http://www.physorg.com/biology-news/plants-animals/ en-us PhysOrg.com provides the latest news on plants and animals Scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Natural History Museum believe that carnivorous behaviour in plants is far more widespread than previously thought, with many commonly grown plants - such as petunias - at least part way to being "meat eaters". A review paper, Murderous plants: Victorian Gothic, Darwin and modern insights into vegetable carnivory, is published today (4 December 2009) in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. http://www.physorg.com/news179151654.html Biology - Plants & Animals Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:30:01 EST news179151654 (AP) -- Marine sanctuary officials planned to return to Hawaii waters with modified equipment Friday to try to cut loose a young humpback whale entangled in several hundred yards of heavy plastic rope. http://www.physorg.com/news179118026.html Biology - Plants & Animals Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:40:01 EST news179118026 (PhysOrg.com) -- Birds' alarm calls serve both to alert other birds to danger and to warn off predators. And some birds can pull a ventriloquist's trick, singing from the side of their mouths, according to a UC Davis study. http://www.physorg.com/news179082717.html Biology - Plants & Animals Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:12:29 EST news179082717 Feeding birds in winter is a most innocent human activity, but it can nonetheless have profound effects on the evolutionary future of a species, and those changes can be seen in the very near term. That's the conclusion of a report published online on December 3rd in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, showing that what was once a single population of birds known as blackcaps has been split into two reproductively isolated groups in fewer than 30 generations, despite the fact that they continue to breed side by side in the very same forests. http://www.physorg.com/news179066690.html Biology - Plants & Animals Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:45:18 EST news179066690 Coral reef fish can undergo a personality change in warmer water, according to an intriguing new study suggesting that climate change may make some species more aggressive. http://www.physorg.com/news179059979.html Biology - Plants & Animals Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:54:15 EST news179059979 (PhysOrg.com) -- Some plants have the ability to drastically reduce levels of indoor pollutants, according to new research at the University of Georgia. Researchers showed that certain species can effectively remove air-borne contaminants, including harmful volatile organic compounds, suggesting a critical new role for plants in home and office environments. http://www.physorg.com/news178998849.html Biology - Plants & Animals Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:54:43 EST news178998849 (PhysOrg.com) -- University of Florida researchers are collecting marine invertebrates on the French Polynesian island of Moorea as part of a massive effort to inventory the DNA sequence of every living species there. http://www.physorg.com/news178996999.html Biology - Plants & Animals Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:40:18 EST news178996999 A scientist from the University of Salamanca and another from Yale University have shown that the presence of predators affects the behaviour of Acanthodactylus beershebensis, a lizard species from the Negev Desert in the Near East. According to the study, these reptiles move less and catch less mobile and different prey if they are under pressure from predators. http://www.physorg.com/news178978395.html Biology - Plants & Animals Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:30:01 EST news178978395 Looks can be deceiving, but certain bird species have figured out that a voice can tell them most of what they need to know to find the right mate. http://www.physorg.com/news178976123.html Biology - Plants & Animals Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:36:15 EST news178976123 In July the scientists, one from the United States, the other from Canada, put the satellite collar on Brutus, the leader of his wolf pack, on remote Ellesmere Island, only 600 miles from the North Pole. Their goal - to finally find out what these "North Pole wolves" do in the long, dark days of winter in one of the harshest areas of the world. http://www.physorg.com/news178892666.html Biology - Plants & Animals Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:10:04 EST news178892666 Broadly speaking, ants have two different feeding strategies. A large proportion of all species are "carnivorous," meaning that they are generalist predators feeding on other small animals or scavenging on their remains. Some, however, are "herbivorous". http://www.physorg.com/news178893395.html Biology - Plants & Animals Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:37:42 EST news178893395 (AP) -- Puerto Rico has such a bad history with research monkeys running amok that some residents are stunned that its government has tentatively approved a plan to import and breed thousands of primates for sale to U.S. researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news178807311.html Biology - Plants & Animals Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:20:01 EST news178807311 (PhysOrg.com) -- The first analysis of immunity-related genes in a solitary bee has been conducted by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and cooperators. http://www.physorg.com/news178792830.html Biology - Plants & Animals Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:50:01 EST news178792830 (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 that handedness, as seen in the direction of a snail shell spiral, can be reversed by manual manipulation of eight cell stage embryos, which is much earlier than previously thought. http://www.physorg.com/news178786914.html Biology - Plants & Animals Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:03:02 EST news178786914 (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. http://www.physorg.com/news178645682.html Biology - Plants & Animals Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:20:01 EST news178645682 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 reason is the shark's vision. 