Plants & Animals news
Extinct goat was cold-blooded
Nov 18, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- An extinct goat that lived on a barren Mediterranean island survived for millions of years by reducing in size and by becoming cold-blooded, which has never before been discovered in mammals.
Bigger not necessarily better, when it comes to brains
Nov 17, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Tiny insects could be as intelligent as much bigger animals, despite only having a brain the size of a pinhead, say scientists at Queen Mary, University of London.
Beyond sunlight: Explorers census 17,650 ocean species between edge of darkness and black abyss (w/ Video)
Nov 22, 2009 |
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Census of Marine Life scientists have inventoried an astonishing abundance, diversity and distribution of deep sea species that have never known sunlight - creatures that somehow manage a living in a frigid ...
Red Sea coral seen to feed on jellyfish
Nov 17, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Corals depends on the products of photosynthetic algae for most of their food, but they also eat tiny plankton. Now, for the first time, there is evidence of a coral eating jellyfish.
Rat pack: Scientists warming up to African rodent
Nov 28, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Naked mole rats don't get cancer. They shrug off brushes with acid and age so well, some are older than the college-aged researchers handling them.
Rapacious Rasberry ants march north
Nov 13, 2009 |
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Poor Texas. First it was killer bees, then fire ants. Now, it's the Rasberry ants.
Mom was right: Why nice guys usually get the girls
Nov 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Female water striders often reject their most persistent and aggressive suitors and prefer the males who aren't so grabby, according to new research. Water striders are insects commonly seen ...
Got a pain? -- Have a cup of Brazilian mint
Nov 24, 2009 |
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For thousands of years it has been prescribed by traditional healers in Brazil to treat a range of ailments from headaches and stomach pain to fever and flu.
The evolution of orchids
Nov 19, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Charles Darwin and many other scientists have long been puzzled by the evolution of orchids, the largest and most diverse family of flowering plants on Earth. Now genetic sequencing is giving ...
Wide heads give hammerheads exceptional stereo view
Nov 27, 2009 |
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Hammerhead sharks are some of the Ocean's most distinctive residents. 'Everyone wants to understand why they have this strange head shape,' says Michelle McComb from Florida Atlantic University. One possible ...
Caught in the act: Scientists find butterflies splitting into two species
Nov 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Breaking up may actually not be hard to do, say scientists who've found a population of tropical butterflies that may be on its way to a split into two distinct species.
Birds 'See' Earth's Magnetic Field
Nov 16, 2009 |
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When birds migrate over long distances -- sometimes thousands of miles -- they usually end up in exactly the same place year after year. Such accurate feats of navigation, accomplished by millions of birds ...
Orphan army ants join nearby colonies
Nov 04, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Colonies of army ants, whose long columns and marauding habits are the stuff of natural-history legend, are usually antagonistic to each other, attacking soldiers from rival colonies in border ...
Hormone that affects finger length key to social behavior
Nov 04, 2009 |
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The hormones, called androgens, are important in the development of masculine characteristics such as aggression and strength. It is also thought that prenatal androgens affect finger length during development in the womb. ...
Africa's rarest monkey had an intriguing sexual past, DNA study confirms
Nov 11, 2009 |
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The most extensive DNA study to-date of Africa's rarest monkey reveals that the species had an intriguing sexual past. Of the last two remaining populations of the recently discovered kipunji, one population ...
