Polly Want a Cracker?

Urbanization has often had effects on human population growth. However, it seems now that it is also having an effect on certain species of birds. A recent study showed that urbanization has actually had a positive effect on some species of birds. Not only do they readily adapt to the surroundings, they tend to do better in urban areas than rural areas.

Just last year I, myself, studied the interaction between Blue Jays and House Sparrows in different environments. Feeders were placed in rural, suburban, and urban areas. I observed the species of bird that regularly visited the feeder and noted its behavior. My results showed that Blue Jays dominated the rural feeders and even fought off incoming House Sparrows. The results were quite different in the urban area, however, where House Sparrows thrived and dominated. I came to a conclusion that House Sparrows did not feel threatened by the presence of humans and almost took advantage of that presence.

So you must ask yourself, is urbanization having a positive or negative effect on animal species? Are the behaviors of other animals changing in direct correlation to human behavior? Is there anything we can do? If this is true, what would you do?


Posted by Katrina Francescone (1).

(Professor, I could not figure out how to do the bold and italics on my Mac-it says to press Ctrl with B or I so theres no button. I will fix it.)

Animals Can Sense Earthquakes is Real or Fake

Earthquakes are almost unpredictable phenomenon that taken countless lives and caused enormous damage to properties. Some of them are predictable but not all. There is no way we can accurately predict when earthquakes are going to visit us. There is a hypothesis that animals can detect ahead of time where earthquakes will hit. Many researchers have tried to proof if animals can really predict earthquakes for many years. However, some of the people are strongly disagree with this hypothesis.

Researchers say that animals like dogs and cats have strange behavior before the earthquakes happen. Strange behavior like dogs will keep barking or biting, and cats will become extremely nervous; some animals are even trying to hide and escape from the area. “In 373 B.C., historians recorded that animals, including rats, snakes and weasels, deserted the Greek city of Helice in droves just days before a quake devastated the place.” which draws the first hypothesis that animals can detect earthquakes. Rupert Sheldrake did some studies on animal reactions before major tremors. In all the cases, he said, “there were reports of peculiar behavior beforehand, including dogs howling in the night mysteriously, caged birds becoming restless, and nervous cats hiding.” which makes him to believe animals are capable to sense earthquake before it happens.

Earthquake are tragedy that destroy millions of people’s lives and properties. There is no way we can prevent it to happen, but there is a hope that we can predict when it will happen. If this hope comes true, we will save countless people’s lives and to decrease its destruction to minimum. Now researchers are still trying their best to find out a way that we can see its coming before it happen by watching strange animals behavior.

Source:
National Geographic News
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/11/1111_031111_earthquakeanimals.html

Posted by: Kaiming (Kyle) Chiang (1)

Female Beetles Mate to Survive

Bruchid beetles are a food pest that lives in many people's homes. They are commonly called bean weevils and are small, dark colored insects that live in beans or seeds. Since these living conditions are often very dry, females needs a source of water and other nutrients - and they find this in males.

During copulation, the male's ejaculate provides the female with hydration and nutrients that are sufficient to save her life. This phenomenon occurs mostly in insects and not in larger animals because insects are so small. A relatively large percentage of their body weight, as compared to other animals, is comprised of high water content ejaculate. In larger animals the female needs many more resources than could ever be provided by a male's seminal fluid.

Females aren't the only ones who benefit from this relationship. By providing the females with these nutrients the males get time to have their sperm fertilize her eggs before another male comes along and copulates with the female. The male also benefits because the hydration he provides to the female is just one more reason she would want to mate with him. Male Bruchid beetles have spines on their reproductive organs that can hurt the female unless she kicks him away right at the end of copulation - because of this, it's no wonder that females might need some extra incentive to want to mate.

Link to article.

Posted by Christina Breed (1)

Size Matters When it Comes to Practicing Safer Sex

A research team based in New Zealand and Kenya have found that in the East African jumping spider, Evarcha culicivora, the size of their mate matters to them. A study recently published in the scientific journal, Ethology, found that despite the risk of sexual cannibalism, virgin females were attracted to bigger, meatier males. The female spiders will choose the larger males to first breed with them for the sole purpose of mating. Yet after experience, these female would opt for the smaller mate, resulting in “safer sex.”

