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We could go on about what free will is until dusk and still not reach a conclusion. Indeed, philosophers have been theorizing free will for thousands of years, but haven’t we neglected an important aspect? There seems to be a general consensus that free will is entirely a human trait, but what of other animals? […]
You’ve heard about white color and white noise, but know there’s a new neutral signal that balances the senses, the sens of smell to be more exact – white smell! Scientists at the Weizmann Institute have shown that white odor indeed exists, although it can’t be found in nature, after they created a mixture of various […]
Fairy circles, or fairy rings as they have sometimes been called, are known to many cultures around the world and pose various mystical significance. Some consider them a spawning pool for elves, fairies or pixies, hence their name. In Europe and North America they are most of the times formed by mushrooms, as most people […]
As urban city environments continue to spread, more and more research is being done to measure the effects human pollution of all sorts is affecting the local wildlife. Researchers from the University of Bielefeld in Germany have recently released the results of a study focused on the mating tunes of grasshoppers. They found that the city-boy […]
Paleodictyon is a mysterious fossil pattern found mainly in marine sediments thought to be specific of a certain paleo-depth range; it is a relatively widespread trace fossil – called this way because it is mainly accepted that it is created by a burrowing creature. Although it has been discovered since the dawn of geology and fossil […]
Around the globe, local climates are changing. Maybe you haven’t noticed it yet, because in most regions this is a slow and subtle change, but the people that are used to observing the nature around their cities, or the people in agriculture that are deeply connected to the patterns of rain and drought will tell you […]
Considering their heavy scale armor, and ferocious apatite, “sensitive” might not be the first adjective that comes to mind when describing crocodiles or alligators. A new study has sought to answer a long lasting riddle for biologists after it finally found the purpose of peculiar black spots or domes on crocodile and alligator heads. Apparently, these […]
Take a moment to think about what your ears do. The human ear has a complex system for turning mere sound waves into electric messages for your brain, and it serves to keep you balanced. In order to turn sound waves (which are mechanical energy) into the electrochemical energy that sends messages to the brain, […]
This spike-headed dinosaur roamer a much warmer Canada 78 million years ago, making it the earliest horned reptile ever. “In terms of large-bodied ones that look like Triceratops, this is definitely the oldest,” said biologist Michael Ryan, lead author of the new study describing the dinosaur, published online Thursday by the Canadian Journal of Earth […]
The superb fairy-wren is a small Australian bird whose nests are often invaded by cuckoo birds. The cuckoos lay their eggs in the wrens’ nests, leaving their young to be taken care of by the wren family. This is bad for the actual wren chicks, because it limits the amount of resources, like food, that […]
Your ear is a fascinating place – seriously, that’s not some psychotic pick up line. Deep in the inner ear of mammals lies a natural battery, a place filled with ions that produces an electrical potential which drives your neural impulses. Now, a team of researchers have shown this battery can power a device without […]
Named after the almost all-powerful dark spirit from the Lord of The Rings, the Sauron dinosaurs roamed Africa some 95 million years ago. The species was named Sauroniops pachytholus, which more or less means “The eye of Sauron”, and it was identified so far from a single fossil found in Morocco. The fossil had only […]
Why would a dinosaur with a body built for running have not two, but four wings, as well as a feathered tail? There seems to be only one real reason: flying. But why would it need to fly in the first place? Paleontologists have long wondered about it, but now it seems, they’ve finally found […]
For researchers working with the bird, it came as a shock that Figaro was able to learn how to use a tool at all – let alone learn it by himself. While a hook-like twig might not be the most complex tool in the world, it still did the job, allowing the bird to grab […]
Elections in the States are currently topping headlines all over the world, as people debate over their favorite candidate and the direction this country is heading towards. Still, as always, elections seemed to be plagued by scandals, lies or manipulation. Yes, democracy is far from being perfect, the alternatives aren’t any better either. I don’t […]
Well it may be a bit of overreaction, but with the Halloween and all, you just have to call it: 70 million year old mammal had long, oversized, blood-red teeth, scurrying at the feet of dinosaurs. The discovery of a new skull now gives new insight into his diet and habits. Barbatodon transylvanicus lived in […]
Honeybees are among the most well armed insects, remarkably enough however it seems that we’ve only seen one side of their undercoat. Apparently, according to a recent discovery by Greek scientists, honeybees use a biting attack to ward off intruders. The bite delivers a toxin that paralyzes their victims, don’t worry though, they can’t bite […]
