<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>Junior Science Reporter &#187; Animals including humans</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?cat=14&#038;feed=rss2" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk</link>
	<description>Science news for children aged 7-11</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Mon, 13 Nov 2017 11:21:56 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-GB</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38</generator>
	<item>
		<title>Spinning spider silk</title>
		<link>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=420</link>
		<comments>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=420#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Feb 2015 17:23:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanna Carpenter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Animals including humans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Living things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Properties and changes of materials]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[video]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[golden orb-weaver]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kevlar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[living]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[living things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[materials]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[news]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[protein]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[silk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spider]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spiders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[steel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thread]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[web]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=420</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Researchers at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, are working out how to make artificial spider silk. Spiders build their webs out of lightweight, incredibly tough, slightly stretchy spider silk. It is stronger than steel and tougher than kevlar, which is used to make puncture-proof bicycle inner tubes. The building blocks of the silk are particular types of a substance called protein. (Different kinds of proteins are found in your hair and in foods such as meat and eggs). Jan Rainey and his coworkers have worked out exactly which proteins make up the spider silk and how they are joined to each other. The difficult part, though, is spinning the proteins into long strands. The researchers are still working on that. Spiders make up to seven different types of silk, with slightly different properties. For instance, the toughest sort is used to wrap up prey caught in the spider&#8217;s web. Normal silk comes from silk threads spun by silk worms when they are making a cocoon. Groups of silk worms are fairly easy to look after and their cocoons can be unwound into lengths of silk thread. However, spiders are more difficult to look after and in groups may begin [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?feed=rss2&#038;p=420</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Want to sell your poo?</title>
		<link>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=353</link>
		<comments>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=353#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2015 21:09:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanna Carpenter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Animals including humans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Living things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bacteria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[C. difficile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Clostridium difficile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[donation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[faecal transplant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[good bacteria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gut]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Massachusetts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[news]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[USA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=353</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you&#8217;re a bit short of pocket money, you can now sell your poo to doctors in Medford, Massachusetts, in the USA. The OpenBiome organisation is paying $40 for donations of poo, provided they are sure it has lots of &#8216;good&#8217; bacteria. You can even win a prize if you make the single largest donation each month! Unfortunately, you can only donate if you live or work near Medford. We often think of bacteria as germs that make us sick, but some are good for us. If we don&#8217;t have enough good bacteria in our guts, then bad ones that make us sick can take over. Our guts extract the goodness from our food and discard the rest as poo. One type of bad bacteria is called Clostridium difficile, known as C. difficile for short. It can cause diarrhoea, stomach pain and fever. Mostly, if bacteria are making you unwell, a doctor might give you antibiotics, which kill the bacteria and make you better.  But the trouble with C. difficile is that the antibiotics might kill the good bacteria in your gut, and you want them. Now researchers say that the best way to treat C. difficile infection is to get good bacteria from someone else [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?feed=rss2&#038;p=353</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Which is better for you &#8211; oranges or orange juice?</title>
		<link>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=322</link>
		<comments>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=322#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 28 Jan 2015 11:44:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanna Carpenter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Animals including humans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Living things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[carotenoids]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flavenoids]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[healthy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[juice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[news]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[orange]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pasterization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pasteurize]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vitamin C]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=322</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Oranges versus orange juice: Which one might be better for your health? Often the advice is given to eat an orange and drink water rather than drink oroange juice, which contains a relatively high amount of sugar. But it&#8217;snot quite so easy to say which option is more healthy, according to scientists. Although juice is indeed high in sugar, your body might find it easier to extract the goodness from juice than from the fruit itself. Oranges are packed with carotenoids and flavonoids that can make it less likely you&#8217;ll develop cancer, or problems with your heart and blood vessels. Ralf Schweiggert, Julian Aschoff and colleagues found that making pasteurized orange juice slightly lowered the levels of carotenoids and vitamin C. (Pasteurizing juice means heating it to kill germs). Sounds bad, right? But making the pasteurized improved the amount of carotenoid and vitamin C the body can absorb and use. And although juicing oranges reduced the levels of flavonoids, the ones left in the juice were much easier for the body to use than the ones in oranges.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?feed=rss2&#038;p=322</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Ancient volcanoes linked to dinosaurs&#8217; extinction</title>
		<link>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=198</link>