'Perhaps their visual field has been enhanced by their weird head shape,' says McComb, giving the sharks excellent stereovision and depth perception. However, according to McComb, there were two schools of thought on this theory. In 1942, G. Walls speculated that the sharks couldn't possibly have binocular vision because their eyes were stuck out on the sides of their heads. http://www.physorg.com/news178526505.html Biology - Plants & Animals Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:42:14 EST news178526505 Prized for their impressive antlers, red deer have been caught in the hunters' sights for generations. But a deer's antlers are much more than decorative. They are lethal weapons that stags crash together when duelling. John Currey, from The University of York, UK, has been intrigued by the mechanical properties of bone for over half a century and has become fascinated by the mechanical properties of antler through a long-standing collaboration with Tomas Landete-Castillejos at the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha. http://www.physorg.com/news178526297.html Biology - Plants & Animals Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:38:54 EST news178526297 (PhysOrg.com) -- When spider mites attack a bean plant, the plant responds by producing odours which attract predatory mites. These predatory mites then exterminate the spider mite population, thus acting as a type of 'bodyguard' for the plant. However, if the plant is simultaneously attacked by whiteflies, insects that are related to aphids, the plant becomes less attractive to the predatory mites and therefore more vulnerable to spider mites. http://www.physorg.com/news178451189.html Biology - Plants & Animals Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:47:54 EST news178451189 (PhysOrg.com) -- For the first time, scientists at The University of Western Ontario have shown that insects exposed to repeated periods of cold will trade reproduction for immediate survival. http://www.physorg.com/news178391046.html Biology - Plants & Animals Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:05:32 EST news178391046 It is well known that some animal species use camouflage to hide from predators. Individuals that are able to blend in to their surroundings and avoid being eaten are able to survive longer, reproduce, and thus increase their fitness (pass along their genes to the next generation) compared to those who stand out more. This may seem like a good strategy, and fairly common in the animal kingdom, but who ever heard of a plant doing the same thing? http://www.physorg.com/news178382633.html Biology - Plants & Animals Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:44:31 EST news178382633 A journey that started with a box of bird feet carried three Montana State University graduate students into the gruesome world of raptors and led to their findings being published in a prominent journal. http://www.physorg.com/news178349344.html Biology - Plants & Animals Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:50:07 EST news178349344 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. http://www.physorg.com/news178315036.html Biology - Plants & Animals Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:58:45 EST news178315036 (PhysOrg.com) -- When we sit down to give thanks at the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, we should also be thanking the honey bee. http://www.physorg.com/news178304762.html Biology - Plants & Animals Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:07:06 EST news178304762 Malaysian wildlife authorities are using electronic implants to keep track of orangutans in a bid to protect the endangered apes after they are freed into the wild, an official said Tuesday. http://www.physorg.com/news178296802.html Biology - Plants & Animals Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:20:01 EST news178296802 (PhysOrg.com) -- Queensland scientists have developed a world-first database that catalogues the venom components from hundreds of spiders. http://www.physorg.com/news178227344.html Biology - Plants & Animals Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:36:43 EST news178227344 A new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society says that western lowland gorillas living in a large swamp in the Republic of Congo -part of the "mother lode" of more than 125,000 gorillas discovered last year -are becoming increasingly threatened by growing humans activity in the region. http://www.physorg.com/news178216023.html Biology - Plants & Animals Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:27:50 EST news178216023 A new species of chameleon has been discovered in Tanzania by a team of scientists. http://www.physorg.com/news178199221.html Biology - Plants & Animals Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:50:01 EST news178199221 Amphibians like frogs and toads have existed for 360 million years and survived when the dinosaurs didn't, but a new aquatic fungus is threatening to make many of them extinct, according to an article in the November issue of Microbiology Today. http://www.physorg.com/news178198770.html Biology - Plants & Animals Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:40:13 EST news178198770 An Indian inventor has created a device to stop rampaging elephants in their tracks, amid concern about human injuries and deaths when they run amok, his company said Monday. http://www.physorg.com/news178184014.html Biology - Plants & Animals Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:40:02 EST news178184014 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 black world down to 5,000 meters (~3 miles) below the ocean waves. http://www.physorg.com/news178118759.html Biology - Plants & Animals Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:27:13 EST news178118759