http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A Smoky Mountain forest's woodland herb population has shown that climate may play a role in how forest understories recover from logging, according to Purdue University research. http://www.physorg.com/news178983040.html Space & Earth Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:31:06 EST news178983040 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 Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:36:15 EST news178976123 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 Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:37:42 EST news178893395 (PhysOrg.com) -- Leaf-cutter ants, which cultivate fungus for food, have many remarkable qualities. http://www.physorg.com/news177863147.html Biology Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:20:01 EST news177863147 Poor Texas. First it was killer bees, then fire ants. Now, it's the Rasberry ants. http://www.physorg.com/news177341639.html Biology Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:34:36 EST news177341639 Tree-dwelling ants generally live in harmony with their arboreal hosts. But new research suggests that when they run out of space in their trees of choice, the ants can get destructive to neighboring trees. http://www.physorg.com/news176749611.html Biology Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:07:58 EST news176749611 A researcher of the University of Granada, Spain, has designed a new system for the mobility of military troops within a battlefield based on the mechanisms used by ant colonies to move using a commercial videogame. http://www.physorg.com/news176726947.html Technology Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:00:02 EST news176726947 (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 disputes that keep the colonies separate. But new work by a researcher at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen shows that in some cases the colonies can be cooperative instead of combative. http://www.physorg.com/news176559182.html Biology Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:15:19 EST news176559182 (PhysOrg.com) -- Experiments led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have demonstrated that normally friendly ants can turn against each other by exploiting the chemical cues they use to distinguish colony-mates from rivals. http://www.physorg.com/news175894442.html Biology Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:34:55 EST news175894442 (PhysOrg.com) -- A breakthrough by scientists at Cambridge University may terminate the threat of termites, cockroaches and other pests such as ants and locusts - responsible for billions of pounds worth of damage to homes, crops and people's health across the globe each year. http://www.physorg.com/news174645271.html Biology Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:36:06 EST news174645271 (PhysOrg.com) -- There are approximately 40,000 species of spiders in the world, all of which have been thought to be strict predators that feed on insects or other animals. Now, scientists have found that a small Central American jumping spider has a uniquely different diet: the species Bagheera kiplingi feeds predominantly on plant food. http://www.physorg.com/news174568827.html Biology Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:21:30 EST news174568827 In the never-ending battle to protect computer networks from intruders, security experts are deploying a new defense modeled after one of nature's hardiest creatures -- the ant. http://www.physorg.com/news173108776.html Technology Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:46:51 EST news173108776 Chimpanzees in the Congo have developed specialised 'tool kits' to forage for army ants, reveals new research published today in the American Journal of Primatology. This not only provides the first direct evidence of multiple tool use in this context, but suggests that chimpanzees have developed a 'sustainable' way of harvesting food. http://www.physorg.com/news171172996.html Biology Thu, 03 Sep 2009 05:03:33 EST news171172996 The complete asexuality of a widespread fungus-gardening ant, the only ant species in the world known to have dispensed with males entirely, has been confirmed by a team of Texas and Brazilian researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news170493929.html Biology Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:26:13 EST news170493929 A study in the September issue of The American Naturalist describes new details about a fungal parasite that coerces ants into dying in just the right spot -- one that is ideal for the fungus to grow and reproduce. The study, led David P. Hughes of Harvard University, shows just how precisely the fungus manipulates the behavior of its hapless hosts. http://www.physorg.com/news169223504.html Biology Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:32:14 EST news169223504 In a study released online on July 22 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, researchers at Arizona State University and Princeton University show that ants can accomplish a task more rationally than our - multimodal, egg-headed, tool-using, bipedal, opposing-thumbed - selves. http://www.physorg.com/news167664461.html Biology Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:20:01 EST news167664461 Intelligent countryside management could improve the survival chances of animal and plant species threatened by climate change. The creation of small heat-shielded habitats and better links between habitats would counteract a moderate temperature increase and give threatened species more time to adapt better and/or to migrate to cooler regions. http://www.physorg.com/news165771682.html