Veterinary Medicine News

August 6, 2025

Top Headlines

These Butterflies Look the Same, but DNA Uncovered Six Hidden Species

Aug. 4, 2025 — Glasswing butterflies may all look alike, but behind their transparent wings hides an evolutionary story full of intrigue. Researchers discovered that while these butterflies appear nearly identical to avoid predators, they produce unique pheromones ...

Ancient Bird Droppings Reveal a Hidden Extinction Crisis

Aug. 4, 2025 — An intriguing new study reveals that over 80% of parasites found in the ancient poo of New Zealand’s endangered kākāpō have vanished, even though the bird itself is still hanging on. Researchers discovered this dramatic parasite decline by ...

These Dogs Are Trained to Sniff out an Invasive Insect—and They're Shockingly Good at It

July 17, 2025 — Dogs trained by everyday pet owners are proving to be surprisingly powerful allies in the fight against the invasive spotted lanternfly. In a groundbreaking study, citizen scientists taught their ...

Dogs Can Detect Parkinson’s Years Before Symptoms—with 98% Accuracy

July 16, 2025 — Dogs trained to detect Parkinson’s disease using scent have shown remarkable accuracy in new research. In a double-blind trial, they identified skin swabs from people with Parkinson’s with up to 80% sensitivity and 98% specificity, even when ...

Florida Cat Sniffs out Another New Virus—and Scientists Are Listening

July 12, 2025 — A cat named Pepper has once again helped scientists discover a new virus—this time a mysterious orthoreovirus found in a shrew. Researchers from the University of Florida, including virologist John Lednicky, identified this strain during unrelated ...

Bigger Crops, Fewer Nutrients: The Hidden Cost of Climate Change

July 10, 2025 — Climate change is silently sapping the nutrients from our food. A pioneering study finds that rising CO2 and higher temperatures are not only reshaping how crops grow but are also degrading their nutritional value especially in vital leafy greens ...

The Pandemic Pet Boom Was Real. The Happiness Boost Wasn’t

July 2, 2025 — Locked-down Hungarians who gained or lost pets saw almost no lasting shift in mood or loneliness, and new dog owners actually felt less calm and satisfied over time—hinting that the storied “pet effect” may be more myth than mental-health ...

Can These Endangered Lizards Beat the Heat? Scientists Test Bold Relocation Plan

June 26, 2025 — South Australia’s tiny pygmy bluetongue skink is baking in a warming, drying homeland, so Flinders University scientists have tried a bold fix—move it. Three separate populations were shifted ...

These Frozen Wolf Cubs Ate a Woolly Rhino—and Changed What We Know About Dogs

June 24, 2025 — Two Ice Age wolf pups once thought to be early dogs have been identified as wild wolves, thanks to detailed DNA and chemical analysis. Surprisingly, their last meals included woolly rhinoceros ...

How Madagascar’s Lizards Became the Island’s Last Hope for Reforestation

June 10, 2025 — After millions of years of evolutionary isolation, Madagascar developed an unparalleled array of wildlife, and recent research has uncovered an unsung ecological hero: the lizard. Though often ...

Telehealth Can Improve Care for Cats With Chronic Health Issues

June 3, 2025 — UC Davis researchers found that video telehealth visits help cat owners better care for arthritic cats without the stress of clinic visits. Owners appreciated personalized tips to improve their cat s comfort at home, and most said they'd pay for ...

HIV Discovery Could Open Door to Long-Sought Cure

May 30, 2025 — New HIV research shows that small changes in the virus affect how quickly or slowly it replicates and how easily it can reawaken in the body. These insights bring researchers closer to finding ways to flush out the dormant virus and eliminate it for ...

Latest Headlines

updated 1:40pm EDT

Beneath the Scales: The Secret Bone Armor That Helped Lizards Survive Australia

July 22, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered hidden bony armor—called osteoderms—beneath the skin of 29 goanna species across Australasia, a discovery that ...

Do Dogs Know Who’s Kind? Scientists Put It to the Test—and Got a Surprise

July 18, 2025 — Despite our strong belief in dogs' ability to sense good from bad in people, new research shows they may not actually judge human character, at least ...

Mammals Didn't Walk Upright Until Late—here's What Fossils Reveal

June 25, 2025 — The shift from lizard-like sprawl to upright walking in mammals wasn’t a smooth climb up the evolutionary ladder. Instead, it was a messy saga full of unexpected detours. Using new bone-mapping ...

What a Dinosaur Ate 100 Million Years ago—Preserved in a Fossilized Time Capsule

June 10, 2025 — A prehistoric digestive time capsule has been unearthed in Australia: plant fossils found inside a sauropod dinosaur offer the first definitive ...

Cotton Virus Circulated Undetected for Nearly 20 Years, Study Finds

May 30, 2025 — A virus responsible for damaging cotton crops across the southern United States has been lurking in U.S. fields for nearly 20 years -- undetected. According to new research, cotton leafroll dwarf ...

Genetic Deep Dive Dispels Fear of Hybrid Worm Threat

May 30, 2025 — Parasitic worms that infect humans are not interbreeding with those that infect cattle as previously thought. This is good news for when it comes to controlling schistosomiasis, a disease caused by ...

Genetic Basis of Purring in Cats

May 29, 2025 — Whether you are lucky enough to have a cat companion or must merely live this experience vicariously through cat videos, Felis catus is a familiar and comforting presence in our daily lives. Unlike ...

Horses 'Mane' Inspiration for New Generation of Social Robots

May 29, 2025 — Interactive robots should not just be passive companions, but active partners -- like therapy horses who respond to human emotion -- say ...