More often than not the female Evarcha culicivora is larger than her mate. Large males tend to be more caniballistic towards smaller females, which has led to the evolution of the females’ mate choice behavior. If Evarcha culicivora females could choose their mates by preference, they prefer the larger males, although that is not the safest choice. In order to make sure that these female mating choices were based on size alone and not courtship behavior, Dr. Pollard explained in his study that these jumping spiders native to East Africa have exceptional eyesight in comparison to other animals of their size. Due to the fact that these spiders have such good eyesight, they tested virgin females- that were bred in a lab- with non virgin males. Using different sized dead males arranged in lifelike positions the study resulted in females that were more than two times likely to choose the larger mate. Yet, two our of three females that had copulated, chose the smaller mate. They also tested this exact same experiment with live spiders and the results came in the same. I guess size really does matter to these female Evarcha culicivora when practicing safer sex.

Source:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1439-0310.2007.01394.x
(In order to access this link, you have to have a subscription to the journal. I made a request to the UMASS library to get a subscription in order for everyone to check out the online journal.)

Posted by Kayla Carrero (1).

The Animals are Going Crazy

We have all learned about how pollution is bad ever since we were little kids. Don't litter. Don't drive when you don't have to; ride a bike instead. When I was little I never thought about all the different things that are affected when you do pollute or all of the ways you can pollute. This blog is about how environmental pollution is driving wildlife literally insane. This blog will discuss the affects of chemical pollutants on specific wildlife species, egrets and gulls, snails, quails, rats and macaques, minnows, mosquito fish,falcons and frogs.

The chemicals to blame for the insanity in these animals are called endocrine disruptors and come from metals such as lead. These animals have altered their mating and parenting behaviors and also their nest building, foraging and skills in avoiding predators. Activity levels have also decreased dramatically. Male sterlings that were exposed to a certain chemical decreased their singing, flying and foraging behaviors by 50%. High levels of lead affects the balance in gulls and atrazine makes goldfish hyper. The chemcial TCDD causes agression in macaques. These are just a few of the examples of affects that certain chemicals have on animals. It is has been shown that too much of certain chemicals can be a bad thing, but not enough of certain chemicals can be a bad thing also. Low amounts of certainchemicals are causing, for example, male mice that are exposed to low doses of some pesticides increase there sense of smell. The affects of these chemicals are a very serious problem, but biologists and toxicologists are missing this.

"Not only are we failing to aknowledge the scale of the problem caused my endocrine disruptors, but toxicologists may be missing a trick: changes in animal behavior could be an early warning that certain chemicals are harmful."

We have all known for a long time that certain chemicals are harmful, but did we actually know exactly what they were doing the animals and how they are driving them crazy?

Posted by Katie Berthiaume (1).

The Bubble Dog has the Cure

In June 2006 a new treatments was found to cure the life-threatening genetic disorder that disables the immune system, bubble boy disease, in basset hounds. The disease is an X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (XSCID) that affects male dogs and 1 in 100,000 boys, all who share a faulty gene from one of their mother's x-chromosomes. New treatment will be available in the future. There is only one treatment for now and the boys are given bone-marrow transplants which replenish stem cells responsible for the renewing of new functional immune cells.

Gene therapy, done in the lab with the individual's own bone marrow cells and the normal gene, has shown some success in treating the disease. 10 out of the 11 boys were used in this 1999 French study but three of them developed leukemia because of the process. Peter J. Felsburg, professor of immunology at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine and leader of the recent work, stated that the new ex-vivo (outside the body) therapy has been proven successful in restoring normal immune function in XSCID boys but that it has several potential problems to it. His experiment consisted of injecting the corrected gene via an engineered virus into the bloodstream. Three of the four basset hounds used in the experiment have maintained a healthy immune system over a year after receiving the good genes and the fourth dog received a lower dosage proving that there is a lower limit of the dose before the gene can improve the immunity. Jennifer Puck, researcher in the Division of Immunology & Rheumatology and the University of California, San Francisco, is a leading expert in XSCID and she and her colleagues developed a way to diagnose the disease in young infants which will be presented in the conference Primary Immunodeficiencies: Past, Present, Future. She still believes it is too early to start the application in humans but seems very pleased with the results and she also stated that the French children who developed the leukemia got ill 30-34 months after the treatment. Puck wishes that research continues on this and other immunodeficiency disease that affect both girls and boys and that in the future we might be able to screen for diseases like these in infant children so that we reduce problems.

If this experiment proves to be effective it will eventually be used in humans and it is interesting how male dogs also show this disease. Even man's best friend gets the same illnesses.

