Odd Creatures: Plants & Animals

September 28, 2016

Outrageous Heads Led to Outrageously Large Dinos

Global Rise in Methane from Agriculture?

Consistency Builds Cohesion in Animal Kingdom

Shape-Shifters: Early Eukaryotic Fossils

Latest Headlines

updated 9:37am EDT

Climate Change Will See Some Males Get Sexier

Sep. 27, 2016 — A common marine crustacean has shown researchers that it's all set to beat climate change -- the males will get more attractive to the females, with a resulting ... read more

Ancestor of Arthropods Had the Mouth of a Penis Worm

Sep. 26, 2016 — Imagine a meter long worm with 12 stubby legs and matching sets of flaps running down the body. On the head is a large pair of spiny appendages used for grasping prey that ... read more

Melatonin, Biological Clock Keep Singing Fish on Time

Sep. 23, 2016 — In the 1980s, people living on houseboats in the San Francisco Bay were puzzled by a droning hum of unknown origin that started abruptly in the late evening and stopped ... read more

Bizarre New Species of Extinct Reptile Shows Dinosaurs Copied Body, Skull Shapes of Distant Relatives

Sep. 22, 2016 — Iconic dinosaur shapes were present for at least a hundred million years on our planet in animals before those dinosaurs ... read more

Swarms of Magnetic Bacteria Could Be Used to Deliver Drugs to Tumors

Sep. 22, 2016 — One of the biggest challenges in cancer therapy is being able to sufficiently deliver chemotherapy drugs to tumors without exposing healthy tissues to their toxic effects. ... read more

Edible Crickets Can Be Reared on Weeds and Cassava Plant Tops

Sep. 22, 2016 — To become a sustainable alternative to meat, reared crickets must be fed feeds other than the chicken feed that is most commonly used today. Researchers now present a study ... read more

Popeye Was Right: There’s Energy in That Spinach

Sep. 22, 2016 — Using a simple membrane extract from spinach leaves, researchers have developed a cell that produces electricity and hydrogen from water using sunlight. Based on photosynthesis, and technology paves ... read more

Reef Fish See Colors That Humans Cannot

Sep. 21, 2016 — Researchers have established that reef fish see colors that ... read more

Fish Against Monster Worms

Sep. 21, 2016 — Eunice aphroditois, also known as the Bobbit worm, buries its long body deep in the sand, leaving only its powerful jaws protruding above the surface. It uses these to grab ... read more

Demystifying the Resilience of Water Bears: Protein Protects Human Cultured Cells from Radiation Damage

Sep. 20, 2016 — A new water bear protein can protect the DNA of human cultured cells from otherwise lethal amounts of radiation damage, say ... read more

Cat-Scratch Disease Is Putting More Infected People In The Hospital

Aerosol Tea Promises Perfect Cuppa

Bats Can Learn To Put Up With Us Noisy Humans

Endangered Hawaiian Crow Species Shows Knack for Tool Use

Apple, Lettuce Can Remedy Garlic Breath

Sep. 23, 2016 — Garlic -- consumers either love or hate the taste, but one thing is for certain, no one likes it when the scent of it sticks around on their breath. Now, garlic lovers may have a new solution to ... read more

The Call of the Dung: How Flies Find Their Meal

Sep. 20, 2016 — Like many other insects, vinegar flies produce pheromones to call their conspecifics to an interesting food source. A research team has demonstrated in a new study that the flies' frass also ... read more

Bird Brain? Pigeons Have Quite a Way With Words

Sep. 19, 2016 — Pigeons can learn to distinguish real words from non-words by visually processing their letter combinations, surprising new research ... read more

Fish Lose Their Unique Personality When They Go to 'School'

Sep. 16, 2016 — Despite individual animals having their own personality, this gets suppressed when they make decisions together in a group, new research has ... read more

What Dinosaurs' Color Patterns Say About Their Habitat

Sep. 16, 2016 — After reconstructing the color patterns of a well-preserved dinosaur from China, researchers have found that the long-lost species Psittacosaurus (meaning "parrot lizard," a reference to ... read more

Frogs and Grasshoppers: Why Do Legendary Leapers Have Different ‘spring’ Stiffness?

