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Topic Review
Ethology
Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Behaviourism as a term also describes the scientific and objective study of animal behaviour, usually referring to measured responses to stimuli or to trained behavioural responses in a laboratory context, without a particular emphasis on evolutionary adaptivity. Throughout history, different naturalists have studied aspects of animal behaviour. Ethology has its scientific roots in the work of Charles Darwin and of American and German ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th century, including Charles O. Whitman, Oskar Heinroth, and Wallace Craig. The modern discipline of ethology is generally considered to have begun during the 1930s with the work of Dutch biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen and Austrian biologists Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch, the three recipients of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Ethology combines laboratory and field science, with a strong relation to some other disciplines such as neuroanatomy, ecology, and evolutionary biology. Ethologists typically show interest in a behavioural process rather than in a particular animal group, and often study one type of behaviour, such as aggression, in a number of unrelated species. Ethology is a rapidly growing field. Since the dawn of the 21st century researchers have re-examined and reached new conclusions in many aspects of animal communication, emotions, culture, learning and sexuality that the scientific community long thought it understood. New fields, such as neuroethology, have developed. Understanding ethology or animal behaviour can be important in animal training. Considering the natural behaviours of different species or breeds enables trainers to select the individuals best suited to perform the required task. It also enables trainers to encourage the performance of naturally occurring behaviours and the discontinuance of undesirable behaviours.
  • 4.3K
  • 09 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Anthropomorphism on Dog Emotions and Behavior
Anthropomorphism is defined as the tendency to attribute human forms, behaviors, and emotions to non-human animals or objects. Anthropomorphism is particularly relevant for companion animals. Some anthropomorphic practices can be beneficial to them, whilst others can be very detrimental. Some anthropomorphic behaviors compromise the welfare and physiology of animals by interfering with thermoregulation, while others can produce dehydration due to the loss of body water, a condition that brings undesirable consequences such as high compensatory blood pressure and heat shock, even death, depending on the intensity and frequency of an animal’s exposure to these stressors.
  • 4.2K
  • 05 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Benefits of Agricultural Biotechnology
As agricultural production approaches a bottleneck due to limited arable lands, extreme weather, and increasing food demand, novel tools are needed to produce more resilient, efficient, and high-yielding crops to ensure global food security. Modern biotechnology tools with improved specificity and efficiency could eventually become the main driver of agricultural improvement, overcoming the limitations of conventional practices in improving crops. 
  • 4.1K
  • 23 May 2022
Topic Review
Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Waste in Human Health
Food supply disruption and shortage verified during the current pandemic events are a scenario that many anticipate for the near future. The impact of climate changes on food production, the continuous decrease in arable land, and the exponential growth of the human population are important drivers for this problem. 
  • 3.9K
  • 19 Jan 2023
Topic Review
History of Zoology (Through 1859)
The history of zoology before Charles Darwin's 1859 theory of evolution traces the organized study of the animal kingdom from ancient to modern times. Although the concept of zoology as a single coherent field arose much later, systematic study of zoology is seen in the works of Aristotle and Galen in the ancient Greco-Roman world. This work was developed in the Middle Ages by Islamic medicine and scholarship, and in turn their work was extended by European scholars such as Albertus Magnus. During the European Renaissance and early modern period, zoological thought was revolutionized in Europe by a renewed interest in empiricism and the discovery of many novel organisms. Prominent in this movement were the anatomist Vesalius and the physiologist William Harvey, who used experimentation and careful observation, and naturalists such as Carl Linnaeus and Buffon who began to classify the diversity of life and the fossil record, as well as the development and behavior of organisms. Microscopy revealed the previously unknown world of microorganisms, laying the groundwork for cell theory. The growing importance of natural theology, partly a response to the rise of mechanical philosophy, encouraged the growth of natural history (although it entrenched the argument from design). Over the 18th and 19th centuries, zoology became increasingly professional scientific disciplines. Explorer-naturalists such as Alexander von Humboldt investigated the interaction between organisms and their environment, and the ways this relationship depends on geography—laying the foundations for biogeography, ecology and ethology. Naturalists began to reject essentialism and consider the importance of extinction and the mutability of species. Cell theory provided a new perspective on the fundamental basis of life. These developments, as well as the results from embryology and paleontology, were synthesized in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. In 1859, Darwin placed the theory of organic evolution on a new footing, by his discovery of a process by which organic evolution can occur, and provided observational evidence that it had done so.
  • 3.8K
  • 21 Apr 2023
Topic Review
Tomato Fruit and its Colors
Fruit colour represents a genetic trait with ecological and nutritional value. Plants mainly use colour to attract animals and favour seed dispersion. Thus, in many species, fruit colour coevolved with frugivories and their preferences. Environmental factors, however, represented other adaptive forces and further diversification was driven by domestication. All these factors cooperated in the evolution of tomato fruit, one of the most important in human nutrition. Tomato phylogenetic history showed two main steps in colour evolution: the change from green-chlorophyll to red-carotenoid pericarp, and the loss of the anthocyanic pigmentation. These events likely occurred with the onset of domestication. Then spontaneous mutations repeatedly occurred in carotenoid and phenylpropanoid pathways, leading to colour variants which often were propagated. Introgression breeding further enriched the panel of pigmentation patterns.
  • 3.7K
  • 30 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Air pollution and Fuel Combustion
Air pollution is a precursor to many health issues such as difficulty breathing, asthma, lung and heart diseases, and cancer. 
  • 3.6K
  • 11 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Induction of Polyploidy
Polyploidy has the utmost importance in horticulture for the development of new ornamental varieties with desirable morphological traits referring to plant size and vigor, leaf thickness, larger flowers with thicker petals, intense color of leaves and flowers, long lasting flowers, compactness, dwarfness and restored fertility. Polyploidy may occur naturally due to the formation of unreduced gametes or can be artificially induced by doubling the number of chromosomes in somatic cells.
  • 3.4K
  • 21 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Thermoregulation Strategies in Domestic Animals
Animals adopt several strategies to regulate their body temperature by promoting heat loss or gain in hot and cold environments, respectively. This mechanism of heat loss or production is performed in thermal windows. A thermal window is a structure where many blood capillaries facilitate thermal exchange in this region. The presence of feathers, hair, or glabrous (hairless) skin and their structural characteristics greatly influence each species’ capacity to maintain thermal comfort. This factor needs to be considered when implementing new monitoring or measuring techniques such as infrared thermography since interpretations may vary due to the presence or absence of these structures. It is essential to recognize the effects of glabrous skin, hair, and feathers on thermoregulation to identify species-specific thermal windows that allow accurate evaluations of the thermal state of domestic animals.
  • 3.2K
  • 19 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Anthroponotic Disease
Reverse zoonosis, also known as zooanthroponosis, and sometimes anthroponosis (Greek zoon "animal", anthropos "man", nosos "disease"), refers to pathogens reservoired in humans that are capable of being transmitted to other non-human animals.
  • 3.2K
  • 28 Oct 2022
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