animal research

Most people probably don't think much about all the organisms riding the tides of Delaware's coastal waters, especially fecal bacteria.

You may have read about the Great Backyard Bird Count in last week’s paper. It’s just one example of the of many citizen science projects that ordinary people like you and me can participate in.

In the cold months, this barrier island is a place of austere stillness, its famed wild ponies grazing along brown marshes, their long faces reflecting in waters often skimmed in ice, their seasonally shaggy coats flickering in the chill breeze.

With Johns Hopkins in its crosshairs, the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals plans to run an ad in Baltimore that depicts experiments on animals.

By Meredith Cohn

Nov 13, 2018

The era of the whooping crane at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel is ending. The Trump administration cut the 50-year-old crane breeding program's $1.5 million budget, and by the end of the year, the birds' squawks will no longer be heard at the Patuxent Research Refuge.

By Scott Dance

Oct 12, 2018

A five-year effort by the University of Maryland and other researchers aims to figure out how best to reduce tick populations, and, they hope, Lyme disease.

Researchers who use dogs or cats in research will have to "take reasonable steps" to offer the animals for adoption under legislation the Maryland General Assembly passed Friday.

By Scott Dance

Apr 7, 2018

The Maryland General Assembly is considering a bill aimed at helping research dogs and cats get adopted after studies are done.

By Meredith Cohn

Apr 2, 2018

A Maryland General Assembly proposal to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos has failed amid concerns it could stop an invasion of the spotted lanternfly. President Donald Trump's EPA has been accused of ignoring the pesticide's health risks.

By Scott Dance

Mar 15, 2018

When we improve and protect their lives, our own lives are improved beyond measure.

Woody Merkle, a volunteer naturalist at the Howard County Conservancy in Woodstock, is advocating participation in the Great Backyard Bird Count.

The Anne Arundel Bird Club has sponsored a bird count since 1954. This year, the Maryland bird-watching group held a count on New Year's Eve.

By Talia Richman

Jan 1, 2018

If and when wind farms are built off of Maryland's coast, turbines will be spinning in areas through which many seabirds cross in annual migrations, but where few linger, a study has found.

By Scott Dance

Dec 24, 2017

MICA alumnus Iandry Randriamandroso and West Baltimore community create 'Wisdom Wall' featuring murals of historical figures with Maryland ties.

By Brittany Britto

Dec 18, 2017

Lights Out Baltimore aims to rescue birds that have flown into buildings, advocates for owners to turn down lights that may disrupt migratory patterns.

By Christina Tkacik

Nov 9, 2017

The community gathered to create a habitat that includes more than 3,000 native plants.

By Talia Richman

Aug 27, 2017

Tulane University scientists will get $12 million for animal studies to test drug combinations.

While Baltimore has made great strides in investigating animal cruelty cases, which requires coordination among animal control, the police department, and BARCS Animal Shelter, too many animal abusers in Baltimore City continue to get off scot-free. The failure to competently prosecute these cases and obtain meaningful sentences can have sobering repercussions.

All drugs and some chemicals are tested on animals before humans, but no one is really sure how good mice, dogs and others are in predicting the toxic affects on people so a team from Johns Hopkins University aims to find out

By Meredith Cohn

Mar 12, 2017

I am a scientist who loves Groundhog Day, that least scientific of holidays. Every February, as Punxsutawney Phil shakes the dust off his coat, emerges from his burrow, glances at his shadow (or not) and allegedly prognosticates winter's end, I gather a group of professors, graduate students and other assorted science geeks at my UCLA lab to nibble, drink, schmooze and revel in groundhoggery in all its magnificent splendor.

Some ... say animals can't think like that. They don't prepare for death. These same people believe that animals live for the day, never thinking ahead. I disagree.

Scientists don't know why some humans taste better to mosquitoes, or why the insects dislike repellent. But researchers at Johns Hopkins University are a little closer to solving those mysteries.