Sep. 16, 2016 — New research on grasshoppers and bullfrogs offers a conclusion about jumping: When an animal has less time to store energy for a jump, it needs a less stiff tendon than one that can take its ... read more

Freshwater Stingrays Chew Their Food Just Like a Goat

Sep. 16, 2016 — A new study has found that some freshwater stingrays from the Amazon chew their food in a similar fashion as ... read more

Tropical Crow Species Is Highly Skilled Tool User

Sep. 14, 2016 — An international team of scientists and conservation experts has discovered that the critically-endangered Hawaiian crow is a highly proficient tool ... read more

Plum-Sized Strawberry Delivers Huge Dose of Intense Flavor

Sep. 13, 2016 — A new strawberry variety concentrates intense flavor in a berry big enough to fill the palm of your ... read more

Trees Recognize Roe Deer by Saliva

Sep. 12, 2016 — Trees are able to distinguish whether one of their buds or shoots has been randomly torn off or has been eaten by a roe deer. In the case of roe deer browsing, they activate corresponding defense ... read more

Drones for Butterfly Conservation

Sep. 9, 2016 — High-resolution aerial photographs provide information that is both up-to-date and tailored for the task at hand -- information that could previously only be obtained by observations in the field and ... read more

Researchers Debunk 'Five-Second Rule': Eating Food Off the Floor Isn't Safe

Sep. 9, 2016 — Turns out bacteria may transfer to candy that has fallen on the floor no matter how fast you pick it up. Rutgers researchers have disproven the widely accepted notion that it's OK to scoop up ... read more

How Do Shark Teeth Bite? Reciprocating Saw, Glue Provide Answers

Sep. 8, 2016 — A recent study sought to understand why shark teeth are shaped differently and what biological advantages various shapes have by testing their performance under realistic ... read more

Bacteria Supply Their Allies With Munitions

Sep. 8, 2016 — Bacteria fight their competitors with molecular spear guns, the so-called Type VI secretion system. When firing this weapon they also unintentionally hit their own kind. However the related bacteria ... read more

Picky Ants Maintain Color Polymorphism of Bugs They Work With

Sep. 7, 2016 — Researchers have found that ants have a particular preference for aphid colonies with certain colors, which could be why these bugs are able to keep their colors across ... read more

Crab from the Chinese Pet Market Turns out to Be a New Species of a New Genus

Sep. 7, 2016 — Shimmering carapaces make crabs attractive to pet owners. To answer the growing demand, fishermen collect and trade crustaceans, often not knowing what exactly they have handed over to their clients. ... read more

Tuning the Instrument: Spider Webs as Vibration Transmission Structures

Sep. 6, 2016 — Two years ago, scientists revealed that, when plucked like a guitar string, spider silk transmits vibrations across a wide range of frequencies, carrying information about prey, mates and even the ... read more

Throughout History, Humans Have Preferred Their Pigs to Be Black, Suggests Study

Sep. 6, 2016 — An international team of researchers studied the mitochondrial DNA and MC1R gene sequences in tissue samples collected from 57 modern feral Hawaiian pigs. They found a novel mutation in all the ... read more

Fish 'Biowaste' Converted to Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters

Sep. 6, 2016 — Large quantities of fish are consumed in India on a daily basis, which generates a huge amount of fish 'biowaste' materials. In an attempt to do something positive with this biowaste, a ... read more

Was a Researcher Just Served a World First CRISPR Meal?

Sep. 5, 2016 — For (probably) the first time ever, plants modified with the "genetic scissors" CRISPR-Cas9 has been cultivated, harvested and cooked. D professor in Plant Cell and Molecular Biology served ... read more

Friday, September 23, 2016