articles

Koko the gorilla is best known for a lifelong study to teach her a silent form of communication, American Sign Language. But some of the simple sounds she has learned may change the perception that humans are the only primates with the capacity for speech.

In 2010, Marcus Perlman started research work at The Gorilla Foundation in California, where Koko has spent more than 40 years living immersed with humans — interacting for many hours each day with psychologist Penny Patterson and biologist Ron Cohn.

"I went there with the idea of studying Koko's gestures, but as I got into watching videos of her, I saw her performing all these amazing vocal behaviors," says Perlman, now a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of University of Wisconsin-Madison psychology Professor Gary Lupyan.

Strong winds blowing off the Greenland Ice Sheet are eroding soil and vegetation in the surrounding tundra, making it less productive for caribou and other grazing animals, carbon storage and nutrient cycling, a Dartmouth College study finds.

A report concludes that blooms of toxic cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, are a poorly monitored and underappreciated risk to recreational and drinking water quality in the United States, and may increasingly pose a global health threat.

Male and female brains operate differently at a molecular level, a Northwestern University research team reports in a new study of a brain region involved in learning and memory, responses to stress and epilepsy.

Many brain disorders vary between the sexes, but how biology and culture contribute to these differences has been unclear. Now Northwestern neuroscientists have found an intrinsic biological difference between males and females in the molecular regulation of synapses in the hippocampus. This provides a scientific reason to believe that female and male brains may respond differently to drugs targeting certain synaptic pathways. 

Un estudio reciente publicado en el Journal of Environmental Sciences (JES) muestra que las células madre embrionarias podrían servir de modelo para evaluar los efectos fisiológicos de los contaminantes ambientales de manera eficiente y rentable.

El uso de células madre ha encontrado otra aplicación. En el mundo en que vivimos hoy en día, las personas están constantemente expuestas a sustancias artificiales creadas por diversos procesos industriales. Muchos de estos materiales, cuando se exponen a los seres humanos, pueden causar enfermedades agudas o crónicas. Como consecuencia, las pruebas validadas de toxicidad para hacer frente a la peligrosidad potencial de estos contaminantes, se han convertido en una necesidad urgente.