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Study Finds Males May Contribute to Offspring's Mental Development Before Pregnancy

A new study from Indiana University provides evidence in mice that males may play a positive role in the development of offspring’s brains starting before pregnancy. The research, reported June 30 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, found that female mice exposed to male pheromones gave birth to infants with greater mental ability. “This…

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Cuba Nearly Eliminates Mother-to-Child HIV Infections

Cuba on 30 June became the first country in the world to receive validation from the World Health Organization (WHO) that it has eliminated mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV and syphilis.  Low-level transmission still occurs there: in 2013, three babies were born with congenital syphilis and two with HIV. But the country has met the official WHO criteria for elimination: …

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Flatworms Could Replace Mammals for Some Toxicology Tests

Scientists at UC San Diego have discovered that planarians, commonly used in high-school biology labs to study regeneration and the primitive nervous system, are actually quite sophisticated when it comes to modeling the response of the developing human nervous system to potentially toxic chemicals. The researchers published their findings in the current issue of the journal Toxicological Sciences. “Because planarians…

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Signs of Democracy Seen in Typically Authoritarian Baboon Society

When it’s time to travel, wild olive baboons make democratic decisions about where to go, even though they live in hierarchical societies. The discovery is a surprise, researchers report online today in Science, because large, alpha males typically get their way—pushing subordinates aside to get food or mates. But when choosing where to travel, a baboon’s social rank or sex is…

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