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. (PhysOrg.com) -- Not just birds, but also a few species of bats face a long journey every year. Researchers at Princeton University in the U.S. and at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Germany studied the migratory behaviour of the largest extant family of bats, the so-called "Vespertilionidae" with the help of mathematical models. They discovered that the migration over short as well as long distances of various kinds of bats evolved independently within the family. http://www.physorg.com/news177948336.html Biology Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:06:17 EST news177948336 Spanish researchers have confirmed that the largest bat in Europe, Nyctalus lasiopterus, was present in north-eastern Spain during the Late Pleistocene (between 120,000 and 10,000 years ago). The Greater Noctule fossils found in the excavation site at Abríc Romaní (Barcelona) prove that this bat had a greater geographical presence more than 10,000 years ago than it does today, having declined due to the reduction in vegetation cover. http://www.physorg.com/news176035940.html Other Sciences Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:53:29 EST news176035940 Scientists at the University of Calgary have found a way to reduce bat deaths from wind turbines by up to 60 percent without significantly reducing the energy generated from the wind farm. The research, recently published in the Journal of Wildlife Management, demonstrates that slowing turbine blades to near motionless in low-wind periods significantly reduces bat mortality. http://www.physorg.com/news173364700.html Biology Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:10:06 EST news173364700 (PhysOrg.com) -- One of the rarest bats in the UK - the Bechstein's bat (Myotis bechsteinii) - has been found at its most westerly site ever recorded in the UK by a PhD student at the University of Bristol. http://www.physorg.com/news172746647.html Biology Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:20:03 EST news172746647 The tiny male bat didn't expect to wind up in a biologist's hand when he set out in search of a nighttime snack along Box Canyon Creek. http://www.physorg.com/news172483467.html Biology Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:40:02 EST news172483467 (PhysOrg.com) -- The Great Tit is an aggressive songbird found in Britain, continental Europe, parts of Northern Africa, and much of Asia. It is believed to survive mostly on seeds, nuts, fruit, insects, beetles, and spiders, but scientists studying a cave in Hungary have now discovered a population of Great Tits that kill and eat hibernating bats. http://www.physorg.com/news171788817.html Biology Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:10:02 EST news171788817 Love songs aren't only for soft rock FM stations - they're also used by romantic bats, and researchers at Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin are believed to be the first to decode the mysterious love sounds made by the winged creatures. Their work is published in the current issue of PloS One (Public Library of Science). http://www.physorg.com/news170416884.html Biology Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:01:47 EST news170416884 A bizarre New Zealand bat that is as much at home walking four-legged on the ground as winging through the air had an Australian ancestor 20 million years ago with the same rare ability, a new study has found. http://www.physorg.com/news168083255.html Biology Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:02:44 EST news168083255 The eyes of nocturnal bats possess two spectral cone photoreceptor types for daylight and colour vision. Reporting in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt and the University of Oldenburg have detected cones and their visual pigments in two flower-visiting species of bat. http://www.physorg.com/news167978678.html Biology Tue, 28 Jul 2009 05:45:21 EST news167978678 (PhysOrg.com) -- Large numbers of bats are killed by colliding with turbine blades or by experiencing sudden depressurisation immediately adjacent to the blade. http://www.physorg.com/news166978013.html Biology Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:47:36 EST news166978013 Tiny flying machines can be used for everything from indoor surveillance to exploring collapsed buildings, but simply making smaller versions of planes and helicopters doesn't work very well. Instead, researchers at North Carolina State University are mimicking nature's small flyers - and developing robotic bats that offer increased maneuverability and performance. http://www.physorg.com/news166163661.html Electronics Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:35:05 EST news166163661 Scientists from Texas are batty over a new discovery which could lead to the single most important medical breakthrough in human history -- significantly longer lifespans. The discovery, featured on the cover of the July 2009 print issue of The FASEB Journal, shows that proper protein folding over time in long-lived bats explains why they live significantly longer than other mammals of comparable size, such as mice. http://www.physorg.com/news165576476.html Chemistry Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:28:34 EST news165576476 Scientists have identified a new species of bat weighing just five grammes in the Comoros island archipelago off eastern Africa, the Natural History Museum in Geneva said on Wednesday. http://www.physorg.com/news165071307.html Biology Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:10:01 EST news165071307 Slow-flying, woodland bats -- which tend to be at greater risk from extinction than their speedier kin -really don't like the light, according to a study published online in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Lesser horseshoe bats will stray from their usual flight routes to steer clear