Taken from Animal Planet: http://animal.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060612/bubbleboy.html

Posted by Carmen B. Arsuaga (1)

Speed Matters

Natural selection is a process where heritable traits that are important for survival and reproduction are passed on and where harmful traits become rarer. The organism with advantageous traits tends to mate more and pass on its genes over many generations. Researchers at UC San Diego and UC Irvine have found that sperm cell motility is important in reproductive competition in primate species, where the female mates with more than one male. Dr. Michael Berns from UC San Diego have reported that sperm cells swim much faster and with much greater force in chimpanzee and rhesus macaque species than in humans and gorillas.

Female chimps and rhesus macaques mate with several males in a social group. So for a male to pass on its genes it would be favorable if it had a faster and stronger swimming sperm cells to fertilize an egg. Researchers found the slowest swimming forces and swimming speeds belonged to gorillas where males discourage other males from mating with gorillas in their harems. So a faster sperm wouldn’t be advantageous to them. The next slowest sperm speed and force belonged to humans then the chimps. This was surprising to many scientists that the human sperm speed and force fell in between the gorillas and the chimps which raised questions if we were monogamous as we always thought we were.

Biologists have been always interested in this sperm competition for many years to test the theory if polygamous species having faster and stronger sperm speed and force in reproductive success. To test this theory it required the collaboration of biologists, physicists, and engineers to design and test the equipment. Now we have some results that support the theory that polygamous species tend to have faster and stronger swimming sperm.

Source:
Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070925090250.htm

Posted by IamGOD (1)

Rethinking Rats

Some people say that life is like a rat race; there could be some truth to that.

Scientists performed experiments on rats and their observations suggest that rats actually think about their choices in life. Rats need food for survival, but sometimes the effort in getting the food costs more than what they would benefit from eating it. Based on the study, rats can make decisions about what they should eat when given different alternatives. This makes sense because rats are foragers by nature, so they would be presented with many options, but they can’t have everything; it’s important to choose the right food that will nourish them while keeping them safe.

The scientists set up a T-maze, where the rat was placed at the bottom of the T, and at either side they had chambers with visible sugar pellets. One side had a single sugar pellet and the other side had three-to-five sugar pellets; if it was left like this the rats would obviously choose the side with more pellets. To see if rats did make choices about value, they set up an obstacle course of sorts to get to the multiple sugar pellets. The obstacle course was a combination of walls and ledges to climb over and tight ropes to walk across. Unfortunately, the article does not state how big the T-maze was. What they observed is that the rats will go through the obstacles to get to the sugar pellets, but once it becomes too much of an effort for them, they will instead settle for the single pellet. This idea that rats think about how much effort they will use to get a reward is also in the human psyche; with more experiments and observation, maybe we will learn we have more in common with the little furry rodents than we thought.

http://animal.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060612/smartrat.html

Posted by John Garabedian (1)

Evening Geniuses

When you walk into your apartment late in the evening you might spot a couple of cockroaches scurrying around to find a dark hiding spot. From previous studies, the reasoning was that they are light sensitive and prefer to be out in the dark, so when you turn your lights on at night they favor to be somewhere dark and hidden. A new study at Vanderbilt University decided to look at the sensory systems instead of the visual systems of the cockroach species, Leucophaea madera, and see how well the cockroaches’ olfactory systems respond at different periods of the day.

Individual cockroaches were trained at different times of the 24 hour day/night period to associate with smells. For a cockroach, the olfactory sense is stronger than its vision. Cockroaches move by use of their antennae. The antennae produce small electrical charges in the presence of certain chemicals and they respond to odor stimuli. Cockroaches leave chemical trails in their feces that other cockroaches follow that lead to sources of food and water.

In this study there were three scents that were used as a standard for cockroaches. Cockroaches can associate and react well with these particular scents. The peppermint scent cockroaches disliked the most, sugar water is a scent that they prefer and vanilla is a scent that the cockroaches find appealing and like the most. Researchers observed how long these cockroaches could remember the smell over periods of the day.

When the results came in they discovered that in the morning, cockroaches are least active and incapable of forming a new memory. However, in the evening they are very active and can retain a memory for several days. Terry L. Page, a professor of biological science said:

“An interesting question is why the animal would not want to learn at a particular time of day. We have no idea…the fact that our study involves the olfactory system suggests that the circadian cycle could be influencing a number of senses beyond vision.”

The discovery that cockroaches’ memory is strongly modulated by the circadian cycle opens up a new area of research. This is the first example of an insect whose ability of learning is based by its biological clock. It shows that there is more interaction with the cockroaches between biological clocks and memory and learning in general. It will be interesting to see what else they can find out about these small species. After all, who would have thought that a small cockroach could retain new information for several days?