Evolution of a Single Gene Allowed the Plague to Adapt, Survive and Kill Much of Humanity Over Many Centuries

May 29, 2025 — Scientists have documented the way a single gene in the bacterium that causes bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis, allowed it to survive hundreds of ...

A High-Fat Diet Sets Off Metabolic Dysfunction in Cells, Leading to Weight Gain

May 29, 2025 — Researchers find high-fat diets set off metabolic dysfunction in cells, leading to weight gain, but these effects can be reversed by treatment with ...

Zika Virus Uses Cells' 'Self-Care' System to Turn Against Host

May 27, 2025 — A new study reveals the biological secret to the Zika virus's infectious success: Zika uses host cells' own 'self-care' system of clearing away useless molecules to suppress the ...

The Dietary Bug in a Cancer Therapy

May 21, 2025 — A study has uncovered a surprising link between diet, intestinal microbes and the efficacy of cancer ...

Engineered Bacteria Can Deliver Antiviral Therapies, Vaccines

May 21, 2025 — New research demonstrates how specially engineered bacteria taken orally can operate as a delivery system for vaccines and antiviral ...

Natural Algal Communities Can Inhibit Aquaculture Pathogens

May 21, 2025 — Antimicrobial resistance is a growing issue in aquaculture. Researchers discovered that combinations of bacteria from live-feed microalgae are capable of inhibiting ...

Why Some Viral Infections Appear to Trigger Autoimmune Disease

May 20, 2025 — By studying Chikungunya virus, scientists shed light on how immune responses to viral infections may lead to persistent symptoms of autoimmune ...

Gut Bacteria and Acetate, a Great Combination for Weight Loss

May 19, 2025 — Researchers have discovered a new way to reduce obesity. Supplying the gut with extra acetate reduces fat and liver mass in both normal and obese mice, as long as bacteria of the Bacteroides species ...

Fast Food, Fast Impact: How Fatty Meals Rapidly Weaken Our Gut Defenses

May 19, 2025 — A study has become the first in the world to unravel the immediate effects of a high-fat diet on our gut ...

Two HIV Vaccine Trials Show Proof of Concept for Pathway to Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies

May 15, 2025 — A decades-long scientific challenge in HIV vaccine development has been finding a way to train the immune system to produce antibodies that can target many variants of the virus. Traditional ...

Scientists Track Down Mutation That Makes Orange Cats Orange

May 15, 2025 — Many an orange cat-affiliated human will vouch for their cat's, let's say, specialness. But now scientists have confirmed that there is, in fact, something unique about ginger-hued domestic ...

Making Connections: A Three-Dimensional Visualization of Musculoskeletal Development

May 14, 2025 — Using a new fluorescent mouse model with advanced imaging techniques, researchers have successfully visualized how musculoskeletal components are integrated into the functional locomotor system ...

'Loop'hole: HIV-1 Hijacks Human Immune Cells Using Circular RNAs

May 13, 2025 — Researchers have identified a never-before-seen mechanism that enables HIV-1 to evade the body's natural defenses and use it to support its survival and replication. The 'loophole' is ...

From Prehistoric Resident to Runaway Pet: First Tegu Fossil Found in the U.S.

May 12, 2025 — Originally from South America, the charismatic tegu made its way to the United States via the pet trade of the 1990s. But a recent discovery shows these reptiles are no strangers to the region -- ...

Invasive Salmon, Clams and Seaweed Are Next Threats to Biodiversity in Britain

May 12, 2025 — Pink salmon, Purple Asian clams, marine invertebrates that form spaghetti-like colonies and a nematode worm that causes extensive deaths of trees are among the new entries in experts' watchlist ...

Novel, Needle-Free, Live-Attenuated Influenza Vaccines With Broad Protection Against Human and Avian Virus Subtypes

May 9, 2025 — A research team has achieved a significant breakthrough in developing broadly protective, live-attenuated influenza vaccines (LAIV). These innovative LAIV platforms offer potential to develop ...

New Study Traces Sharp Regional Shifts in Ischemic Heart Disease Burden -- A Global Warning Signal

May 8, 2025 — A new study puts the spotlight on the rising burden of ischemic heart disease across Southeast Asia, East Asia and Oceania, and calls for localized, equity-focused interventions in these regions. The ...

Eating Ultra-Processed Foods May Harm Your Health

May 8, 2025 — Eating even small amounts of ultra-processed foods—like soda, chips, or packaged cookies—can steadily increase your risk of serious health problems. A massive study reviewing data from over 8 ...

Robotic Dog Mimics Mammals for Superior Mobility on Land and in Water

May 8, 2025 — A team of researchers has unveiled a cutting-edge Amphibious Robotic Dog capable of roving across both land and water with remarkable ...

Evaluating the Safety and Efficacy of a Smallpox Vaccine for Preventing Mpox

May 8, 2025 — The recent global monkeypox (mpox) outbreak, with a new and aggressive variant, has underscored the dire need for safe, broadly effective, and accessible vaccines. The LC16m8 vaccine, an attenuated ...

Engineering an Antibody Against Flu With Sticky Staying Power

May 8, 2025 — Scientists have engineered a monoclonal antibody that can protect mice from a lethal dose of influenza A, a new study shows. The new molecule combines the specificity of a mature flu fighter with the ...

Building Vaccines for Future Versions of a Virus

May 8, 2025 — AI model EVE-Vax provides clues about how a virus may evolve and the immune response it could ...