of the artificial glow from lights that are similar to everyday street lights, the new report shows. http://www.physorg.com/news164548782.html Biology Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:29:15 EST news164548782 Bats can use the characteristics of other bats' voices to recognize each other, according to a study by researchers from the University of Tuebingen, Germany and the University of Applied Sciences in Konstanz, Germany. The study, published June 5 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, explains how bats use echolocation for more than just spatial knowledge. http://www.physorg.com/news163394004.html Biology Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:13:58 EST news163394004 The mysterious disease that has killed more than 90 percent of wintering bats in some caves and mines from Vermont to Virginia during the last three years has raised numerous questions about the nature of the disease and how to control it. http://www.physorg.com/news163250459.html Biology Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:21:24 EST news163250459 Texas officials are considering closing the state's caves out of fear that a deadly fungus associated with the growing number of bat deaths in the Northeastern United States may spread to this part of the country. http://www.physorg.com/news163171928.html Biology Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:32:43 EST news163171928 (AP) -- The U.S. Forest Service is closing thousands of caves and former mines in national forests in 33 states in an effort to control a fungus that has already killed an estimated 500,000 bats. http://www.physorg.com/news160417313.html Biology Fri, 01 May 2009 17:22:11 EST news160417313 (AP) -- For millennia, people have watched the birds and bees and wondered: "How do they do that?" Thanks to high-speed film and some persistent scientists, at least one of the secrets of flight is now revealed. When birds, bats or bugs make a turn, all they have to do is start flapping their wings normally again and they straighten right out. http://www.physorg.com/news158516858.html Biology Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:28:16 EST news158516858 People have always been fascinated by bats, but the scope of that interest generally is limited to how bats fly and their bizarre habit of sleeping upside down. Until now, no one had studied how bats arrive at their daytime perches. http://www.physorg.com/news156774728.html Biology Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:32:41 EST news156774728 The seven astronauts onboard the space shuttle Discovery had an unexpected companion during their liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center earlier this week, the US space agency said. http://www.physorg.com/news156611285.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:08:30 EST news156611285 Two highly lethal viruses that have emerged in recent outbreaks are susceptible to chloroquine, an established drug used to prevent and treat malaria, according to a new basic science study by researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in the Journal of Virology. Due to the study's significance, it was published yesterday, online, in advance of the first April print issue. http://www.physorg.com/news155480197.html Medicine & Health Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:57:37 EST news155480197 (PhysOrg.com) -- Vampires aren't usually cast in the role of saviors, but stroke experts are hoping a blood thinner that mimics a chemical in vampire saliva will help save brain cells in stroke patients. http://www.physorg.com/news149871922.html Medicine & Health Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:05:22 EST news149871922 Annemarie Surlykke from the University of Southern Denmark is fascinated by echolocation. She really wants to know how it works. Surlykke equates the ultrasound cries that bats use for echolocation with the beam of light from a torch: you won't see much with the light from a small bulb but you could see several hundred metres with a powerful beam. Surlykke explains that it's the same with echolocating bats. http://www.physorg.com/news148278717.html Biology Fri, 12 Dec 2008 04:31:57 EST news148278717 A previously undescribed, cold-loving fungus has been linked to white-nose syndrome, a condition associated with the deaths of over 100,000 hibernating bats in the northeastern United States. The findings are published in this week's issue of Science. http://www.physorg.com/news144592714.html Biology Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:38:34 EST news144592714 (PhysOrg.com) -- If you ate a spoiled hamburger from a fast-food restaurant, chances are you would be reminded of the experience every time you saw the chain's logo. http://www.physorg.com/news140880435.html Biology Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:27:15 EST news140880435 Echolocation may have evolved more than once in bats, according to new research from the University of Bristol published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). http://www.physorg.com/news139742996.html Biology Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:29:56 EST news139742996 Power-generating wind turbines have long been recognized as a potentially life-threatening hazard for birds. But at most wind facilities, bats actually die in much greater numbers. Now, researchers reporting in Current Biology, a Cell Press journal, on August 26th think they know why. http://www.physorg.com/news138885688.html Biology Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:21:28 EST news138885688 Not many people think about what it's like to be a bat, but for those who do, it's enlightening and potentially groundbreaking for understanding aspects of the human brain and nervous system. http://www.physorg.com/news133707724.html Biology Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:02:04 EST news133707724