By Carrie Wells

Dec 18, 2016

Ready or not, Christmas Day is just one week from today! If you're one of the lucky ones, you've got all your shopping done, gifts wrapped, cookies baked, de

A study by a Hopkins postdoc proves that bats and other animals don't cock their heads to be charming. They're enhancing their ability to hear and interpret sounds from the world around them.

By Jonathan M. Pitts

Oct 16, 2016

A Catonsville research lab at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County is using its resources and sense of curiosity to try to uncover details about a critically endangered Oriole just a three-hour flight away.

By Jon Bleiweis

Oct 5, 2016

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine will begin testing a Zika vaccine in humans before the end of the year as part of an aggressive effort to curtail the virus blamed for a devastating birth defect

By Meredith Cohn

Aug 4, 2016

Cruising through the water on a pontoon boat, 12 members of the Carroll County Bird Club watched with anticipation as Patuxent River Park naturalist Greg Kearns

Although his 98th birthday looms in July, Chandler Robbins is still showing up at the office.

Though traces of chemicals like the pesticide DDT are still being passed on to new generations of ospreys, the birds of prey are faring well in the Chesapeake Bay, researchers have found.

By Scott Dance

Apr 4, 2016

U.S. Fish and Wildlife researchers are trying new methods to raise endangered whooping crane chicks at Patuxent Wildlife Research Refuge.

By Tim Prudente

Mar 11, 2016

Avid birders unite! You can still sign up for Project Feederwatch and help provide data for the 2015-2016 season by logging onto feederwatch.org. The 2015-2016 season will end on Friday, April 8. As mentioned in a previous column, I have signed up once again and am doing my part in keeping count. The data collected will help scientists track migration patterns of the winter bird species.

The Anne Arundel County Volunteer Center's "Holiday Volunteer Guide," which lists many opportunities for volunteering through Dec. 15, is now available at the center, online and with a phone call.

More than 150 birdwatchers have flocked to the Baltimore harbor to spot a pair of brown boobies, which have only been spotted in Maryland waters once before.

By Scott Dance

Sep 22, 2015

Dr. Joseph R Geraci, 77, a veterinarian who was a specialist in marine mammal medicine and aquatic wildlife conservation, died of cancer Thursday at his Leesburg, Va. home.

By Jacques Kelly

Sep 15, 2015

A study is mapping coastal birds migratory patterns to learn whether they cross a 125-square-mile zone established for possible wind farms off Maryland's coast.

By Scott Dance

May 2, 2015

Research being published Thursday suggests that an Ebola vaccine being developed by Baltimore company Profectus BioSciences is effective against the strain of the virus that has ravaged West Africa, a milestone the company says is a first in the race to prevent future Ebola outbreaks.

By Scott Dance

Apr 8, 2015

A new University of Maryland study calls into question the role that pesticides play in the troubling decline of honey bee colonies. The study, published this week in the journal PLOS ONE, concludes that the widely used insecticide imidacloprid does not significantly harm bee colonies at levels the insects most likely encounter in the field.

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Mar 19, 2015

The Carroll County Bird Club, a chapter of the Maryland Ornithological Society, was founded in 1979. The group of about 40 members meets on the first Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m. at the Carroll Nonprofit Center in Westminster, except for during the summer months when many members take vacations.

To beat Ebola as we've overcome other global epidemics, officials must preserve access to animal research. Cures for this deadly pathogen — and thousands of lives — depend on it.

Battling over territory, bald eagles increasingly seen entrapped in each other's talons

By Julie Scharper

Jan 29, 2015

As public health officials seek to get an Ebola vaccine to Africa as soon as possible, human trials are being conducted in Baltimore, Silver Spring and Mali by University of Maryland scientists and other researchers.

By Scott Dance

Oct 18, 2014

University of Maryland, Baltimore County, research suggests that female animals' sexual preferences may launch an evolutionary process that eventually leads to creation of new species.

Animal rights group says Hopkins among only four medical schools using animals for training

Carroll County school one of only two in Maryland to receive honor