Biology Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:41:47 EST news165771682 Partner switching between fungus farming ants and their fungal clones during nest establishment may contribute to the stability of this long-term mutualistic relationship. http://www.physorg.com/news163076638.html Biology Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:04:22 EST news163076638 (AP) -- Running a museum is no picnic, but the Smithsonian is attracting ants anyway. http://www.physorg.com/news162822928.html Biology Fri, 29 May 2009 13:36:08 EST news162822928 "What has six legs and is way cooler than a spider?" asks a riddle on the cover of a birthday card sent to Stephen Colbert by entomologists Quentin Wheeler at Arizona State University and Kelly Miller at the University of New Mexico. http://www.physorg.com/news160851126.html Biology Wed, 06 May 2009 17:52:42 EST news160851126 (PhysOrg.com) -- How do ant colonies manage the nutrients in their food? Audrey Dussutour from the Centre de recherche sur la cognition animale (CNRS/Université Paul Sabatier) and Steve Simpson from Sydney University have shown that an ant colony functions like a `collective mouth and gut`. The members of a colony are capable of dealing with the nutritional needs of their social structure by sharing tasks (foraging, digestion and excretion). The results of this study were published in Current Biology on 12 May 2009. http://www.physorg.com/news160834504.html Biology Wed, 06 May 2009 13:15:23 EST news160834504 There are fewer species of ants in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere. This is the conclusion drawn by an international team of scientists that have studied 1,003 local ant assemblages on five different continents. According to the study, ant communities in the northern hemisphere may have suffered more extinctions as a result of the climate changes that occurred between 53 and 54 million years ago. http://www.physorg.com/news160817116.html Biology Wed, 06 May 2009 08:27:05 EST news160817116 (PhysOrg.com) -- When an ant dies in an ant nest or near one, its body is quickly picked up by living ants and removed from the colony, thus limiting the risk of colony infection by pathogens from the corpse. http://www.physorg.com/news160752299.html Biology Tue, 05 May 2009 14:25:29 EST news160752299 Nature is full of mutually beneficial arrangements between organisms -like the relationship between flowering plants and their bee pollinators. But sometimes these blissful relationships have a dark side, as Harvard biologist Megan Frederickson describes in an article for the May issue of The American Naturalist. http://www.physorg.com/news160137299.html Biology Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:36:03 EST news160137299 (PhysOrg.com) -- Direct comparison of alternatives isn`t always the best way to make a decision - at least if you`re an ant. House-hunting rock ants collectively manage to choose the best nest-site without needing to study all their options, according to new research from the University of Bristol. http://www.physorg.com/news159632715.html Biology Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:25:41 EST news159632715 New diseases directly affect human survival and food security, especially as population density climbs. Leaf-cutting ants, one of a few groups of social insects to cultivate crops, have harvested plant material to fertilize their underground fungal gardens for ~50 million years. New results from the Smithsonian show that both the ants and their fungal crop actively combat fungi coming into the nest inside leaves, thus ensuring the health of their mutualism. http://www.physorg.com/news157916918.html Biology Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:49:17 EST news157916918 Ant trails fascinate children and scientists alike. With so many ants traveling in both directions, meeting and contacting one another, carrying their loads and giving the impression that they have a sense of urgency and duty, they pose the following question: how do they organize themselves? A new study published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE may have some answers. http://www.physorg.com/news157786575.html Biology Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:37:41 EST news157786575 (PhysOrg.com) -- While science has yet to discover what makes that little ol' ant think he'll move that rubber tree plant, researchers at the University of Toronto Mississauga have identified an enzyme in ant brains that determines if they will defend the nest or gather food. http://www.physorg.com/news157652094.html Biology Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:15:42 EST news157652094 (PhysOrg.com) -- As highway traffic increases, you'd probably expect a traffic jam, where vehicles slow down due to the high density. While traffic jams are a common occurrence on our highways, high density traffic has completely different effects for ants traveling on trails. As a new study has found, ants don't have traffic jams. Rather, as ant traffic density increases, the traffic maintains the same average velocity as at low densities. http://www.physorg.com/news157627187.html Biology Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:20:19 EST news157627187 Ecologists in Australia have discovered that cane toads are far more susceptible to being killed and eaten by meat ants than native frogs. Their research - published in the British Ecological Society's journal Functional Ecology - reveals a chink in the cane toad's armour that could help control the spread of this alien invasive species in tropical Australia. http://www.physorg.com/news157620513.html Biology Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:29:30 EST news157620513