By Muriel Kane
Researchers who recently undertook a study with mice in hopes of confirming earlier reports that eating yogurt can help prevent age-related weight gain have discovered a number of unexpected side-effects in their rodent subjects.
First, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists realized that the yogurt-eating mice had shinier, silkier, and thicker coats than the non-yogurt-eating control mice. Then they noticed that the male mice were walking with a “mouse swagger,” which turned out to be due to testicles that were 5% heavier than those of mice fed a standard mouse diet and a full 15% heavier than those of mice forced to live on high-fat, low-nutrient junk food.
And finally they conducted mating experiments and found that yogurt-eating males “inseminated their partners faster and produced more offspring,” while yogurt-eating females gave birth to larger litters and were more successful in raising them to the age of weaning.
Read more at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/04/yogurt-diet-leads-to-swaggering-mice-with-larger-testicles/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29
By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC Nature
Meerkats will stick paws and noses into many a crevice in search of their favourite food – scorpions. And research has now shown that the more subordinate members of meerkat troops are the most “innovative” when it comes to foraging. Read more of the main story at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17788161
- Meerkats are highly social mongooses. They take turns foraging for food and standing guard to look out for predators.
- When “guard meerkats” spot a predator, they warn the rest of the group with repeated staccato alarm cries. Scientists who have studied these calls say the animals produce slightly different sounds depending on the urgency of the threat
- The same researchers who set these tasks for the meerkats have previously found that the animals have “traditions” – set ways of behaving within their group. While members of one meerkat troop will consistently get up very early, those of another will always emerge from their burrows much later in the morning.
Meerkats live in groups of up to 30 animals with one dominant and several subordinate males
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17788161