Source:
Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070927132543.htm

Posted by: Nelina Bridge (1)

Can Migrating Birds See True North? or, Birds have Super Magno-Eyes.

The question of just how birds figure out where they're going when they're migrating is an old one. At least I think it is. Is it genetically based, like in Monarch butterflies? Or do they just wing it? (Ha, no pun intended, I swear.)Do they literally "see" what direction they are headed? It has long been a schoolboy daydream among ornithologists that maybe, just maybe birds can sense the magnetic field of the earth through their eyes (once again, I can only guess at what ornithologists really daydream about.)Some recent research tentatively points out that in some birds, this magno-sight may be the case.

In a study conducted at the University of Oldenburg, scientists injected some migratory garden Warblers' eyes and brain with a molecular tracer capable of traveling along nerve fibers. When they let the birds go and orient themselves, the tracers converged on a spot in the brain (the thalamus -- vision). This led them to surmise that maybe the birds see the magnetic fields that they have long been known to align themselves with. The real interesting point of all this is that both of the tracers, one injected, as noted, in the eye, and another, in cluster N (an area very active when orienting) converged in a part of the brain where vision is registered and sorted out. This also shows a direct linkage between the eyes and cluster N. Does this link mean that when birds need it, there is a little pointer in their sight that shows true North? Is it always present, or can the birds manipulate it's implementation?

Many questions remain to be answered, and he scientists involved with the study stress the idea that the research is in it's infancy. They do, however, suggest that perhaps the magnetic north, to a bird wanting to migrate, would appear as a darker or lighter area in the bird's vision. This idea has been forwarded before; the concept is framed by the presence of cryptophores in the brain, which react to magnetic fields. However, some scientists also note that this isn't the end all be all of migratory investigation. Sure, if you have a compass, you'll know which way you're headed, but what if you don't have any idea where you are? Certainly, the bird's brain must also include a map of some sort to make the compass useful.

In addition to this, the experiment has yet to be replicated, and as noted in the comments, should be conducted in similar, migrating species, as well as more sedentary species. Do all birds have the ability, or just those that experience migratory restlessness? Do all birds need it? What about birds migrating south? Do they just reverse direction? The scientists did note a need to conduct the experiment on a species to species level in other articles.

Whatever the result, the real question is how all of this adds up to a bunch of birds flying North really well.


Posted by Brad Garvey(1).

Alien vs. Predator, or One in the Same?

Dr. Rita Mehta from the University of California has made a recent discovery about the feeding habits of moray eels. Morays grow to about 10 feet long and have no fins. They have snake-like bodies and are a top predator. Dr. Mehta was interested in their feeding habits because they prey on large fish instead of smaller ones. Morays are classified as ray finned fish, but unlike other members of this category, they do not use a suction mechanism to catch their prey. Traditionally, ray finned fish will use suction, through negative water pressure from expanding their mouth cavity, to catch their prey.

Through filming the moray eels while feeding on squid, Dr. Mehta and her team discovered that the morays feed in a completely different manner. The eels first grab the prey with the teeth on their front jaws, and then, a second set of jaws, the pharyngeal jaws, spring forward into the mouth and clamp down on the prey. These jaws then drag the food down the eel's throat. Upon seeing this action, one immediately thinks of the movie Alien.

After documenting the feeding mechanism, Dr. Mehta infers that this is why the morays are such good predators. When using the suction mechanism, larger fish are more likely to be able to escape during the influx of water, so the evolution of the morays is greatly beneficial. They can obtain prey larger than their open mouth, and use less energy.

Dr. Mehta is currently looking for other animals that feed this way, so as to determine the evolutionary process of this mechanism, but she hasn't found any yet.

I found this article in the New York Times, and the online article has a video of the eels feeding that was really awesome.

Posted by Katie Ensor (1)

* In response to the comments posted: *

The moray eel is mentioned as the only ray-finned fish that feeds via the pharyngeal jaw.

Also, Jeff Smith posted about another cool jaw mechanism, that of a dragonfly nymph. He writes "It can be shot out at pretty formidable speeds like a spring loaded arm to spear tadpoles or small fish." So, if you're looking for more cool jaws, check it out!

Migrating Birds may Actually 'See' North

Many migrating bird species need to determine north to accurately gauge their direction. But how do they do this? Do they look at the sun and analyze their position relative to it? Do they have a detailed neural map they follow? Do they really need subcutaneous magnetic crystalline structure laden beaks that help them find North? The answers to these questions are 'probably', 'maybe?' and 'uhhh…'.

