How Severe Maternal Inflammation Can Lead to Autism-like Behavior
In 2010, a large study in Denmark found that women who suffered an infection severe enough to require hospitalization while pregnant were much more likely to have a child with…
biology
Discovery of Consoling Behavior in Prairie Voles May Benefit Autism Research
Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have discovered that a social laboratory rodent, the prairie vole, shows an empathy-based consoling response when other voles are distressed….
Dog Domestication May Have Increased Harmful Genetic Changes, UCLA Biologists Report
The domestication of dogs may have inadvertently caused harmful genetic changes, a UCLA-led study suggests. Domesticating dogs from gray wolves more than 15,000 years ago involved artificial selection and inbreeding,…
Researchers Identify Intelligence Gene Networks
A group of scientists led by Imperial College London researcher Michael Johnson has identified two ‘gene networks’ associated with human cognitive abilities. “We know that genetics plays a major role…
Is Seeing Believing? People Are Surprisingly Bad at Identifying Where Sights and Sounds Originate
Our vision and hearing aren’t as reliable as we might think, according to a study by life scientists at UCLA. “Our basic sensory representation of the world — how information…
Biologists are Engineering Kill Switches for GM Microbes
To keep old trains running, operators had to keep a firm grip on a dead man’s switch. If the operator became incapacitated or, well, dead, his hand would loosen, the…