Biological species of the World

Soy. History, Benefits, and Biochemistry

Soy, scorched by the blazing sun, is one of the most ancient crops of world agriculture. It has traveled a long path from a modest wild plant to one of the most valuable cultivated crops. ... Read more

A Microbial Consortium for Life on Mars

Humanity has never given up on the dream of Martian gardens, and step by step, we are edging closer to that goal. One of those steps was a joint experiment by the D.I. Ivanovsky Academy of Biology and Medicine of the Southern Federal University (SFedU) and the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Researchers assembled a consortium of ten microbial strains and sent them into near-Earth orbit aboard the Bion-M No. 2 spacecraft. Their aim: to see how a complex community of bacteria and fungi withstands the extreme conditions of spaceflight — heightened radiation, weightlessness, and heavy g-forces. At the orbit of 370–380 km where Bion-M No. 2 flew, radiation levels are over 200 times higher than Earth’s natural background and 30% higher than aboard the International Space Station. ... Read more

The Linguistic Complexities of Chimpanzees

Animal communication is studied not only to learn more about the animals themselves, but also to understand how human language originated. This refers, of course, to vocal communication: how it occurs, what neural mechanisms are involved in it, and what exactly is contained in the vocal messages animals exchange. In this regard, chimpanzees receive special attention — after all, from an evolutionary perspective, they are our closest relatives. The vocal signal repertoire of chimpanzees is quite broad, and within it, one can distinguish between simple and complex signals. But what does "complex signals" mean? Various animals, not just chimpanzees, combine sounds together, but it is usually thought that the resulting complexity is purely superficial, that the sounds are combined randomly. It has been shown for birds and primates that new meaning emerges in their sound combinations. However, this new meaning is also formed by simple addition, similar to how in the phrase "black cat" the new meaning arises from the simple combination of "black" and "cat." ... Read more