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Categories: Offbeat: Plants and Animals, Space: Astrophysics

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Biology: Biochemistry Biology: Zoology Offbeat: Earth and Climate Offbeat: General Offbeat: Plants and Animals
Published

Hummingbirds' unique sideways flutter gets them through small apertures      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Hummingbirds are highly maneuverable fliers, flitting forward and backward as they home in on flowers. But in the dense foliage many inhabit, they often encounter gaps that are too narrow for their wingspan. Since they can't bend their wings in flight, how do they get through? Researchers used high-speed cameras to capture their movements, discovering two unique strategies: they sidle through while fluttering, or fold their wings in a tuck and glide.

Biology: General Biology: Zoology Ecology: Animals Environmental: Biodiversity Geoscience: Geography Offbeat: Earth and Climate Offbeat: General Offbeat: Plants and Animals
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Found at last: Bizarre, egg-laying mammal finally rediscovered after 60 years      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A long-beaked echidna named after Sir David Attenborough and last seen by scientists in 1961 has been photographed for the first time in an Indonesian tropical forest. An international team of researchers worked with local communities to deploy over 80 camera traps to film the elusive animal. Besides rediscovering the echidna, the team uncovered a wealth of species completely new to science, including beetles, spiders, and a remarkable tree-dwelling shrimp.

Offbeat: General Offbeat: Space Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Cosmology Space: Exploration Space: General Space: Structures and Features
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Milky Way-like galaxy found in the early universe      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Astronomers have discovered the most distant barred spiral galaxy, similar to the Milky Way, that has been observed to date.

Biology: General Offbeat: General Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology Offbeat: Plants and Animals Paleontology: General
Published

Palaeo-CSI: Mosasaurs were picky eaters      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Mosasaurs, those large marine reptiles from the long-gone Cretaceous world, were quite picky in their choice of diet. Researchers came to this conclusion after studying the wear marks on mosasaur teeth.

Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Exploration Space: General Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
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Scientists find 14 new transient objects in space by peering through the 'Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster'      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists have discovered 14 new transient objects during their time-lapse study of galaxy cluster MACS0416 -- located about 4.3 billion light years from Earth -- which they've dubbed as the 'Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster.'

Biology: Biochemistry Biology: Biotechnology Biology: Cell Biology Biology: Developmental Biology: General Biology: Genetics Biology: Microbiology Biology: Molecular Offbeat: General Offbeat: Plants and Animals
Published

First live birth of a chimeric monkey using embryonic stem cell lines      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A team of researchers has reported for the first time the live birth of a monkey that contains a high proportion of cells derived from a monkey stem cell line. This 'chimeric' monkey is composed of cells that originate from two genetically distinct embryos of the same species of monkey. This has previously been demonstrated in rats and mice but, until now, has not been possible in other species, including non-human primates.

Biology: Biochemistry Biology: Biotechnology Biology: Cell Biology Biology: Developmental Biology: General Biology: Microbiology Offbeat: General Offbeat: Plants and Animals
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How animals get their stripes and spots      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

New research helps explain how sharp patterns form on zebras, leopards, tropical fish and other creatures. Their findings could inform the development of new high-tech materials and drugs.

Biology: Biochemistry Offbeat: Earth and Climate Offbeat: General Offbeat: Plants and Animals
Published

Animals like crickets use the ground to amplify calls      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

When animals 'sing' sitting on the ground -- such as when crickets chirp -- their volume and reach increase dramatically, by as much as ten-fold. This result contradicts long-held beliefs in the field of animal communication, which presume the ground is a hindrance to sound transmission.

Biology: Biochemistry Biology: Biotechnology Biology: Cell Biology Biology: Developmental Biology: Evolutionary Biology: General Biology: Genetics Biology: Microbiology Biology: Molecular Ecology: Animals Offbeat: General Offbeat: Plants and Animals
Published

Yeast with an over half synthetic genome is created in the lab      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have combined over seven synthetic chromosomes that were made in the lab into a single yeast cell, resulting in a strain with more than 50% synthetic DNA that survives and replicates similarly to wild yeast strains. A global consortium is working to develop the first synthetic eukaryote genome from scratch. The team has now synthesized and debugged all sixteen yeast chromosomes.

Biology: Biochemistry Biology: Botany Biology: General Ecology: Invasive Species Ecology: Nature Ecology: Research Ecology: Trees Offbeat: General Offbeat: Plants and Animals
Published

The fascinating relationship between mice and a plant that flowers once a century in terms of seed dispersal      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have discovered several factors that affect field mouse behavior using seeds from dwarf bamboo plants, a plant that flowers once in a century. Their findings not only suggest the previously underappreciated role of mice in the forest ecosystem, but also show that they store small sasa seeds for later use. These challenge a previously held model of mouse behavior.  

Biology: Biochemistry Biology: General Biology: Marine Biology: Zoology Chemistry: Biochemistry Offbeat: General Offbeat: Plants and Animals
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Two fins are better than one: Fish synchronize tail fins to save energy      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

They say two heads are better than one. But in the world of fish, it appears two fins are better than one. Researchers have produced a theoretical model that demonstrates the underlying mechanisms behind how fish will synchronize their fin movements to ride each other's vortices, thereby saving energy.

Offbeat: General Offbeat: Space Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: General Space: Structures and Features
Published

Mystery resolved: Black hole feeding and feedback at the center of an active galaxy      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Almost every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center. An international research team has recently observed the Circinus galaxy, which is one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way, with high enough resolution to gain further insights into the gas flows to and from the black hole at its galactic nucleus.

Biology: Biochemistry Biology: Zoology Offbeat: General Offbeat: Plants and Animals
Published

Rats have an imagination, new research suggests      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have developed a novel system to probe a rat's thoughts, finding that animals can control their brain activity to imagine remote locations.  

Biology: Biochemistry Offbeat: Earth and Climate Offbeat: General Offbeat: Plants and Animals
Published

Chimpanzees use hilltops to conduct reconnaissance on rival groups, study finds      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Research on neighboring chimpanzee communities in the forests of West Africa suggests a warfare tactic not previously seen beyond humans is regularly used by our closest evolutionary relatives.

Offbeat: General Offbeat: Space Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: General Space: Structures and Features
Published

Black holes are messy eaters      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

New observations down to light-year scale of the gas flows around a supermassive black hole have successfully detected dense gas inflows and shown that only a small portion (about 3 percent) of the gas flowing towards the black hole is eaten by the black hole. The remainder is ejected and recycled back into the host galaxy.

Space: Astrophysics Space: Cosmology Space: General Space: Structures and Features
Published

Researchers find gravitational lensing has significant effect on cosmic birefringence      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Future missions will be able to find signatures of violating the parity-symmetry in the cosmic microwave background polarization more accurately after a pair of researchers has managed to take into account the gravitational lensing effect, reports a new study.

Offbeat: General Offbeat: Space Space: Astronomy Space: Astrophysics Space: Exploration Space: General Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Exploding stars      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

When massive stars or other stellar objects explode in the Earth's cosmic neighborhood, ejected debris can also reach our solar system. Traces of such events are found on Earth or the Moon and can be detected using accelerator mass spectrometry, or AMS for short.