Acoustic communication is not only widespread in land vertebrates like birds and mammals, but also in reptiles, amphibians and fishes. Many of them are usually considered mute, but in fact show broad and complex acoustic repertoires. According to researchers at the University of Zurich, the evolutionary origin of vocal communication dates back more than 400 million years.
Medieval doctors saw fertility as having a cut-off point rather than slowly declining with age, ancient medical texts show
Megalodon, the largest shark that ever lived, is famous for its huge, human-hand-sized teeth. However, there is little fossil evidence of its whole body. International researchers in collaboration with UZH used an exceptionally preserved specimen to create a 3D computer model of its full body. Their results suggest that the megalodon could fully consume prey the size of today’s killer whales and then roam the seas without more food for two months.
Analysing the style of language used by social groups could offer insight into their values and principles that goes beyond what they publicly say about themselves.
The multidisciplinary Zurich research team Liver4Life has succeeded in doing something during a treatment attempt that had never been achieved in the history of medicine until now: it treated an originally damaged human liver in a machine for three days outside of a body and then implanted the recovered organ into a cancer patient. One year later, the patient is doing well.
A new study by various Swiss universities shows that aerosols in indoor air can vary in acidity. The acidity determines how long viruses remain infectious in the air – with implications for virus transmission and strategies to contain it.
“Volunteers” tasked with enforcing the Chinese Communist Party’s zero-covid policies have suffered from stress and anxiety, a new study shows.
Children should get lessons in school on how to build strong relationships to counteract negative role models and any “Disneyfied” portrayals of love they are exposed to, experts have said.
The Alongshan virus was discovered in China only five years ago. Now researchers at the University of Zurich have found the novel virus for the first time in Swiss ticks. It appears to be at least as widespread as the tickborne encephalitis virus and causes similar symptoms. The UZH team is working on a diagnostic test to assess the epidemiological situation.
The perception that resources are unfairly distributed is at the root of many social conflicts. Researchers at the University of Zurich have investigated the motives influencing our perception of justice in resource distribution. They found that although people feel an aversion to inequality, they are also reluctant to harm others and to upend existing social hierarchies.
Residue from rinse agents is left behind on dishes after they are cleaned in professional-grade dishwashers. This damages the natural protective layer in the gut and can contribute to the onset of chronic diseases, as demonstrated by researchers working with organoids at the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research.
Researchers from the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich are taking magnetic resonance imaging a step further. With their new method, they can visualize metabolic processes in the body. Their objective is to improve the future diagnosis and treatment of heart disease.
A study led by The University of Texas at Austin is providing a glimpse into dinosaur and bird diversity in Patagonia during the Late Cretaceous, just before the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct.
New images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal for the first time galaxies with stellar bars — elongated features of stars stretching from the centers of galaxies into their outer disks — at a time when the universe was a mere 25% of its present age.
In a first for the genetic toolset known as CRISPR, a recently discovered protein has been found to act as a kind of multipurpose self-destruct system for bacteria, capable of degrading single-stranded RNA, single-stranded DNA and double-stranded DNA.
“Robust” amendments to insurance law and international environmental law are needed to allow carbon capture, utilisation and storage to take place legally so the technology can be used in the fight against global warming, a new study says.
Blood stem cell transplantation is a radical but highly effective therapy for multiple sclerosis. A study led by the University of Zurich has now examined in detail the way in which the treatment curbs the autoimmune disease and how the immune system regenerates afterwards. A better understanding of these mechanisms should help the treatment approach, currently approved in only a few countries, to gain wider acceptance.
The new study, by the University of Exeter and NGO Beneath the Waves, used baited remote underwater video (BRUV) cameras off the Turks and Caicos Islands.
A graduate student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) is the lead author of a paper in The Astrophysical Journal describing the discovery of an intermediate-size black hole buried in gas and dust in a dwarf galaxy.
Early evidence from the site at Taichoute, once undersea but now a desert, records numerous large “free-swimming” arthropods.