Wiggling and waggling: Study sheds light on amazing bee brain

Wiggling and waggling: Study sheds light on amazing bee brain

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (10) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Their brains are tiny - about the size of sesame seeds - and yet the behaviour of the humble honey bee is so advanced it has scientists scratching their heads in disbelief.


Soap opera in the marsh: Coots foil nest invaders, reject impostors

Soap opera in the marsh: Coots foil nest invaders, reject impostors

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Dec 16, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- The American coot is a drab, seemingly unremarkable marsh bird common throughout North America. But its reproductive life is full of deception and violence.


Tree of life

Evolution may take giant leaps

Biology / Evolution

created Dec 11, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (29) | comments 39

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of thousands of species of plants and animals suggests new species may arise from rare events instead of through an accumulation of small changes made in response to changes in ...


Researchers engineer bacteria to turn carbon dioxide into liquid fuel

Researchers engineer bacteria to turn carbon dioxide into liquid fuel

Biology / Biotechnology

created Dec 10, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (43) | comments 25

(PhysOrg.com) -- The genetically modified cyanobacterium consumes carbon dioxide and produces the liquid fuel isobutanol by using energy from sunlight.


Introns: A mystery renewed

Introns: A mystery renewed

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Dec 10, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 0

The sequences of nonsense DNA that interrupt genes could be far more important to the evolution of genomes than previously thought, according to a recent Science report by Indiana University Bloomington and ...


Only a small number of so-called giant viruses have been discovered, the first in 1993 by accident

New giant virus discovered

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Dec 09, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (19) | comments 8

Scientists in France have isolated a new giant virus that lurks inside amoeba and whose gene pool includes genetic material from other species.


Caltech scientists discover aggression-promoting pheromone in flies

Scientists discover aggression-promoting pheromone in flies (w/ Video)

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Dec 06, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (10) | comments 1

Have you ever found yourself struggling to get your order taken at a crowded bar or lunch counter, only to walk away in disgust as more aggressive customers elbow their way to the front? It turns out that ...


Newly explored bacteria reveal some huge RNA surprises

Newly explored bacteria reveal some huge RNA surprises

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Dec 02, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (12) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Yale University researchers have found very large RNA structures within previously unstudied bacteria that appear crucial to basic biological functions such as helping viruses infect cells ...


How did flowering plants evolve to dominate Earth?

Biology / Evolution

created Dec 01, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (10) | comments 1

To Charles Darwin it was an 'abominable mystery' and it is a question which has continued to vex evolutionists to this day: when did flowering plants evolve and how did they come to dominate plant life on earth? Today a study ...


meat

Pork meat grown in the laboratory

Biology / Biotechnology

created Dec 01, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (43) | comments 53

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from Eindhoven University in The Netherlands have for the first time grown pork meat in the laboratory by extracting cells from a live pig and growing them in a petri dish.


Lymnaea stagnalis

Right/left handedness of snails changed in the lab

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 30, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (6) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- Like most animals, snails have either left- or right-handed asymmetry (chirality), both internally and externally, and the handedness is hereditary. A new study has for the first time found ...


Hammerhead shark

Wide heads give hammerheads exceptional stereo view

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 27, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (10) | comments 4

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 ...


Citrus

Citrus surprise: Vitamin C boosts the reprogramming of adult cells into stem cells

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Dec 24, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (26) | comments 5

Famous for its antioxidant properties and role in tissue repair, vitamin C is touted as beneficial for illnesses ranging from the common cold to cancer and perhaps even for slowing the aging process. Now, ...


Ladder-walking locusts show big brains aren't always best

Ladder-walking locusts show big brains aren't always best

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Dec 24, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 1

Scientists have shown for the first time that insects, like mammals, use vision rather than touch to find footholds. They made the discovery thanks to high-speed video cameras - technology the BBC uses to ...


The sun sets behind the Manhattan skyline on December 11 in New York

New Yorkers beware! New cockroach hits the Big Apple

Biology / Evolution

created Dec 24, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (16) | comments 3

New Yorkers are used to fighting each other for space, but there may be a new contender in town according to a Rockefeller study that appears to have uncovered a new species of cockroach.