Showing 20 articles starting at article 281

< Previous 20 articles        Next 20 articles >

Categories: Geoscience: Volcanoes, Offbeat: Plants and Animals

Return to the site home page

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Striped marlin are some of the fastest animals on the planet and one of the ocean's top predators. When hunting in groups, individual marlin will take turns attacking schools of prey fish one at a time. Now a new study helps to explain how they might coordinate this turn-taking style of attack on their prey to avoid injuring each other. The key, according to the new work, is rapid color changes.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new technique for electro-spinning sponges has allowed scientists to directly produce 3D scaffolds -- on which skin grafts could be grown from the patient's own skin.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have paired a deep learning model with experimental data to 'decode' mouse neural activity. Using the method, they can accurately determine where a mouse is located within an open environment and which direction it is facing, just by looking at its neural firing patterns. Being able to decode neural activity could provide insight into the function and behavior of individual neurons or even entire brain regions.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A detailed survey of the volcanic underwater deposits around the Kikai caldera in Japan clarified the deposition mechanisms as well as the event's magnitude. As a result, the research team found that the event 7,300 years ago was the largest volcanic eruption in the Holocene by far.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

To learn about the first organisms on our planet, researchers have to analyze the rocks of the early Earth. These can only be found in a few places on the surface of the Earth. The Pilbara Craton in Western Australia is one of these rare sites: there are rocks there that are around 3.5 billion years old containing traces of the microorganisms that lived at that time. A research team has now found new clues about the formation and composition of this ancient biomass, providing insights into the earliest ecosystems on Earth.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Comparison of over 200 high-quality butterfly and moth genomes reveals key insights into their biology, evolution and diversification over the last 250 million years, as well as clues for conservation.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The sea lamprey, a 500-million-year-old animal with a sharp-toothed suction cup for a mouth, is the thing of nightmares. A new study discovered that the hindbrain -- the part of the brain controlling vital functions like blood pressure and heart rate -- of both sea lampreys and humans is built using an extraordinarily similar molecular and genetic toolkit.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A team of scientists on location with a film crew in the remote Amazon has uncovered a previously undocumented species of giant anaconda.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers are studying how bats can carry deadly viruses, but not develop symptoms. They found that what happens during swarming behavior -- like social gatherings for bats -- may hold the key to understanding their viral tolerance and translate to human health in fighting off diseases like Ebola and COVID-19.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Hydrogels are already used in clinical practice for the delivery of drugs, and as lenses, bone cement, wound dressings, 3D scaffolds in tissue engineering and other applications. However, bonding different hydrogel polymers to one another has remained a challenge; yet it could enable numerous new applications. Now, researchers have pioneered a new method that uses a thin film of chitosan, a fibrous sugar-based material derived from the processed outer skeletons of shellfish, to make different hydrogels instantaneously and strongly stick to each other. They used their approach to locally protect and cool tissues, seal vascular injuries, and prevent unwanted 'surgical adhesions' of internal body surfaces.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Instead of carrying the babies until they hatched, as in most species of sea spiders, one parent (likely the father) spent two days attaching the eggs to the rocky bottom where they developed for several months before hatching as tiny larvae.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Palaeontological analysis shows that a renowned fossil thought to show soft tissue preservation is in fact just paint. The fossil discovered in 1931 was thought to be an important specimen for understanding early reptile evolution. While not all of the celebrated fossil is a forgery, scientists urge caution in how the fossil is utilized in future.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Biologists present compelling evidence that exotic cats possess the remarkable ability to discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar human voices.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers report that ancient viruses may be to thank for myelin -- and, by extension, our large, complex brains. The team found that a retrovirus-derived genetic element or 'retrotransposon' is essential for myelin production in mammals, amphibians, and fish. The gene sequence, which they dubbed 'RetroMyelin,' is likely a result of ancient viral infection, and comparisons of RetroMyelin in mammals, amphibians, and fish suggest that retroviral infection and genome-invasion events occurred separately in each of these groups.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Some people from an ancient community in what is now northern Italy were interred with animals and animal parts from species such as dogs, horses and pigs. The reasons remain mysterious, but might indicate an enduring companion relationship between these humans and animals, or religious sacrificial practices, according to a new study.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

From lab-grown chicken to cricket-derived protein, these innovative alternatives offer hope for a planet struggling with the environmental and ethical impacts of industrial agriculture. Now, scientists add a new recipe to the list -- cultured beef rice -- by growing animal muscle and fat cells inside rice grains. The method results in a nutritious and flavorful hybrid food that, once commercialized, could offer a more affordable protein alternative with a smaller carbon footprint.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Babies playfully tease others as young as eight months of age. Since language is not required for this behavior, similar kinds of playful teasing might be present in non-human animals. Now cognitive biologists and primatologists have documented playful teasing in four species of great apes. Like joking behavior in humans, ape teasing is provocative, persistent, and includes elements of surprise and play. Because all four great ape species used playful teasing, it is likely that the prerequisites for humor evolved in the human lineage at least 13 million years ago.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Desert ants find their way during an early learning phase with the help of the Earth's magnetic field. The associated learning process leaves clear traces in their nervous system.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The bead found at the La Prele Mammoth site in Wyoming's Converse County is about 12,940 years old and made of bone from a hare.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Fossils of a marine animal that lived 500 million years ago, combined with computer simulations, informed the design of a new soft robot.