		<comments>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=198#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Jan 2015 11:20:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanna Carpenter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Animals including humans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Living things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dinosaur]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dinosaurs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[extinction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lava]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[living]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[news]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rocks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[volcanoes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=198</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[New research from Princeton University in the USA has shown that massive volcanic explosions 66 million years ago spewed enormous amounts of climate-altering gases into the atmosphere immediately before and during the extinction of the dinosaurs. A range of volcanoes in western India known as the Deccan Traps, which were once three times larger than France, began a phase of eruptions roughly 250,000 years before the extinction. For the next 750,000 years, the volcanoes unleashed more than 1.1 million cubic kilometers (264,000 cubic miles) of lava. The results suggest the Deccan Traps played a role in the dinosaurs&#8217; extinction, and challenge the idea that a meteorite impact in Mexico was the sole cause. The researchers used a precise rock-dating technique to work out when the main eruption started. &#160;]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?feed=rss2&#038;p=198</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Supershiny eggs</title>
		<link>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=182</link>
		<comments>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=182#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 14 Dec 2014 11:33:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanna Carpenter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Animals including humans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Living things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[colour]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eggs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iridescence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nanostructures]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[news]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shiny]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=182</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Relatives of ostriches and emus, Tinamou birds, lay supershiny eggs, but until now no-one knew how the eggs got so beautiful. Researchers at the University of Akron in the USA looked carefully at the eggs and found they were shiny thanks to a thin. smooth outer covering over the shell. “This smoothness causes light to be reflected in a specular manner, like off of a lake or mirror. The bumpiness of other eggs causes them reflect light diffusely, like a cloud,” Matthew Shawkey, associate professor of biology, explains. If the researchers can find out how the birds make the gloss, it might be possible to develop new coatings for ceramics and floors. The eggs are also iridescent, meaning the colour they appear depends on the angle you look at them from.  Other iridescent surfaces are butterfly wings or some seashells. The researchers removed the outer layer and found the egg surface beneath had teeny tiny structures that made the iridescence.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?feed=rss2&#038;p=182</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Controlling bee pests</title>
		<link>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=87</link>
		<comments>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=87#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Nov 2014 12:16:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanna Carpenter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Animals including humans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Living things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[animals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bees]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[honey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[news]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[plants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pollination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Varroa]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=87</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A group of entrepreneurs in Mexico have designed a `smart&#8217; system to control the bee pest Varroa destructor. The mite, which lives on bee larvae,  reduces honey production by as 50 percent when it invades a hive. `The first thing we did was to develop a product based on thymol, a substance contained in natural products such as thyme, which has proved efficient in controlling the mite (Varroa)&#8217; says Leon Guevara, the leader of the group. The `Electronic Detection System&#8217; is a kind of container. At the top the beekeeper places a thymol tablet in a funnel. Inside, a heating plate automatically controlled by a temperature sensor evaporates the tablet. Finally, a fan disperses the steaming formula into the hive. Without bees pollinating fruiting plants, for instance, much of our food-producing plants would have to pollinated by hand and harvests would fall dramatically. Bee larvae affected by Varroa infestations can be deformed, die or develop with damaged wings that prevent them from flying. Mr Guevara is currently designing software that automatically detects the presence of Varroa larvae inside the hive, so that he can fully automate the process.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?feed=rss2&#038;p=87</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>How cats were tamed</title>
		<link>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=65</link>
		<comments>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?p=65#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Nov 2014 17:53:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joanna Carpenter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Animals including humans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Evolution and inheritance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Living things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Working Scientifically]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DNA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[domestication]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[genome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[news]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PNAS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Washington University]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.joannacarpenter.co.uk/juniorsciencereporter/?p=65</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Cats and humans have shared homes for at least 9,000 years, but we still know very little about how cats were tamed (domesticated). Researchers have found some clues by analysing cat DNA, however. They found that offering food as a reward was key. DNA is the instructions for how living things grow.  Scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (USA) looked at differences in DNA between tame cats and wild cats. They looked at the DNA of a female Abyssinian cat named Cinnamon. They picked her because they had information about her parents, grandparents, greatparents and so on, going back several generations. The scientists found changes in the domestic cat&#8217;s genes that other studies have shown are involved in behaviors such as memory, fear and reward-seeking. They think that these behaviours &#8212; particularly seeking a reward &#8212; are important for domestication. &#8220;Humans most likely welcomed cats because they controlled rodents that consumed their grain harvests,&#8221; explains Wes Warren. &#8220;We hypothesized that humans would offer cats food as a reward to stick around.&#8221; A hypothesis is an idea that the scientist wants to test by doing some experiments. This meant that certain cats that would normally live [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.juniorsciencereporter.org.uk/?feed=rss2&#038;p=65</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>
