The two marmosets—small, New World monkeys—had been a closely bonded couple for more than 3 years. Then, one fateful day, the female had a terrible accident. She fell out of a tree and hit her head on a ceramic vase that happened to be underneath on the forest floor. Her partner left two of their infants alone in the tree…
A team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Center for Cancer Systems Biology (CCSB) at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has uncovered a new aspect of autism, revealing that proteins involved in autism interact with many more partners than previously known. These interactions had not been detected earlier because they involve alternatively spliced…
A team of international scientists, including a trio from Simon Fraser University, has published the world’s first ranking of evolutionary distinct birds under threat of extinction. These include a cave-dwelling bird that is so oily it can be used as a lamp and a bird that has claws on its wings and a stomach like a cow. The research, published today in Current Biology,…
The ability to disengage from our own desire to cater to someone else’s wishes is thought to be a unique feature of human cognition. In a study published in the journal, Biology Letters, Prof Clayton and her colleagues challenge this assumption. Despite wanting something different to eat, male Eurasian jays can disengage from their own current desire in order to feed the female what…
ISG Associate Director, Jessica Lynch-Alfaro, recently published “Capuchin Monkey Research Priorities and Urgent Issues” in the American Journal of Primatology. Abstract: The “Capuchin research community roundtable: working together towards a comparative biology of Cebus and Sapajus” was held at the International Primatological Society Congress in Cancún, Mexico, August 2012. Goals of the roundtable were to strengthen interactions among the capuchin research…
ISG Associate Director, Jessica Lynch-Alfaro, recently published “Activity Budget, Diet, and Habitat Use in the Critically Endangered Ka’apor Capuchin Monkey (Cebus Kaapori) in Pará State, Brazil: A Preliminary Comparison to Other Capuchin Monkeys” in the American Journal of Primatology. Abstract The Ka’apor capuchin, Cebus kaapori, is perhaps the most endangered primate of the Brazilian Amazon. Endemic to a region with extreme…