There are around 800 hermit crab species living in the ocean. These crustaceans like to mind their own business and are rarely seen alongside one another, hence their species’ name. The dozen or so terrestrial hermit crab species, however, are forced to engage socially in order to survive. Their social pattern reveals a selfish agenda, […]
Scientists in Canada have made a remarkable discovery: they have unearthed the first fossils of a feathered dinosaur ever found in the Americas. Their research, which was published in Science, includes 75 million year old specimens, including a juvenile and two adult ostrich-like creatures which go by the name of ornithomimids. Until now, the only […]
In an extremely exciting find, scientists at Aarhus University in Denmark found a type of bacteria that creates electrical currents on the sea floor. Despite the lack of air or sun light, these tiny bacteria flourish and form vast swaths of electrically pulsating multi-cellular organisms. The researchers found that the bacteria breaks down substances in deeper sediments […]
The dung beetle is an extreme survivor. Not only does it feed on poop, but it also fashions a hefty ball out of it, up to 50 times its own mass, that it rolls through the scorching desert. We’re talking 60 degrees Celsius here. A new study that has closely followed this truly remarkable creature […]
A first analysis of the ice that froze onto the drillbit used to drill in the pristine Vostok lake shows no native microbes came with the ice. A while ago, researchers understood that precious insight on alien life could be found right here on Earth – in Russia, to be more precise. But Antarctica’s is […]
After staying awake for many hours or days at time, humans and other mammals alike are forced to sleep, not because the body asks it, but because the brain inevitably calls for a shut down of the conscious psyche, in order to replenish and function properly when awake. Dolphins, however, have been found to have […]
We may associate hitchhiking with older times, but 16 million years ago? That sounds like a far way back. Researchers from the University of Manchester have found evidence of springtail hiking on the wings of mayflies; using an incredible composition of scans that resulted in a 3D image, scientists have actually caught them in the […]
Testosterone is usually associated with dominance, sexual aggression, and…hairiness, but a recent study suggests a surprising trait: honesty. Researchers at the University of Bonn asked 91 men to be treated with a testosterone gel. Forty-six of them would had actual testosterone gel applied to their skin, while the other 45 would receive a completely benign […]
While researchers have known for quite a while that dolphins and some birds are able to learn and change tunes, you wouldn’t really expect mice to be the next vocal sensation in the animal world. Biologists believed any vocal abilities in mice were innate, but now they found that mice also possess a (rudimentary) motor […]
Kyoto University researchers have produced normal, healthy mouse pups after inseminating a foster mother with eggs and sperm derived from stem cells, exclusively grown in a petri dish. This remarkable accomplishment came after last year scientists produced mouse pups from stem cell grown sperm. Their research might lead to the development of novel techniques through […]
Remember when, in 2010, we told you about a team of researchers which claimed they found a bacteria that feasts on arsenic, instead of phosphorous? The study has spurred quite the discussion, receiving a lot of both criticism and praise, but seeming to be, ultimately, incorrect (as this other study also claims). Dan Tawfik, who […]
A small sundew, carnivorous plant native to Australia has amazed scientists with its unique ability of fling prey into its trap, where it is digested by the plant. The biologists studying the plant conclude that it has one of the fastest and most spectacular trapping mechanisms known among carnivorous plants. Found in southern Australia, the Drosera glanduligera […]
Dissolvable electronic materials could be extremely useful in medical procedures and environmentally friendly gadgets – and they’re almost here. Dissolving electronics A team of researchers has created flexible electronic circuits which dissolve in water or inside your own body; the project is led by John Rogers, a materials scientist at the University of Illinois at […]
Although Curiosity landed recently on Mars, the rover is already proving its usefulness, beaming back all sort of interesting information; this time, Curiosity has snapped photos of rocky outcroppings which seem to be stream beds where water once flew on the Red Planet. The rock is quite eroded and it consists of rounded gravel consolidated […]
I sometimes found myself shocked when I see just how brightly colored some flowers, insects, or even grass can get. But this little, relatively obscure plant has managed to find a fantastic way to send out a signal to every bird out there – and it has done so without using any pigment. Most of […]
These little spiny African mice can do something no other mammal can: they completely regenerate damaged tissue, a feat once thought impossible. They may not look as impressive as Wolverine, but they held quite the surprise: Acomys kempi and Acomys percivali have skin so brittle and easily torn that one can only ask… why? What […]
Researchers managed to construct a three dimensional (3D) portrait of two nymphs that inhabited our planet 305 million years ago by scanning their fossils with X-Rays. Old insects At the moment, they are by far the most detailed pictures of juvenile insects that inhabited that period; nymphs are the immature form of some invertebrates, particularly […]
