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) -- Evolutionary biology theory predicts that males usually won't invest a lot of time raising offspring when there is a good chance they are not the fathers. Yale University researchers have found a notable exception to this premise-a male fish in the Mediterranean, the ocellated wrasse, that is more likely to be paternal when there is grave doubt about the offsprings' parentage. http://www.physorg.com/news174315572.html Biology Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:00:24 EST news174315572 (PhysOrg.com) -- Eight years after her last major expedition to Antarctica, biologist Terrie Williams is back on the ice. This time, however, her team began the expedition during the Antarctic winter, the harshest season in the harshest environment on Earth. http://www.physorg.com/news174063043.html Biology Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:20:01 EST news174063043 Australian researchers have discovered a huge number of new species of invertebrate animals living in underground water, caves and "micro-caverns" amid the harsh conditions of the Australian outback. http://www.physorg.com/news173346378.html Biology Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:47:09 EST news173346378 (PhysOrg.com) -- Today's Scandinavians are not descended from the people who came to Scandinavia at the conclusion of the last ice age but, apparently, from a population that arrived later, concurrently with the introduction of agriculture. This is one conclusion of a new study straddling the borderline between genetics and archaeology, which involved Swedish researchers and which has now been published in the journal Current Biology. http://www.physorg.com/news173022084.html Biology Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:20:01 EST news173022084 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new analysis of extinct sea creatures suggests that the transition from egg-laying to live-born young opened up evolutionary pathways that allowed these ancient species to adapt to and thrive in open oceans. http://www.physorg.com/news172326271.html Biology Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:00:02 EST news172326271 (PhysOrg.com) -- In an ironic twist to our understanding of life, robots may offer a greater degree of realism for studying some of the intricacies of natural selection and evolution than real organisms offer. In a recent study, scientists have used evolutionary robots to investigate the evolution of social information. Their results mirror theoretical predictions more closely than results from experiments with real organisms, and may provide an explanation for some of the observed variation in animal species. http://www.physorg.com/news172304708.html Electronics Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:30:02 EST news172304708 The team led by Denis Reale, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at UQAM and Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Ecology, recently completed a study showing the link between personality, survival and reproductive success in male bighorn sheep. http://www.physorg.com/news172246873.html Biology Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:40:02 EST news172246873 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from several institutions including the University of Colorado at Boulder have sequenced DNA "barcodes" for as many as 25 hunted wildlife species, providing information that can be used to better monitor the elusive trade of wildlife products, or bushmeat. http://www.physorg.com/news172234787.html Biology Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:10:01 EST news172234787 (PhysOrg.com) -- John McCutcheon remembers the song of the cicada - the loudest song in the insect world - as the sound track to countless summer hours spent playing outside his childhood home in Rockford, Ill. http://www.physorg.com/news172174809.html Biology Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:30:02 EST news172174809 The smell of recent death or injury that repels living relatives of insects has been identified as a truly ancient signal that functions to avoid disease or predators, biologists have discovered. http://www.physorg.com/news171892983.html Biology Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:03:32 EST news171892983 In a vivid illustration of natural selection at work, scientists at Harvard University have found that deer mice living in Nebraska's Sand Hills quickly evolved lighter coloration after glaciers deposited sand dunes atop what had been much darker soil. The work is described this week in the journal Science. http://www.physorg.com/news170601400.html Biology Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:17:01 EST news170601400 The lowly appendix, long-regarded as a useless evolutionary artifact, won newfound respect two years ago when researchers at Duke University Medical Center proposed that it actually serves a critical function. The appendix, they said, is a safe haven where good bacteria could hang out until they were needed to repopulate the gut after a nasty case of diarrhea, for example. http://www.physorg.com/news170010855.html Biology Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:21:44 EST news170010855 (PhysOrg.com) -- Water striders, the familiar semi-aquatic bugs gliding across the lake at the cottage, have a novel body form that allows them to walk on water. This was not always the case. Achieving the gliding ability required the evolution of a unique arrangement of the legs, with the mid-legs greatly elongated. Scientists at the University of Toronto's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology have discovered the gene behind this evolutionary change. http://www.physorg.com/news169379468.html Biology Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:10:01 EST news169379468 Canadian scientists uncover alarming invasion of round goby into Great Lakes tributaries: impact on endangered fishes likely to be