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Categories: Energy: Nuclear, Offbeat: Plants and Animals

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A new paper rewrites the history of the darkest, most bizarre event in the history of palaeontology.

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There have been heated debates over the size of Jurassic animals. The speculation was set to continue, but now a chance discovery in an Oxfordshire museum has led to palaeontologists publishing a paper on a Jurassic species potentially reaching a whopping 14.4 meters -- twice the size of a killer whale.

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Surveying the body sizes of Earth's living organisms, researchers found that the planet's biomass -- the material that makes up all living organisms -- is concentrated in organisms at either end of the size spectrum.

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A fossil arthropod entombed in 100-million-year-old Burmese amber has been identified as a new genus and species of froghopper, known today as an insect with prodigious leaping ability in adulthood following a nymphal stage spent covered in a frothy fluid.

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Fecal microbiota transplants are the most effective and affordable treatment for recurrent infections with Clostridioides difficile, an opportunistic bacterium and the most common cause of hospital-acquired intestinal infections. However, attempts to treat chronic noncommunicable diseases such as ulcerative colitis and metabolic syndrome via fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) have yielded mixed results.

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They're well known for their industrious work, but now a species of ant on Kangaroo Island is also showing that it is skilled at 'playing dead', a behavior that researchers believe is a recorded world first.

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Fungal networks interconnecting trees in a forest is a key factor that determines the nature of forests and their response to climate change. These networks have also been viewed as a means for trees to help their offspring and other tree-friends, according to the increasingly popular 'mother-tree hypothesis'. An international group of researchers re-examined the evidence for and against this hypothesis in a new study.

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An international research team has for the first time successfully isolated ancient human DNA from a Paleolithic artefact: a pierced deer tooth discovered in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia. To preserve the integrity of the artefact, they developed a new, nondestructive method for isolating DNA from ancient bones and teeth. From the DNA retrieved they were able to reconstruct a precise genetic profile of the woman who used or wore the pendant, as well as of the deer from which the tooth was taken. Genetic dates obtained for the DNA from both the woman and the deer show that the pendant was made between 19,000 and 25,000 years ago. The tooth remains fully intact after analysis, providing testimony to a new era in ancient DNA research, in which it may become possible to directly identify the users of ornaments and tools produced in the deep past.

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Traces of sex hormones extracted from a woolly mammoth's tusk provide the first direct evidence that adult males experienced musth, a testosterone-driven episode of heightened aggression against rival males, according to a new study.

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A research team has developed a novel machine-learning algorithm that can reveal the hidden structure in data recorded from the brain, predicting complex information such as what mice see.

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Greenlandic ice is teeming with life, both on the surface and underneath. There are microscopic organisms that until recently science had no idea existed. There is even evidence to suggest that the tiny creatures color the ice and make it melt faster.

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Researchers have discovered that the electrical fields and activity that exist through a cell's membrane also exist within and around another type of cellular structure called biological condensates. Like oil droplets floating in water, these structures exist because of differences in density. Their foundational discovery could change the way researchers think about biological chemistry. It could also provide a clue as to how the first life on Earth harnessed the energy needed to arise.

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Certain types of fungi can communicate with each other via electrical signals. But much remains unknown about how and when they do so. A group of researchers recently headed to the forest to measure the electrical signals of Laccaria bicolor mushrooms, finding that their electrical signals increased following rainfall.

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Innovating, i.e. the ability to find solutions to new problems or innovative solutions to known problems, it provides crucial benefits for the adaptation and the survival of human beings as well as for animals. What are the characteristics that make specific species or animals to be innovative? A study has analyzed this cognitive skill in ungulates, a group of mammals such as dromedaries, horses and goats, characterized by walking on the tip of their toes or hooves. The results show that those individuals that are less integrated in the group and those that are more afraid of new objects were the best at solving a challenge posed by the researchers: opening a food container.

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Researchers have developed a biosynthetic 'clock' that keeps cells from reaching normal levels of deterioration related to aging. They engineered a gene oscillator that switches between the two normal paths of aging, slowing cell degeneration and setting a record for life extension.

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Researchers have developed the first transistor made of wood. Their study paves the way for further development of wood-based electronics and control of electronic plants.

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Scientists found parallels between the neural circuitry that guides locomotion in sea slugs and in more complex animals like mammals.

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New research shows us that age-old interactions between people and their horses can teach us something about building robots designed to improve our lives.

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Roboticists have developed a jellyfish-inspired underwater robot with which they hope one day to collect waste from the bottom of the ocean. The almost noise-free prototype can trap objects underneath its body without physical contact, thereby enabling safe interactions in delicate environments such as coral reefs. Jellyfish-Bot could become an important tool for environmental remediation.

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Blinking is crucial for the eye. It's how animals clean their eyes, protect them, and even communicate. But how and why did blinking originate? Researchers have studied the mudskipper, an amphibious fish that spends most of its day on land, to better understand why blinking is a fundamental behavior for life on land.