Plants & Animals news

The power of estrogen -- male snakes attract other males

A new study has shown that boosting the estrogen levels of male garter snakes causes them to secrete the same pheromones that females use to attract suitors, and turned the males into just about the sexiest ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created 17 hours ago | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

New drugs schedule makes horse racing a sure thing

What do Gai Waterhouse and Anthony Cummings have in common with Queen Elizabeth II?

Biology / Plants & Animals

created 17 hours ago | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

An eye for the tsetse fly

(PhysOrg.com) -- Geoffrey M. Attardo was one of those little boys who made pets of the spiders outside his bedroom window, feeding them and watching as they spun intricate webs. Age has not diminished his ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created 18 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Deciding to go left or right: Researchers use device to determine that lower animals can navigate too

For decades, scientists have associated binary decision making — opting to go left or right — with higher-ranking animals, including humans. A team of Harvard researchers, however, is rewriting that ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Ultraviolet protection molecule in plants yields its secrets

Lying around in the sun all day is hazardous not just for humans but also for plants, which have no means of escape. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun can damage proteins and DNA inside cells, leading ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast


Life in Antarctic lake? It's everywhere else

If scientists find microbes in a frigid lake two miles beneath the thick ice of Antarctica, it will illustrate once again that somehow life finds a way to survive in the strangest and harshest places.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (6) | comments 1

Amazing skin gives sharks a push

Shark skin has long been known to improve the fish's swimming performance by reducing drag, but now George Lauder and Johannes Oeffner from Harvard University show that in addition, the skin generates thrust, ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Fruit flies drawn to the sweet smell of youth

Aging takes its toll on sex appeal and now an international team of researchers led by Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Michigan find that in fruit flies, at least, it even diminishes the come-hither ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

How the zebra got its stripes

If there was a 'Just So' story for how the zebra got its stripes, I'm sure that Rudyard Kipling would have come up with an amusing and entertaining camouflage explanation. But would he have come up with the explanation that ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Midges 'actively spread' bluetongue epidemic

The midges that spread bluetongue, a devastating livestock disease, across Europe in 2006 weren’t ‘passengers’ on the wind but actively transported the disease, Oxford University scientists ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Mammal secrets

You probably don’t need a field guide to identify a raccoon. Or a grey squirrel. You’re not likely to say, “that big white shaggy beast, hmm, yes, might be a polar bear. Let’s check.” ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Judge tosses case seeking rights for orcas

(AP) -- An effort to free whales from SeaWorld by claiming they were enslaved made a splash in the news but flopped in court Wednesday.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Why are there so few fish in the Earth's oceans?

(PhysOrg.com) -- A Stony Brook University researcher has found that, contrary to popular belief, there are not plenty of fish in the sea.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 08, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (14) | comments 25 | with audio podcast

Dogs succeed while chimps fail at following finger pointing

Dogs are better than chimps at interpreting pointing gestures, according to a study published in the online journal PLoS ONE.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 08, 2012 | popularity 3.5 / 5 (2) | comments 4

Obstacles no barrier to higher speeds for worms, researchers find

Obstacles in an organism's path can help it to move faster, not slower, researchers from New York University's Applied Math Lab at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences have found through a series ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 08, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

More News

Court to decide if SeaWorld whales are illegal 'slaves'

A California federal court is to decide for the first time in US history whether amusement park animals are protected by the same constitutional rights as humans.

Most stretchable spider silk reported

The egg sac silk of the cocoon stalk of the cave spider Meta menardi is the most stretchable egg sac silk yet tested, according to a study published Feb. 8 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

Tiny primate 'talks' in ultrasound

One of the world's smallest primates, the Philippine tarsier, communicates in a range of ultrasound inaudible to predator and prey alike, according to a study published on Wednesday.

Scared of a younger rival? Not for some male songbirds

When mature male white-crowned sparrows duel to win a mate or a nesting territory, a young bird just doesn't get much respect.

Ship noise boosts stress in whales, 9/11 reveals: study

The steady drone of motors along busy commercial shipping lanes not only alters whale behaviour but can affect the giant sea mammals physically by causing chronic stress, a study published Wednesday has reported ...

Other News

Anonymous knocks CIA website offline (Update)

New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission

Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago

Google users warned of threat to smartphone wallets

New power source discovered

Small modular reactor design could be a 'SUPERSTAR'

Advanced power-grid model finds low-cost, low-carbon future in West

Could Venus be shifting gear?

Complex wiring of the nervous system may rely on a just a handful of genes and proteins

Japan scientist makes 'Avatar' robot

Fool's gold may prove an unlikely alternative to overexploited catalytic materials

NASA budget will axe Mars deal with Europe: scientists

A frank discussion of the power law and linking correlation to causation

Putting the squeeze on planets outside our solar system

Employers feel no love for unscrupulous practice of 'service sweethearting'



Whale dies on Belgian beach

A 13-metre (42-foot) sperm whale died Wednesday after washing up on a Belgian beach, the country's Royal Institute of Natural Science said.

Researchers study parenting behaviors of stressed-out birds

Imagine an environment filled with wind, storms, predators, noise, and limited food and shelter. Then imagine providing and caring for a tiny egg or peeping baby bird in those conditions. The tree ...

Study shows chimps able to understand needs of others

(PhysOrg.com) -- By setting up a unique experiment, a small team of researchers has found that chimpanzees are able to understand need in other chimps, despite their general disinclination to offer aid when ...

Our Amorphophallus is smaller: New plant species from Madagascar smells like roadkill

The famed "corpse flower" plant – known for its giant size, rotten-meat odor and phallic shape – has a new, smaller relative: A University of Utah botanist discovered a new species of Amorphophallus that i ...

Not the black sheep of domestic animals

Mapping the ancestry of sheep over the past 11,000 years has revealed that our woolly friends are stars among domestic animals, boasting vast genetic diversity and substantial prospects for continued breeding to further boost ...


Anonymous knocks CIA website offline (Update)

New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission

Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago

Google users warned of threat to smartphone wallets

New power source discovered

Small modular reactor design could be a 'SUPERSTAR'

Advanced power-grid model finds low-cost, low-carbon future in West

Could Venus be shifting gear?

Complex wiring of the nervous system may rely on a just a handful of genes and proteins

Japan scientist makes 'Avatar' robot

Fool's gold may prove an unlikely alternative to overexploited catalytic materials

NASA budget will axe Mars deal with Europe: scientists

A frank discussion of the power law and linking correlation to causation

Putting the squeeze on planets outside our solar system

Employers feel no love for unscrupulous practice of 'service sweethearting'

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