serious. http://www.physorg.com/news169211269.html Biology Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:08:33 EST news169211269 (PhysOrg.com) -- Mammals and many species of birds and fish are among evolution's "winners," while crocodiles, alligators and a reptile cousin of snakes known as the tuatara are among the losers, according to new research by UCLA scientists and colleagues. http://www.physorg.com/news168084703.html Biology Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:12:14 EST news168084703 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 (PhysOrg.com) -- An analysis of rare genetic disorders in which children lack some genes from one parent suggests that maternal and paternal genes engage in a subtle tug-of-war well into childhood, and possibly as late as the onset of puberty. http://www.physorg.com/news167995886.html Medicine & Health Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:32:14 EST news167995886 (PhysOrg.com) -- Synchronicity in nature is seen in beating hearts, the flashing of fireflies' lights, the ebb and flow of infectious disease -and the simultaneous rise and fall of populations across vast reaches of space. While scientists have identified some factors that account for this melodic phenomenon, they have yet to sort out the relative contribution each plays in this finely tuned orchestra. http://www.physorg.com/news167488020.html Biology Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:27:54 EST news167488020 Genetic research indicates that Australian Aborigines initially arrived via south Asia. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology have found telltale mutations in modern-day Indian populations that are exclusively shared by Aborigines. http://www.physorg.com/news167423399.html Biology Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:30:43 EST news167423399 (PhysOrg.com) -- Suspending a life in time is a theme that normally finds itself in the pages of science fiction, but now such ideas have become a reality in the annals of science. http://www.physorg.com/news167059896.html Biology Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:32:10 EST news167059896 (PhysOrg.com) -- Biologically speaking, many animals besides dogs bark, according to Kathryn Lord at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, but the evolutionary biologist also says domestic dogs vocalize in this way much more than birds, deer, monkeys and other wild animals that use barks. The reason is related to dogs` 10,000-year history of hanging around human food refuse dumps, she suggests. http://www.physorg.com/news166808234.html Biology Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:50:05 EST news166808234 When it comes to investigating mysteries, Sherlock Holmes has nothing on Rice University biologist Amy Dunham. In a newly published paper, Dunham offers a new theory for one of primatology's long-standing mysteries: Why are male and female lemurs the same size? http://www.physorg.com/news166793403.html Biology Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:30:31 EST news166793403 Parents compensate for a lazy partner by working harder to bring up their offspring, but not enough to completely make up for the lack of parenting, says research by bird biologists at the University of Bath. http://www.physorg.com/news166093927.html Biology Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:12:30 EST news166093927 Declining bumblebee populations are at greater risk of inbreeding, which can trigger a downward spiral of further decline. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology have provided the first proof that inbreeding reduces colony fitness under natural conditions by increasing the production of reproductively inefficient 'diploid' males. http://www.physorg.com/news165736486.html Biology Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:55:14 EST news165736486 Avoidance of inbreeding is evident amongst humans, and has been demonstrated in some shorebirds, mice and sand lizards. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology now report that it also occurs in a strictly monogamous species of bird, suggesting that the black-legged kittiwake possesses the ability to choose partners with a very different genetic profile. http://www.physorg.com/news165565521.html Biology Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:26:04 EST news165565521 (PhysOrg.com) -- Brian Sullivan has been clipping toes from toads since the early 1980s. It`s not some type of strange hobby, and he releases the toads back into their habitat along the Agua Fria River north of Phoenix once he has obtained samples and collected data about the toads` appearance. http://www.physorg.com/news164907330.html Biology Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:36:20 EST news164907330 University of Arizona biologist Bruce Walsh has identified a new species of moth in southern Arizona. Normally, this is not a big deal. The region is one of the most biologically rich areas in the country and collectors have been finding hundreds of new species for decades. This one, however, is different. http://www.physorg.com/news163821112.html Biology Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:53:24 EST news163821112 Birds are commonly thought of as being the paragon of monogamous fidelity, staying true to their mate for life. Yet, in most bird species, some nests contain offspring of individuals other than the one's tending the nest. http://www.physorg.com/news163257110.html Biology Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:12:15 EST news163257110 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 New research shows some bees brace themselves against wind and turbulence by extending their sturdy hind legs while flying. But this approach comes at a steep cost, increasing aerodynamic drag and the power required for flight by roughly 30 percent, and cutting into the bees' flight performance. http://www.physorg.com/news163161417.html Biology Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:37:43 EST news163161417