We often like to think us humans have achieved a remarkable standard of efficiency and development – but a look at the animal life around us is often enough to humble us. Replicating bacteria and physics The common gut bacteria, Escherichia coli (E. coli, in short) typically takes about 20 minutes to duplicate itself in […]
The Japanese scientific deep sea vessel Chikyu managed to set a new world record by drilling down to over 2.200 meters below the seafloor, obtaining samples from Shimokita Peninsula of Japan in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Drilling for science Whenever you hear about drilling, it’s almost always about oil. Given the humongous amount of oil […]
A team of experts in mechanics, materials, medicine and tissue engineering have managed to create a self replicating gel which can stretch about 21 times its length. The water-based tough gel is also self-healing and biocompatible, which means it could be perfect for people with cartilage injuries. When 1+1 isn’t 2 The new hydrogel (names […]
Huge leaps in research within the field of genetics have enabled fetal DNA sequencing from maternal blood. This has made it possible to determine whether the unborn baby is suffering from any autoimmune conditions or chromosomal abnormalities such as Down’s syndrome, Turner’s syndrome or Neural tube defects such as Spina Bifida. Up until the recent […]
Would you eat shark fin soup? Please, tell me that the answer is ‘NO!’. Nearly a third of all shark species are endangered, due to wreckless killing – mostly for soup. Proceed at will, but the article contains some gruesome pictures. The champions’s tragedy Sharks are on top of the food chain – they have […]
A team led by researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Harvard University have built this remarkable display of modern bioengineering – a completely engineered jellyfish that blends both living and non-living parts, masterfully fitted together. Called the medusoid, this cyborg jellyfish was created using silicone and muscle cells from a rat’s heart, […]
You’re not the only that doesn’t like math, it seems. A new study from scientists at Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences found that biologists pay less attention to theories that are dense with mathematical detail. The scientists involved in the study compared citation data with the number of equations per page in more than 600 evolutionary biology papers […]
In an extraordinary feat of science, Japanese scientists have used induced stem cells to grow into a liver-like tissue in a dish. The researchers have a long way ahead of them before they can grow livers safe for human transplants, which is the main goal, however even at its current stage, the tissue grown by the […]
As it turns out, no one single factor was powerful enough to wipe out the woolly mammoth – instead, a sum of factors acted towards their demise, much like many animals are threatened today. Woolly mammoths roamed the globe for 250.000 years, wandering from North America to Europe to Asia, until they were driven extinct […]
Be it a bacteria or a fully complex being, say a human, all living, biological organisms undergo lighting fast protein structure reassembly in response to environmnetal stimuli. For instance, receptor proteins in the sinus are stimulated by various odor molecules, basically telling the organism that there’s food nearby or it’s in the vicinity of danger (sulphur, methane, […]
Hidden for more than 100 years for being too ‘graphic’, a set of images depicting ‘hooligan behaviors, including sexual coercion’, sodomy and necrophilia by Adelie penguins observed during captain Scott’s 1910 expedition were revealed, analyzed and interpreted. George Levick, a surgeon and the medical officer on Scott’s famous 1910-1913 expedition to the South Pole, called […]
NASA announced a truly unexpected phenomena, observed under the shrinking Arctic ice: a massive algae bloom under the ice. Not long ago, the life of this crucial plant seemed to suffer greatly, a worrying phenomena, as algae produces much of the world’s oxygen. The same year that NASA researchers launched the Icescape expedition to the […]
Remember the late Mesozoic? Dinosaurs ruled the planet, there was no ice at the poles, plants were huge, and so were insects; and if we don’t see any giant insects on the planet – we have the early birds to thank. In the oxygen-rich atmosphere that prevailed at the moment, giant insects thrived in the […]
Scientists generally draw a distinction between consciousness and intelligence. Consciousness is defined as a state of self-awareness; whereas intelligence is seen as a measure of the quality of the awareness. I suggest that the distinction is one of level, not one of kind. Being sufficiently intelligent about cause and effect will include an awareness that […]
You too can get a genetic test kit for your samples! A new university-based project seeks to investigate cryptic species, such as yeti for example, in an attempt to show if these species can actually exist or not; and they want to do this through DNA research. Researchers from Oxford University and the Lausanne Museum […]
Last year, we reported on one of the most gruesome and horrific acts that goes on in nature; it seems so unreal, like if some sort of SciFi monstrous scenario transcended into the realm of reality, that one has a hard time wrapping his head around it. Yes, as some of you might have read previously, I’m […]
