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Categories: Biology: Microbiology, Offbeat: Plants and Animals

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Ants who receive a caffeine-laced sugary reward become more efficient at navigating back to the reward's location compared to ants that only receive sugar. Caffeinated ants move toward the reward via a more direct path but do not increase their speed, suggesting that caffeine improved their ability to learn. The study was conducted on Argentine ants (Linepithema humile), a globally invasive species, and the researchers say that incorporating caffeine into ant baits could aid efforts to control the ants by improving bait uptake.

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Members of the vertebrate group including anglerfishes are unique in possessing a characteristic known as sexual parasitism, in which males temporarily attach or permanently fuse with females to mate. Now, researchers show that sexual parasitism arose during a time of major global warming and rapid transition for anglerfishes from the ocean floor to the deep, open sea.

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Animals and fungi predominantly use two different modes of cell division -- called open and closed mitosis, respectively. A new study has shown that different species of Ichthyosporea -- marine protists that are close relatives of both animals and fungi -- use either open and closed mitosis, closely correlated to whether the species has multinucleate life cycle stages. The study demonstrates the way animals do cell division might have evolved long before animals themselves did and how this is linked to an organism's life cycle.

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Researchers found that adding a newly developed modified sugar, BNAP-AEO, to gapmer antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) increased their affinity for target RNAs, thus significantly enhancing their gene-silencing effects in vitro and in vivo. The BNAP-AEO modification also decreased gapmer ASO toxicity to the central nervous system (CNS), suggesting that it could improve the clinical application of ASO treatment of CNS disease.

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A new study demonstrates that kangaroos, wallabies and other Australian marsupials fear humans far more than any other predator.

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A new study shows that real-world ocean conditions make a huge difference in how viral infection affects host bacteria. The findings indicate it is very important to study cells and virocells under nutrient conditions that more closely resemble what they encounter in nature.

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Researchers trained an AI model to accurately predict male fruit flies' courtship behavior in response to any sight of a female. This breakthrough offers new insight into how the brain processes visual data and may someday pave the way for artificial vision technology.

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A new study reveals that cows who are cuddled as therapy animals showed a strong preference for interactions with women when compared to men. In turn, the research, which opens a new era on whether some therapies may be initially stronger based upon gender and not procedure, highlighted that the women also reported greater attachment behaviors towards the steers.

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Researchers started with 50 samples collected from 1941 to 1947, and they found that the samples contained seven different Streptococcus species, including two subspecies of S. dysgalactiae. Interestingly, the researchers found some of the samples were resistant to the antibiotic tetracycline and did not carry antibiotic resistance genes typically seen in today's antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. Since these samples were collected prior to the antibiotic era, the results add to a growing body of literature showing that antibiotic resistance occurred naturally before humans discovered and began to use antibiotics.

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Many processes in the deep sea are not yet well understood, and the role of microbial communities in particular is often a big unknown. This includes, for example, how organic material that sinks from the water surface to the ocean floor is metabolised -- an important building block for a better understanding of the global carbon cycle.

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Researchers describe cell-in-cell phenomena in which one cell engulfs and sometimes consumes another. The study shows that cases of this behavior, including cell cannibalism, are widespread across the tree of life. The findings challenge the common perception that cell-in-cell events are largely restricted to cancer cells. Rather, these events appear to be common across diverse organisms, from single-celled amoebas to complex multicellular animals.

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A new laboratory study suggests that human body lice are more efficient at transmitting Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, than previously thought, supporting the possibility that they may have contributed to past pandemics.

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While humans feature a sophisticated sense of smell, insects have a much more basic olfactory system. Yet they depend upon smell to survive. Scientists have figured out how fruit flies use a simple but efficient system to recognize odors, and the answer lies at the edges of their antennae.

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Currently available flu medications only target the virus after it has already established an infection, but what if a drug could prevent infection in the first place? Now, scientists have designed drug-like molecules to do just that, by thwarting the first stage of influenza infection.

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Researchers have used a unique microscopic technique to examine the dynamics of pollen tubes in the Arabidopsis plant. They were able to observe the mechanism of one-to-one pollen tube guidance, a process that ensures successful pollination of plants. This process is influenced by multi-step repelling and attracting signals. The results are important for the cultivation of crops, especially under unfavorable environmental conditions.

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Leishmaniasis is a tropical disease affecting a growing number of people worldwide. Each year, between 700,000 and 1 million new cases are reported. Caused by a protozoan parasite of the genus Leishmania, which is transmitted to humans by the simple bite of a sand fly, leishmaniasis comprises three clinical forms, of which the visceral form is the most serious. If left untreated, visceral leishmaniasis, also known as black fever, is almost always fatal.

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Matcha, a finely ground green tea powder, may help keep bacteria that causes periodontitis at bay.

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The past attempts of honey bee researchers to inventory the fungal diversity in honey bee colonies revealed that Aspergillus flavus is frequently found in hives. In a new study, researchers have discovered that this fungus is uniquely adapted to survive in bee colonies.

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Deforestation in Costa Rica raises the risk of cattle becoming infected with rabies by vampire bats, finds a new study.

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Scientists discover 'zoned development' in dinosaur skin, with zones of reptile-style scales and zones of bird-like skin with feathers. A new dinosaur skin fossil has been found to be composed of silica -- the same as glass.