Animal behavioral diversity at risk in the face of declining biodiversity

How understanding animal behavior, including tool use, can shed light on human behavior and culture

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

FacebookX

LinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Capuchin monkey cracking nuts. Recognizing the value of animal cultures could lead to more comprehensive conservation strategies.

view more 

Credit: © Tiago Falotico

Our environment is changing rapidly, largely as a result of human activities, leading to a significant decline in biodiversity. According to researchers from the University of Victoria and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, this decline does not only affect animal life, but also our understanding of their behavior, including tool use.

"Cultural behaviors range from the songs of whales to the tool use of primates," says Ammie Kalan of the University of Victoria. "These adaptations to environmental change not only benefit the animals, but also provide important insights into the origins of behavior and learning across species. However, shrinking global animal populations pose a challenge to what we can still hope to learn."

Adaptability to challenges depends on the diversity of cultural behaviors, or the range of behaviors that animals can exhibit. Tool use, an important aspect of such behavioral adaptations, leaves physical evidence that facilitates scientific study. These material cultures, when paired with observed behavior, provide a unique opportunity to better interpret the archaeological record of extinct human species, where only stone tools remain as evidence of past behavior.

Preserving animals’ cultural behaviors

"Non-human primates share a common evolutionary history with humans, and their study can provide important insights into our origins," says Lydia Luncz of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "These uniquely complex creatures are threatened with extinction, highlighting the urgent need to protect and conserve them and their way of life."

Preserving cultural behaviors could be aided by digital technology, such as 3D scanning, which can replicate physical artifacts associated with animal behavior, or recording and analyzing sounds and songs made by different species. These are invaluable resources for future research and conservation efforts. Recognizing the value of these animal cultures could lead to more comprehensive conservation strategies.

As humans continue to significantly impact the environment, there's a growing need not only to protect our shared natural world, but also to recognize and preserve the richness of animal cultures. Recognizing this shared cultural heritage is critical not only for advancing scientific research and education, but also for emphasizing the interconnected life histories and survival strategies of all species that share this planet.

 

Chimpanzee “workshop” with stone tools.

Credit

© Lydia Luncz

Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adj3716 

Article Title

Saving the cultural legacy of wild animals

Article Publication Date

4-Apr-2025

Marxists.orgwww.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/

The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man

Labour is the source of all wealth, the political economists assert. And it really is the source – next to nature, which supplies it with the material that it ...

The beginning of the end: Setting a global target for rubella eradication

Summary author: Walter Beckwith

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Facebook

WeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

A major challenge in the efforts to eradicate rubella and measles has been the absence of a unified global commitment to do so, despite the availability of effective vaccines. In a Policy Forum, Matthew Ferrari and William Moss discuss the 2024 World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendation for universal introduction of rubella-containing vaccines (RCVs) into childhood vaccination programs in all countries – particularly in the remaining 19 countries that have yet to do so. According to the authors, the decision marks a critical step toward eliminating congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) and, ultimately, rubella itself. And, since RCV is delivered in combination with the measles vaccine, the effort will significantly boost global immunity against both diseases, bringing the world closer to eradicating both diseases. Rubella, typically mild, poses grave risks when contracted during pregnancy and often leads to CRS, causing birth defects and infant mortality. While many nations have successfully introduced the RCVs using domestic resources, poorer nations have lacked the financial capacity to do so and have relied on external funding. Ferrari and Moss note that the WHO’s support in introducing RCVs globally removes a major hurdle for these last 19 countries, many of which are in Africa and the Global South. However, because widespread vaccination and eradication benefits the global community, the authors argue that the international community and non-governmental organizations need to work together to advocate for RCV introduction. They should collaborate to provide incentives for high-quality vaccination campaigns in critical regions. Ferrari and Moss also stress that the potential resurgence of rubella and measles transmission in the Western Hemisphere poses a significant threat. According to the authors, declining support for vaccination, the United States’ withdrawal from WHO, and the recent threat to eliminate international health funding “[loom] as a dark cloud on the horizon,” and could jeopardize what could be a monumental global public health achievement.

---

Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adv7588 

Article Title

Rubella and measles: The beginning of the endgame

Article Publication Date

4-Apr-2025

 

Uncovered: The role of high-order thalamic nuclei in human conscious perception

Summary author: Walter Beckwith

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

Using direct, intracranial brain recordings in humans, a new study finds that the thalamus, a small region located deep within the brain, plays a pivotal role in conscious perception. According to the authors, specific high-order thalamic regions act as a gateway to awareness by sending signals to the prefrontal cortex. The findings shed new light on the mysteries of human consciousness. Understanding the neural foundations of human consciousness is among the most challenging tasks in neuroscience. Previous research has suggested that consciousness can be divided into two components: the conscious state (i.e., awake or asleep) and conscious content (i.e., specific experiences or perceptions). While subcortical structures are primarily involved in regulating conscious states, many theories emphasize the importance of subcortical-cortical loops in conscious perception. However, most studies on conscious perception have focused on the cerebral cortex, with relatively few studies examining the role of subcortical regions, particularly the thalamus. Its role in conscious perception has often been seen as merely facilitating sensory information.

