Cognitive processes such as perception, learning, memory and decision making play an important role in mate choice, foraging and many other behaviours. In this review, I summarize a few key ideas about animal cognition developed in a recent book (Shettleworth 1998, Cognition, Evolution and Behaviour) and briefly review some areas in which interdisciplinary research on animal cognition is curren...

Research on ancient DNA (aDNA) has the potential to enable molecular biologists and archeologists to decipher certain aspects of history by direct looking into the past. However, several major problems in this field limit the applicability of aDNA studies, most importantly contamination with modern DNA and postmortem DNA degradation. In this study we extracted and analyzed aDNA obtained from ~3...

ABSTRACT Introduction: Animal bites are one of the serious threats to human health, leading numerous consequences such as fatal disease of rabies. Given the importance of animal bite throughout the country, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the geographical distribution, time trend and epidemiological characteristics of animal-bite cases in Bardsir County, Iran. Methods: Thi...

Rabies is one of the infectious diseases, highly fatal and true zoonoses. The disease occurs in most countries. In Iran, rabies is endemic and a major public health Problem. The most warm- blooded animals are susceptible to rabies. The methods of transmission is almost always by the bite of an infected animal to human and animals. The saliva of rabid animal contains the rabies virus. The main s...

The methodology for the scientific assessment of animal welfare has developed rapidly in recent years and has become a major scientific discipline. The concepts of welfare, need, stress, health, pain, emotion and feeling are now clarified. In teaching, legislation and practical work referring to animal welfare, a clear definition that can be related to other concepts is needed. The welfare of a...