http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. The brain is a complex system made of billions of neurons and thousands of connections that relate to every human feeling, including one of the strongest emotions, fear. Most neurological fear studies have been rooted in fear-conditioning experiments. Now, University of Missouri researchers have started using computational models of the brain, making it easier to study the brain's connections. Guoshi Li, an electrical and computer engineering doctoral student, has discovered new evidence on how the brain reacts to fear, including important findings that could help victims of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). http://www.physorg.com/news173551918.html Medicine & Health Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:30:04 EST news173551918 Almost 10 percent of the world's mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish are in danger of extinction due to climate change and other factors, according to an Australian report released Tuesday. http://www.physorg.com/news173422007.html Biology Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:50:03 EST news173422007 (AP) -- A gecko with leopard-like spots on its body and a fanged frog that eats birds are among 163 new species discovered last year in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia, an environmental group said Friday. http://www.physorg.com/news173077245.html Biology Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:10:02 EST news173077245 Sometimes to see something properly, you have to stand farther back. This is true of Chuck Close portraits where a patchwork of many small faces changes into one giant face as you back away. http://www.physorg.com/news172847382.html Biology Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:38:24 EST news172847382 The tiny male bat didn't expect to wind up in a biologist's hand when he set out in search of a nighttime snack along Box Canyon Creek. http://www.physorg.com/news172483467.html Biology Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:40:02 EST news172483467 Spanish scientists have developed a model to identify the agricultural areas with the greatest potential for restoring the habitat of the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus), which is at risk of extinction. The study shows that olive groves with low production close to the Natural Park of the Sierra de Cardeņa y Montoro, in Córdoba - which is the only place, along with Doņana, where this species lives - are the most appropriate sites for this purpose. http://www.physorg.com/news172412776.html Biology Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:27:14 EST news172412776 (PhysOrg.com) -- Reptiles changed their walking posture from sprawling to upright immediately after the end-Permian mass extinction, the biggest crisis in the history of life that occurred some 250 million years ago and wiped out 90% of all species. http://www.physorg.com/news172221271.html Other Sciences Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:15:10 EST news172221271 (AP) -- It's a scene that scientists say is all too common: A commercial fishing boat pulls in a net full of shrimp or tuna and finds a loggerhead sea turtle mixed in with the catch. http://www.physorg.com/news171177115.html Biology Thu, 03 Sep 2009 06:30:02 EST news171177115 Conservation biologists based in four countries gathered for an emergency meeting in Vientiane, Lao PDR, August 19, to address the peril of extinction facing one the world's most enigmatic mammals, the Saola. http://www.physorg.com/news171175149.html Biology Thu, 03 Sep 2009 05:50:01 EST news171175149 After the End-Permian extinction 252.6 million years ago, ammonoids diversified and recovered 10 to 30 times faster than previous estimates. http://www.physorg.com/news171127849.html Other Sciences Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:40:01 EST news171127849 Pikas don't ask much. With brave squeaks, belted out from atop their rock piles, they defend their realm in the talus slopes way up here in the mountains, more than a mile in the sky, far from anyone, anywhere. http://www.physorg.com/news170963832.html Biology Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:20:03 EST news170963832 A giant panda in northern China has given birth to twins, state media said Wednesday in rare good news for a species facing the threat of extinction. http://www.physorg.com/news169892678.html Biology Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:40:11 EST news169892678 China's giant panda could be extinct in just two to three generations as rapid economic development is infringing on its way of life, state media said on Monday, citing an expert at conservation group WWF. http://www.physorg.com/news169699401.html Biology Mon, 17 Aug 2009 03:44:08 EST news169699401 (PhysOrg.com) -- Global calamities like the one that doomed most dinosaurs forever alter the varieties of life found on Earth, but new research shows that it doesn't take a catastrophe to end entire lineages. An analysis of 200 million years of history for marine clams found that vulnerability to extinction runs in evolutionary families, even when the losses result form ongoing, background rates of extinction. http://www.physorg.com/news168790694.html Biology Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:19:14 EST news168790694 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have debated how many mass extinction events in Earth's history were triggered by a space body crashing into the planet's surface. Most agree that an asteroid collision 65 million years ago brought an end to the age of dinosaurs, but there is uncertainty about how many other extinctions might have resulted from asteroid