Drug can dramatically reduce weight of people with obesity.

Drug can dramatically reduce weight of people with obesity.A drug that targets the appetite control system in the brain could bring about significant weight loss in people with clinical obesity, according to new research. On average, people lost 5kg (11lbs) over a 12 week period after receiving weekly doses of semaglutide, a compound currently being developed as a treatment for Diabetes. Most of the weight loss came from a reduction in body fat, researchers at the University of Leeds found after reviewing its effectiveness. The drug reduced food cravings, with people choosing to eat smaller meals and decreasing their preferences for foods with a higher fat content. The study also added to the scientific understanding of how drug therapy can be used to tackle obesity. For the first time, scientists saw the benefit of very specific targeting of receptors or sensors that could affect multiple components of the brain's appetite control system.

Climate change may slowly starve bamboo lemurs.

Climate change may slowly starve bamboo lemurs.Researchers provide evidence to suggest that as Earth's climate changes, bamboo lemurs will gradually be forced to eat culm for longer periods. Ultimately, they suggest that, based on an analysis of anatomical, behavioral, paleontological, and climate data, the lemurs could slowly starve. Madagascar's Cat-sized greater bamboo lemurs are considered one of the most endangered primate species on Earth. They almost exclusively eat a single species of bamboo, including the woody trunk, known as culm. But they prefer the more nutritious and tender bamboo shoots and use their specialized teeth to gnaw on culm only when necessary, during the dry season.

How to make an indoor tortoise home.

How to take care of tortoise.

Skin found to play a role in controlling blood pressure.

Skin found to play a role in controlling blood pressure. Skin plays a surprising role in helping regulate blood pressure and heart rate, according to scientists. While this discovery was made in mice, the researchers believe it is likely to be true also in humans. Skin plays a surprising role in helping regulate blood pressure and heart rate, according to scientists at the University of Cambridge and the Karolinska Institute, Sweden.In a study published in the open access journal eLife, the researchers show that skin -- our largest organ, typically covering two square metres in humans -- helps regulate blood pressure and heart rate in response to changes in the amount of oxygen available in the environment. High blood pressure is associated with cardiovascular disease, such as heart attack and stroke. For the vast majority of cases of high blood pressure, there is no known cause. The condition is often associated with reduced flow of blood through small blood vessels in the skin and other parts of the body, a symptom which can get progressively worse if the hypertension is not treated.

Both chimpanzees and humans spontaneously imitate each other's actions.

Both chimpanzees and humans spontaneously imitate each other's actions.Decades of research has shown that apes, in spite of their proverbial aping abilities, are rather poor imitators, especially when compared to human children. Current theories hold that apes are worse imitators because they lack this social and communicative side of imitation. A new study has instead targeted the interactive side of imitation directly, and finds that the divide between humans and chimpanzees is less clear cut.

Bat feces: A reliable source of climate change.

Bat feces: A reliable source of climate change.Isotopes found in bat guano over the last 1,200 years provide scientists with information on how the climate was and is changing. People have long known that bat guano -- the polite term for what the flying mammals leave on the floors of caves where they live worldwide -- is a valuable source of fuel and fertilizer, but now newly published research from University of South Florida geoscientists show that the refuse is also a reliable record of climate change. In a new paper published in the research journal Scientific Reports, USF geochemistry Professor Bogdan Onac and PhD student Daniel Cleary report that isotopes found in bat guano over the last 1,200 years can provide scientists with information on how the climate was and is changing. The scientists examined bat guano from a cave in northwestern Romania to produce new insight into how the climate in east-central Europe has changed since the Medieval Warm Period, about 850 AD.