New research has shown that migrating birds may actually see the magnetic field of the earth as a visual sensation. Molecules have been found in the birds’ eyes that are directly connected to the brain, allowing them to perceive north visually, and orient themselves correctly.

Migratory birds in Germany were injected with a tracer that can follow neuron firing pathways anywhere in the brain. The area of the brain chosen to trace was known ominously as CLUSTER N. They also injected a tracer into the retina of the bird. When these birds had a desire to migrate, the scientists would find where the tracers went. Interestingly, both retinal and neuronal fibre tracers ended up in the part of the thalamus responsible for vision.

“This anatomical link strongly supports the notion that the birds probably experience magnetic fields as a visual sensation”,

say scientists at the University of Oldenburg.

Previous attempts to solve the bird magnetic field phenomena revolved around ‘cryptochromes’, proteins in the birds eye that may play a role in their migratory compass. “These cryptochromes might be sensitive to the electronic state of radical pairs” say researchers, allowing the birds to look in a certain direction and percieve magnetic north as a dark spot in their plane of vision. But this research has been reduced to guesswork because scientists cannot truly tell what the bird is actually seeing.

So is this 'visualization of magnetism' now the definitive theory of migratory bird navigation? No more theories-of-gut-feelings or mutantbirdfreak ESP?
Not quite. While this connection between eye molecules and visual brain pathways is intriguing, until we ‘see experiments where the magnetic field is conclusively shown to change neuronal activity in the thalamus’, we cant think this theory proven, just strongly suggested. There is also evidence showing that birds have other ways of path finding (and yes, that magnetic crystal beak thing is one of them). They conclude suggesting that the crystal structures, visual perception of north and the cryptochromes all work in harmony to lead the bird home.

Nature.com
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070924/full/070924-5.html
Sept 26, 2007

Posted by NJB(1)

Horse Vocalization

Horses make more noise then just the conventional neigh. They also whinny, nicker, snort, blow, scream, and squeal. Apart from their vocalizations, they can also convey their feelings via their body language. Their ears, body stance, and eyes have just as much meaning as their vocalizations. If you have ever been around horses then you most certainly have seen or heard their communication. You probably have seen the horse with erect ears standing behind the fence while you feed it a carrot. Or how about the pony at the fair that has been walking around in circles for hours and hangs its head low with its ears back. Even though you are not a “horse whisperer” I am sure you can guess what these horses are thinking. Most horse people are effective at reading horse body language and interpreting it, but when it comes to vocalization, we only have a rough idea at what they are trying to communicate.

There is a new Equine Vocalization Project being done, headed by University of Rhode Island professor David Browning and University of Connecticut professor Peter Scheifele. The plan is to record horses’ vocalizations and play the data in acoustical software. Browning and Scheifele believe there is a direct correlation between pitch of the vocalization and stress level of the horse. So far, they have related high pitch vocalizations to stressful situations and middle pitch vocalizations to a feeling of calmness.

Browning and Scheifele realize their findings will not contribute greatly to the everyday handling of horses. Like stated above, horse people are well aware of what horses are thinking or feeling via their body language. Browning and Scheifele do think their research will bring insight for some basic questions. For example, do horses use different vocalizations for different people?

Whatever information is gained from this experiment I am sure will be useful in one way or another and lead to more research. Currently, the best means of communicating with horses seems to be via body language, but perhaps Browning and Scheifele will change that. Watch out Monty Roberts, Browning and Scheifele may be the next "horse whisperers."

Posted by Kathryn DeLisle (1)

"The 'Bloody Fingerprints' of Global Warming"

Cannibalism. I bet one of the first things that came to mind when reading that word was an image of a half-masked Anthony Hopkins, talking about eating someone's liver with fava beans and Chianti. But what about a polar bear? No? I don't blame you. But according to a study conducted from January to April of '04, cannibalism is a new behavior scientists have discovered some of these bears displaying. Although it's not rare for polar bears to kill each other to display dominance or to mate (for instance, killing the cub of a female to mate with her), it was the first time in nearly sixty years of combined research (in Alaska and Canada) that scientists say they have seen "incidents of polar bears stalking, killing, and eating other polar bears."