or comet collisions with Earth. http://www.physorg.com/news168183769.html Space & Earth Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:30:01 EST news168183769 Governments must act urgently to halt loss of habitats and invading species that are posing major threats to biodiversity and causing species extinctions across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, according to a landmark new study. http://www.physorg.com/news167996768.html Biology Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:46:53 EST news167996768 (PhysOrg.com) -- The wound that ultimately killed a Neandertal man between 50,000 and 75,000 years was most likely caused by a thrown spear, the kind modern humans used but Neandertals did not, according to Duke University-led research. http://www.physorg.com/news167323513.html Other Sciences Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:30:01 EST news167323513 Internationally renowned palaeontologist and Monash University Honorary Research Associate, Dr Anthony Martin has found evidence of a dinosaur burrow along the coast of Victoria, which helps to explain how dinosaurs protected themselves from climate extremes during the Cretaceous period - the final era for dinosaurs before their extinction. http://www.physorg.com/news166972486.html Other Sciences Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:15:08 EST news166972486 When it comes to investigating mysteries, Sherlock Holmes has nothing on Rice University biologist Amy Dunham. In a newly published paper, Dunham offers a new theory for one of primatology's long-standing mysteries: Why are male and female lemurs the same size? http://www.physorg.com/news166793403.html Biology Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:30:31 EST news166793403 (PhysOrg.com) -- Drifting across the world's oceans are a group of unicellular marine microorganisms that are not only a crucial source of food for other marine life -- but their fossils, which are found in abundance, provide scientists with an extraordinary record of climatic change and other major events in the history of the earth. http://www.physorg.com/news166790588.html Biology Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:43:50 EST news166790588 On the heels of his discovery in Montana of the first trace fossil of a dinosaur burrow, Emory University paleontologist Anthony Martin has found evidence of more dinosaur burrows - this time on the other side of the world, in Victoria, Australia. The find, to be published this month in Cretaceous Research, suggests that burrowing behaviors were shared by dinosaurs of different species, in different hemispheres, and spanned millions of years during the Cretaceous Period, when some dinosaurs lived in polar environments. http://www.physorg.com/news166471265.html Other Sciences Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:20:01 EST news166471265 New evidence for ice-free summers with intermittent winter sea ice in the Arctic Ocean during the Late Cretaceous - a period of greenhouse conditions - gives a glimpse of how the Arctic is likely to respond to future global warming. http://www.physorg.com/news166355359.html Space & Earth Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:49:50 EST news166355359 What's so great about sex? From an evolutionary perspective, the answer is not as obvious as one might think. An article published in the July issue of the American Naturalist suggests that sex may have evolved in part as a defense against parasites. http://www.physorg.com/news166118400.html Biology Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:00:32 EST news166118400 Microscopic analysis of scratches on dinosaur teeth has helped scientists unravel an ancient riddle of what a major group of dinosaurs ate- and exactly how they did it! http://www.physorg.com/news165515308.html Other Sciences Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:28:50 EST news165515308 A third of the world's open water sharks -- including the great white and hammerhead -- face extinction, according to a major conservation survey released Thursday. http://www.physorg.com/news165153468.html Biology Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:30:07 EST news165153468 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of Florida and the University of Winnipeg have developed the first detailed images of a primitive primate brain, unexpectedly revealing that cousins of our earliest ancestors relied on smell more than sight. http://www.physorg.com/news164909938.html Other Sciences Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:19:39 EST news164909938 (AP) -- Britain's cuckoo bird, known for its distinctive call, is in danger of extinction along with 51 other species, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said in a new report Thursday. http://www.physorg.com/news162743964.html Biology Thu, 28 May 2009 15:40:05 EST news162743964 A previously unknown giant volcanic eruption that led to global mass extinction 260million years ago has been uncovered by scientists at the University of Leeds. http://www.physorg.com/news162738601.html Space & Earth Thu, 28 May 2009 14:13:04 EST news162738601 (PhysOrg.com) -- In the past 50 years it has become commonplace to think of Earth as a nurturing place, straining mightily to maintain equilibrium so that life might continue and flourish. http://www.physorg.com/news162045215.html Other Sciences Wed, 20 May 2009 13:34:10 EST news162045215 They are cursed the world over for contaminating food supplies and are a huge commercial pest, but the humble flour beetle is about to play a significant role in the management of endangered species. http://www.physorg.com/news161949561.html Biology Tue, 19 May 2009 10:59:49 EST news161949561