African elephants in Kenya's Samburu National Reserve. Credit: George WittemyerBy analyzing chemicals in tail hair from elephants that wore radio collars, researchers tracked the diet and movements of elephants in Kenya – a method aimed at reducing human-elephant conflicts and determining where to establish sanctuaries to protect the endangered creatures.

Medical researchers at the University of Bonn, working in collaboration with scientists from Israel, the USA and Britain, have identified a previously unknown regulatory mechanism in the process of bone loss. Their findings could open up new approaches to the treatment of osteoporosis. More than four million people, predominantly women, are estimated to suffer from this distressing illness in Germany alone. In recognition of the importance of her results, Dr. Meliha Karsak from the Bonn-based Life & Brain Center has recently been awarded the Osteology Prize of the German Society for Endocrinology, which entails a cash award of 8,000 euros. Her study will now be published in the renowned "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" (PNAS).

A new UCLA imaging study shows that age-related breakdown of myelin, the fatty insulation coating the brain's internal wiring, correlates strongly with the presence of a key genetic risk factor for Alzheimer disease.

Researchers have developed a new tool to help them study endangered whales – autonomous hydrophones that can be deployed in the ocean to record the unique clicks, pulses and calls of different whale species.

Why whales emit their characteristic calls remains largely a biological mystery, but listening for the distinctive underwater sounds provides a valuable way to track the movements of endangered large whales. Autonomous data-recording devices equipped with hydrophones (underwater microphones), deployed in remote waters off Alaska, have been used in recent years to track seasonal occurrences of blue, fin, humpback, North Pacific right, bowhead, and sperm whales, an article in the January 2006 issue of BioScience reports.