The bears in particular are those in the Southern Beaufort Sea. The major reason? It appears to be none other than global warming. As the ice that connects the bears to their natural feeding grounds (where they hunt seals and mate) moves further and further from shore, they are growing more desperate to find food. Researchers discovered the first incident in January of '04, when the partially eaten carcass of a female was found a short distance from her den. It appeared that a male polar bear had broken through the top of the den, where the female had recently given birth, killed her, then dragged her outside. Her two cubs suffocated when the den collapsed on them.

The second incident also involved another female (also killed by a male) and her cub, which were traveling together. This can be ruled out as the male trying to mate with the female, as it did not attempt to follow and kill her cub (which would've been necessary in order to mate with her). The last incident recorded during this time period was the discovery of the carcass of a young bear, which had been stalked and killed by another.

With the polar ice caps continuing to shrink, one can only assume that this behavior will become a rising trend. As more and more bears are isolated from their feeding grounds, they will have to develop new methods of survival, and it seems cannibalism is one of their new mechanisms. And the sad part is, this may only hasten their disappearance. According to current estimates, global warming will have caused their extinction before the end of the century. However, many feel that this is not an issue that requires immediate attention. As the polar bear population has actually been increasing and not a lot of research has gone into polar bear cannibalism, many think that it is not a pressing matter. But many scientists beg to differ. They do not feel that waiting for an obvious affect on population size is the smart thing to do because, by then, it may be too late to save them. "This is not a Coco-Cola commercial," Deborah Williams of the Alaska Conservation Group, an organization that works to counter-act the terrible effects of global warming, says, "This represents the brutal downside of global warming."

http://animal.discovery.com/news/ap/20060612/polarbears.html
http://scienceline.org/2007/02/05/health_driscoll_polarbears/

Posted by Elizabeth Adams (1)

This is a New Post.

This is an example of a blockquote.

This is not a blockquote.

Posted by PWH (1).

Canines Detecting Epilepsy in Humans

This blog will begin with a story about a dog named Diamond. Diamond is a very healthy, five year old border collie who is able to detect when her “brother” will have a seizure. Her brother refers to the nine year old boy who lives, sleeps, and loves this dog. Diamond was bought from a special breeder in Nebraska, who specifically trains dogs to detect seizures. This method is becoming very well known and used throughout the world. The trained dogs are expensive to obtain, but it is worth it if it saves a life.

There is much scientific debate about what triggers the canine to alert his owner about an oncoming seizure. Are there subtle changes in human behavior or scent right before an episode that we humans cannot detect? Most research has confirmed that epileptic patients who obtain dogs end up being more healthy and happy. The reason for this is still undetermined. Some researchers and doctors believe it stems from the comfort of having mans best friend constantly by your side. Whereas others believe that dogs who are trained or who have lived with an epileptic patient for several years can truly detect oncoming seizures.

In an article on Epilepsy.com, one epilepsy expert, Dr. Gregory Krauss, fears that epilepsy detecting canines will be giving to non-epileptic patients, which would misuse the training of these dogs. There is a very similar disorder to epilepsy that is a psychological disease. It is called non-epileptic psychogenic seizures.

Non-epileptic psychogenic seizures are episodes of movements, sensations or behaviors that are similar to epileptic seizures but do not have a neurologic origin. http://www.aafp.org/afp/20050901/849.html

This disorder is a result of psychological distress. It is often misdiagnosed as epilepsy and treated as such, but this disorder is not a neurological disorder, it just appears to be. Dr. Krauss believes that it is very important to only provide epileptic patients with dogs because he feels that they are very expensive to train. Many patients with the non-epileptic psychogenic disorder will want a dog to prove that they do indeed have an illness. This is what Dr. Krauss is hoping to avoid.

Although surrounded by much debate, one point that every researcher and doctor is able to agree on, is that this behavior in canines must be further researched. If dogs are truly able to protect children and adults from harming themselves during a seizure or even detecting an oncoming seizure before it even occurs, than every epileptic patient should be assigned with a canine. Dogs are the most loyal species around. They will do anything to protect their master and loved ones. If properly trained, these dogs could make a huge difference in the medical advancement of epileptic patients.

http://professionals.epilepsy.com/page/hallway_seizure_dogs.html
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20050901/849.html
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20050901/849.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6047.html

Posted by Scotty Fay (1)

Welcome to the 2nd year of the FAP Blog

Last fall I had students write blog posts on topics that are connected to animal behavior. The response to this assignment was overwhelmingly positive. So, this year the students in Biol550 will once again try their hand at science blogging.

Looking forward to blogging with you this semester.

Posted by PWH