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Categories: Biology: Zoology, Offbeat: Space

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Biologists use a novel method of simultaneous acoustic tagging to gain insights into the link between whale communication and behavior

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A small-bird species, the Japanese tit (Parus minor), uses wing movements as a gesture to convey the message 'after you,' according to new research. When a mating pair arrives at their nest box with food, they will wait outside on perches. One will then often flutter its wings toward the other, apparently indicating for the latter to enter first. The researchers say that this discovery challenges the previous belief that gestural communication is prominent only in humans and great apes, significantly advancing our understanding of visual communication in birds.

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How much time do planets have to form from a swirling disk of gas and dust around a star? A new study gives scientists a better idea of how our own solar system came to be.

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Spiders that disguise themselves as ants live in many locations around the globe but until now most had been able to avoid detection from fossil researchers as well as predators.

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Could life be found in frozen sea spray from moons orbiting Saturn or Jupiter? New research finds that life can be detected in a single ice grain containing one bacterial cell or portions of a cell. The results suggest that if life similar to that on Earth exists on these planetary bodies, that this life should be detectable by instruments launching in the fall.

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Researchers examined the developmental processes and reproduction-related behavior of 8 of the 11 families of Dermaptera (earwigs) in detail and compared with those reported in previous studies. The results confirmed that Dermaptera is a polyneopteran order, and the features such as caudal forceps and elaborate maternal care for eggs and young larvae emerged in parallel within the order during evolution.

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Following injury, plants release terpenoids to enhance their defenses. Researchers studying terpenoid-enriched essential oils (EOs) have found that rose EO (REO) can stimulate defense genes in tomato leaves. Furthermore, REO attracts herbivores that protect the plant from the moth species, Spodoptera litura, and Tetranychus urticae, a mite pest. This suggests that applying REO could be a sustainable approach to pest management in organic farming.

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A challenge to space scientists to better understand our hazardous near-Earth space environment has been set in a new study.

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Scientists have uncovered the fossilized skull of a 270-million-year-old ancient amphibian ancestor in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The team of researchers described the fossil as a new species of proto-amphibian, which they named Kermitops gratus in honor of the iconic Muppet, Kermit the Frog.

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The first study of humpback whale entanglements in B.C. aquaculture facilities found eight over 13 years, with the curiosity of young whales a potential contributing factor.

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What maintains stability within an ecosystem and prevents a single best competitor from displacing other species from a community? Does ecosystem stability depend upon the presence of a wide variety of species, as early ecologists believed, or does diversity do the exact opposite, and lead to instability, as modern theory predicts? A new study suggests an answer to this question that has been a subject of debate among ecologists for half a century.

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Tropical Heliconius butterflies are well known for the bright colour patterns on their wings. These striking colour patterns not only scare off predators -- the butterflies are poisonous and are distasteful to birds -- but are also important signals during mate selection. Evolutionary biologists have now exploited the diversity of warning patterns of various Heliconius species to investigate the genetic foundations of these preferences. In the process, the scientists identified a gene that is directly linked to evolutionary changes in a visually guided behavior.

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Forests and streams are separate but linked ecosystems, existing side by side, with energy and nutrients crossing their porous borders and flowing back and forth between them. For example, leaves fall from trees, enter streams, decay and feed aquatic insects. Those insects emerge from the waters and are eaten by birds and bats. An international team has now found that these ecosystems appear to keep the energy exchanges in balance -- a finding that the scientists called surprising.

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The largest living animal, the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) which averages about 27 meters in length, has slowly recovered from whaling only to face the rising challenges of global warming, pollution, disrupted food sources, shipping, and other human threats. In a major new study, biologists have taken a stock of the number, distribution and genetic characteristics of blue whale populations around the world and found the greatest differences among the eastern Pacific, Antarctic subspecies and pygmy subspecies of the eastern Indian and western Pacific.

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Killer whales foraging in deep submarine canyons off the coast of California represent a distinct subpopulation that uses specialized hunting techniques to catch marine mammals, researchers report.

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New study reveals that Europa's ice shell is at least 20 kilometers thick.

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The first generation of stars transformed the universe. Inside their cores, simple hydrogen and helium fused into a rainbow of elements. When these stars died, they exploded and sent these new elements across the universe. The iron running in your veins and the calcium in your teeth and the sodium powering your thoughts were all born in the heart of a long-dead star.

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Scientists have created a giant quantum vortex to mimic a black hole in superfluid helium that has allowed them to see in greater detail how analogue black holes behave and interact with their surroundings.

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Dark matter is one of science's greatest mysteries. Although it is believed to make up about 85 percent of the cosmos, scientists know very little about its fundamental nature. Research provides some of the most stringent constraints on the nature of dark matter yet. It also revealed a small hint of a signal that, if real, could be confirmed in the next decade or so.

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Scientists found that farmed salmon production leads to an overall loss of essential dietary nutrients. They say that eating more wild 'feed' species directly could benefit our health while reducing aquaculture demand for finite marine resources.