings and ponies,” says doctoral student and veterinarian Kati Tuomola from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki. “Since most mouth lesions are not evidenced as bleeding outside the mouth, the bit area should be monitored, and event organisers should carry out systematic oral inspections,” Tuomola adds. Read original article Download original article (pdf) The research group has previously investigated oral lesions in trotters. The object of the current study was event horses, that is horses which compete in events composed of three phases: show jumping, dressage and a cross-country test. […]

Life sciences

26 Mar 2021

What did the brains of the first land vertebrates look like?

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer / Dr Alice M Clement, Flinders University Dr Alice Clement. Image: Flinders University What did the brain of the early tetrapodomorphs, the first fish to develop limbs and walk on land, look like? Preserved brains are very rare in fossils, and even when preserved they were typically shrunken and deformed before becoming fossilized. For this reason, researchers mostly rely on casts of the cranial vault of fossils to study the early evolution of the brain. The closest living relatives of tetrapodomorphs, coelacanths, are known to have brains that are tiny compared to the braincase (1% of volume), so for them endocasts don’t give much information about brain morphology. But are coelacanths representative of extinct tetrapodomorphs in that regard? In a new study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Clement et al. show that this is likely not the case: among living amphibia – together with lungfish, the next closest living relatives of tetrapodomorphs – 4 basal species of frogs and caecilians have brains with a volume of 49-78% of the braincase. Their brains are somewhat larger relative to the braincase than those of lungfish, newts, and salamanders (38-47%), and the authors suggest that the […]

Life sciences

18 Mar 2021

Dolphins adapt to survive invasive coastal constructions

Marine ecosystems are endangered by an increasing number of coastal development projects. A new study shows for the first time that bottlenose dolphins may adapt to anthropogenic disturbance under some circumstances. The findings draw attention to the need for proper management of coastal construction sites. By Suzanna Burgelman, Frontiers Science writer Social interaction between two bottlenose dolphins. Image: Ann Waver Bottlenose dolphins learn to cope with coastal construction activities. That is the conclusion of a study published in Frontiers in Marine Science. The study is the first to provide a longitudinal perspective on the cumulative impacts of coastal construction. Dolphins adapted to the construction of a bridge by establishing feeding locations outside of the construction zone, and by shifting the timings of behaviors to a time in the day when construction activities were minimized. Coastal development practices negatively impact marine wildlife Marine coastal development is characterized by unsustainable practices. Coastal development exposes 47% of coastal marine mammal species and 51% of core marine mammal habitats to extensive anthropogenic disturbance. Human activities along coastlines and in marine habitats can lead to pollution, vessel strikes, entanglement, by-catch, and debris ingestion, which disturb and harm marine wildlife. Read original article Download original article (pdf) […]

Life sciences

26 Feb 2021

New open-source platform accelerates research into the treatment of heart arrhythmias

By Rozi Harsanyi / School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King’s College London Image: megaflopp / Shutterstock An open-source platform, OpenEP co-developed by researchers from the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences at King’s College London has been made available to advance research on atrial fibrillation, a condition characterized by an irregular and often fast heartbeat. It can cause significant symptoms such as breathlessness, palpitations and fatigue, as well as being a major contributor to stroke and heart failure. Current research into the condition involves the interpretation of large amounts of clinical patient data using software written by individual research groups. But a new study recently published in Frontiers in Physiology shows that the OpenEP platform, developed in collaboration between King’s College London, the University of Edinburgh, Invicro, a Konica Minolta Company, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and Imperial College London, is capable of doing close to 90 per cent of the types of analyses that are performed in contemporary electrophysiology studies, enabling researchers to focus on their specific hypothesis or research question. Having a standardized way of using data processing techniques can also help to make them reproducible for other scientists. Lead author, Dr Steven […]

Life sciences

26 Feb 2021

Improving water quality could help conserve insectivorous birds — study

Scarcity of insect prey in disturbed lakes and streams contributes to bird decline, show new results By Anna Sigurdsson and Mischa Dijkstra, science writers A new study shows for the first time that the alarming decline in insectivorous birds across the US may be due to a decline of emergent insects in lakes and streams with poor water quality. These findings highlight the need for holistic conservation across terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Western wood-pepee, Contopus sordidulus. Image: vagabond54/Shutterstock A new study shows that a widespread decline in abundance of emergent insects – whose immature stages develop in lakes and streams while the adults live on land – can help to explain the alarming decline in abundance and diversity of aerial insectivorous birds (ie preying on flying insects) across the US. In turn, the decline in emergent insects appears to be driven by human disturbance and pollution of water bodies, especially in streams. This study, published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, is one of the first to find evidence for a causal link between the decline of insectivorous birds, the decline of emergent aquatic insects, and poor water quality. Human activities, such as urbanization and agriculture, have adverse effects on […]

Life sciences

05 Feb 2021

Chief Editor of Organic Chemistry is elected to the European Academy of Sciences

Professor Iwao Ojima We are proud to announce that Professor Iwao Ojima, Chief Editor of the Organic Chemistry section of  Frontiers in Chemistry has been recently elected to the European Academy of Sciences (EurASc) as a Fellow. Iwao Ojima is professor at the Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the director of the Institute of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, Stony Brook University. He received his PhD from the University of Tokyo. Throughout his research career, Dr. Ojima has had numerous ties to the European scientific community – he was first recognized by European chemistry communities in organometallic chemistry, catalysis and fluorine chemistry, prior to joining the faculty at Stony Brook. His inventions on natural product-based anticancer agents were licensed to both French and Italian pharmaceutical companies. In addition, he served on the External Advisory Board of a highly innovative and successful multidisciplinary Center of Excellence, “Cell in Motion,” at the University of Münster and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, Germany. He received numerous awards and honors, including 4 National Awards from the American Chemical Society in 4 different fields of chemistry, which is a very rare achievement. The European Academy of Sciences (EURASC) – the pan-European […]