 

To better understand the role of the thalamus in conscious perception, Zepeng Fang and colleagues performed a unique clinical experiment and simultaneously recorded stereoelectroencephalography (sEEG) activity in the intralaminar, medial, and ventral thalamic nuclei and prefrontal cortex (PFC), while five chronic, drug-resistant headache patients with implanted intracranial electrodes performed a novel visual consciousness task. Feng et al. discovered that the intralaminar and medial thalamic nuclei exhibited earlier and stronger consciousness-related neural activity compared to the ventral nuclei and PFC. Notably, the authors found that activity between the thalamus and PFC – especially the intraluminal thalamus – was synchronized during the onset of conscious perception, suggesting that this thalamic region plays a gating role in driving PFC activity during conscious perception.

---

Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adr3675 

Article Title

Human high-order thalamic nuclei gate conscious perception through the thalamofrontal loop

Article Publication Date

4-Apr-2025

 

Estrogen and progesterone stimulate the body to make opioids

University of California - San Francisco

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBluesky
Email

Scientists have discovered a new mechanism that acts via an immune cell and points toward a different way of treating chronic pain. 

Female hormones can suppress pain by making immune cells near the spinal cord produce opioids, a new study from researchers at UC San Francisco has found. This stops pain signals before they get to the brain. 

The discovery could help with developing new treatments for chronic pain. It may also explain why some painkillers work better for women than men and why postmenopausal women experience more pain.  

The work reveals an entirely new role for T regulatory immune cells (T-regs), which are known for their ability to reduce inflammation. 

“The fact that there’s a sex-dependent influence on these cells – driven by estrogen and progesterone – and that it’s not related at all to any immune function is very unusual,” said Elora Midavaine, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow. She is the first author of the study, which was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health. It appears April 4 in Science. 

The researchers looked at T-regs in the protective layers that encase the brain and spinal cord in mice. Until now, scientists thought these tissues, called the meninges, only served to protect the central nervous system and eliminate waste. T-regs were only discovered there in recent years.  

“What we are showing now is that the immune system actually uses the meninges to communicate with distant neurons that detect sensation on the skin,” said Sakeen Kashem, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of dermatology. “This is something we hadn’t known before.”  

That communication begins when a neuron, often near the skin, senses something that could cause pain. The neuron then sends a signal to the spinal cord.  

The team found that the meninges surrounding the lower part of the spinal cord harbor an abundance of T-regs. To learn what their function was, the researchers knocked the cells out with a toxin. 

The effect was striking: Without the T-regs, female mice became more sensitive to pain, while male mice did not. This sex-specific difference suggested that female mice rely more on T-regs to manage pain.  

“It was both fascinating and puzzling,” said Kashem, who co-led the study with Allan Basbaum, PhD. “It actually made me skeptical initially.” 

Further experiments revealed a relationship between T-regs and female hormones that no one had seen before: Estrogen and progesterone were prompting the cells to churn out painkilling enkephalin.  

Exactly how the hormones do this is a question the team hopes to answer in a future study. But even without that understanding, the awareness of this sex-dependent pathway is likely to lead to much-needed new approaches for treating pain. 

In the short run, it may help physicians choose medications that could be more effective for a patient, depending on their sex. Certain migraine treatments, for example, are known to work better on women than men. 

This could be particularly helpful for women who have gone through menopause and no longer produce estrogen and progesterone, many of whom experience chronic pain.  

The researchers have begun looking into the possibility of engineering T-regs to produce enkephalin on a constant basis in both men and women. 

“If that approach is successful, it could really change the lives of the nearly 20% of Americans who experience chronic pain that is not adequately treated,” Basbaum said. 

Authors: Other authors on the study include Beatriz Moraes, Jorge Benitez, Sian Rodriguez, Joao Braz, Nathan Kochhar and Walter Eckalbar of UCSF, Lin Tian of the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Ana Domingos of University of Oxford and John E. Pintar of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. 

Funding: This study is funded in part by National Institutes of Health grants (T32AR007175-44, NSR35NS097306). For other funders, please see the study. 

 

About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF School of Medicine also has a regional campus in Fresno. Learn more at ucsf.edu, or see our Fact Sheet.

###

 

Follow UCSF
ucsf.edu | Facebook.com/ucsf | YouTube.com/ucsf

---

Journal

Science

 

Dancing with the cells – how acoustically levitating a diamond led to a breakthrough in biotech automation

University of Bristol

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Computer rendering of a concept for the device when it is taken to market

view more 

Credit: Impulsonics Ltd

Engineers at a University of Bristol spin-out company have created a new technology that can move cells without touching them, enabling critical tasks that currently require large pieces of lab equipment to be carried out on a benchtop device.

The invention could accelerate the discovery of new medicines and unlock personalised medicine screening in clinics.

The groundbreaking concept was unveiled for the first time today in an article in Science published by Dr Luke Cox, where he describes his journey from University of Bristol student to CEO of start-up company Impulsonics. The article is a prize essay in the Bioinnovation Institute and Science Prize for Innovation.

