News by Subject Biology

For the first time, scientists have shown that fungal hitchhikers use birds to colonize new territories with their plant partners. In a New Phytologist study, the researchers provide the first evidence that birds don't just carry plants to new places, but their fungal partners too.

A team of scientists from I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (MSMU) discovered that earthworms efficiently process rice straw and enrich the soil with organic matter increasing its fertility and preventing the burning of the straw that takes quite long to naturally decompose. The results of the study were published in the European Journal of Soil Biology. The work was supported with a grant of the Russian Science Foundation.

As coral species die off, they may be leaving a death spiral in their wake: Their absence could be sapping life from the corals that survive. In a new study, when isolated from other species, corals got weak, died off or grew in fragile structures. The study has shown it is possible to quantify positive effects of coral biodiversity and negative effects of its absence.

A recent study UTSA public policy professors Alexander Testa and Dylan Jackson assesses the link between food-related hardships and obesity. Using a national sample of adults across the United States, the researchers learned that individuals who are food insecure are at an increased risk of obesity. Study results also showed that the individuals who live in food deserts are at an elevated risk for obesity.

Transmissible cancer which has devastated Tasmanian devil populations is unlikely to cause extinction, according to latest research.