Behind every new drug lies thousands of hours spent by scientists growing cells in a petri dish to test it before it is tried on patients. Even in 2025 this remains a highly manual and difficult to automate process, leading to expensive and sometimes unreliable processes that make it harder to develop novel lifesaving drugs to the point when they can be used in the clinic.

The new technology uses acoustic waves to move cells, which appear to “dance.” This capability replaces the need for many large pieces of equipment in a lab and could make it significantly easier to automate cell growth and help scientists discover new drugs faster. It also opens up new possibilities in the clinic, such as personalised medicine screening, where many different drugs can be tested to find the most effective before being given to a patient.

Luke initially worked on the physics of acoustic levitation of a diamond, creating an experiment to hold objects in mid-air against gravity. Observing this seemingly magical experiment, he realised that the technology had the potential to transform our ability to handle small-delicate objects. This led him to next work on moving cells. The final step was realising that this technology could replace many of the common processes performed in biomedical labs. From this realisation, the company Impulsonics emerged.

Luke and his team have now developed this idea to the point where complex biomedical tasks, such as expanding a cell population, can be performed with this technology. Dr Luke Cox said: “A huge benefit of this technology is that it allows the process of screening new drugs to be accelerated. This means it can help discover new drugs for all kinds of diseases ranging from cancer to Alzheimer’s.”

Professor Bruce Drinkwater, an academic at the University of Bristol and a co-founder of Impulsonics, said “The device is small, with a footprint half the size of a standard lab bench where previous technologies took up whole rooms. Critically it also helps produce very high-quality data quickly, which is exactly what is needed in biomedical research.”

In the future this invention has many potential applications across biotechnology. Luke Cox concluded: “I look forward to expanding this unique technology platform to accelerate development across the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries wherever cells are grown.”

---

Journal

Science

Microscope photo of a cluster of microparticles assembled using acoustic impulse control as seen down a microscope. Early development testing was done on microparticles.

Credit

Luke Cox

Dr Luke Cox next to the current prototype of the device inside a compact pipetting robot which provides peripheral capabilities for lab

Credit

Impulsonics Ltd

 

New study finds that over 95% of sponsored influencer posts on Twitter were not disclosed

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

New INFORMS journal Marketing Science Article Key Takeaways:

• Over 95% of sponsored influencer posts on Twitter were not disclosed.
• Influencer sponsorship arrangements with younger brands are less likely to be disclosed.
• A large number of consumers can’t detect the sponsorship arrangement without disclosure.
• The consumer-protection regulatory environment around undisclosed sponsorships has lagged behind.

 

BALTIMORE, MD, April 3, 2025 – New research in the peer-reviewed journal Marketing Science has found that 95% of influencer posts on Twitter (now X), which are sponsored, are not disclosed.

The peer-reviewed article, “How Much Influencer Marketing Is Undisclosed?,” has been published in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science. The authors of the study are Daniel Ershov from University College London and the Center for Economic Policy Research in London; Yanting He from Imperial College London; and Stephan Seiler from the Center for Economic Policy Research and Imperial College London.

The researchers further found that when compared with posts that disclose a sponsorship arrangement, undisclosed posts tend to be associated with young “brands” with a large social media following.

“Our study fundings highlight a potential need for further regulatory scrutiny,” says He.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is an emergent means to reach the consuming public through alternative channels to traditional advertising, such as broadcast and print media. Influencer marketing leverages private individuals to promote brands, products or services, in which those individuals are compensated for their endorsements. Typically, “influencers” are selected on the basis of their large social media followings and/or celebrity status.

“Because consumers might find it difficult to distinguish paid influencer posts from genuinely organic content, regulators in many countries now require any paid content to be disclosed,” says Ershov. “But because of the novelty associated with influencer marketing, the evolving regulatory framework has not caught up.”

About This Study

Study researchers used a novel dataset of over 100 million brand-related posts on Twitter from 268 brands, along with a new text-based classification approach that identified undisclosed sponsored content. They then quantified the overall importance of undisclosed influencer posts to evaluate whether consumers could detect undisclosed commercial content. They tracked the evolution of undisclosed posts over time, and were able to identify the brands from which undisclosed posts originated.

“We found that a large number of participants in an online survey were not able to identify commercial content when that content did not provide disclosure,” says Seiler. “We also demonstrated that although regulation did tighten up over our sample period from 2014 to 2021, the share of undisclosed content decreased only slightly.”

In addition, the researchers found that undisclosed sponsored posts tended to originate from younger brands with large Twitter followings.

 

Link to Study.

 

About INFORMS and Marketing Science
INFORMS is the world’s largest association for professionals and students in operations research, AI, analytics, data science and related disciplines, serving as a global authority in advancing cutting-edge practices and fostering an interdisciplinary community of innovation. Marketing Science, a peer-reviewed journal published by INFORMS, focuses on quantitative research at the intersection of consumers and firms. INFORMS fosters smarter decision-making and innovation through its journals, conferences and professional resources. Learn more at www.informs.org or @informs.

# # #

---

Journal

Marketing Science

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

How Much Influencer Marketing Is Undisclosed?