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Categories: Offbeat: Earth and Climate, Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds

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A study examined the effects of anthropogenic noise on cognition, beak color, and growth in the zebra finch. Researchers first tested adult zebra finches on a battery of cognition assays while they were exposed to playbacks of urban noise versus birds tested without noise. Urban noises caused the birds to take longer to learn a novel foraging task and to learn an association-learning task. Urban noise exposure also resulted in treated males to develop less bright beak coloration, and females developed beaks with brighter orange coloration, respectively, than untreated birds. Findings suggest that urban noise exposure may affect morphological traits, such as beak color, which influence social interactions and mate choice.

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Orangutans, mice, and horses are covered with it, but humans aren't. Why we have significantly less body hair than most other mammals has long remained a mystery. But a first-of-its-kind comparison of genetic codes from 62 animals is beginning to tell the story of how people -- and other mammals -- lost their locks.

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Taking Hong Kong's famous Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak offers stunning views of its central business district, Victoria Harbor, and the surrounding islands. But a team of international scientists has recently discovered that the trams winding journey provides a previously unrecognized situation where our vertical perception gets distorted.

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New research shows that glassfrogs -- known for their highly transparent undersides and muscles -- perform their 'disappearing acts' by stowing away nearly all of their red blood cells into their uniquely reflective livers. The work could lead to new avenues of research tied to blood clots, which the frogs somehow avoid while packing and unpacking about 90 percent of their red blood cells into their livers on a daily basis.

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Microraptor was an opportunistic predator, feeding on fish, birds, lizards -- and now small mammals. The discovery of a rare fossil reveals the creature was a generalist carnivore in the ancient ecosystem of dinosaurs.

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New research reveals that the animals that perceive time the fastest are those that are small, can fly, or are marine predators.

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An international research team examines a rich fossil bed in the renowned Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada's Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, where many 50-foot-long ichthyosaurs (Shonisaurus popularis) lay petrified in stone. The study offers a plausible explanation as to how at least 37 of these marine reptiles came to meet their ends in the same locality -- a question that has vexed paleontologists for more than half a century. The research presents evidence that these ichthyosaurs died at the site in large numbers because they were migrating to this area to give birth for many generations across hundreds of thousands of years.

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Researchers didn't know what to make of sunken pieces of wood that were so thoroughly chewed-up by clams that the wood crumbled in their hands. It turns out, the super-chewer wood-eating clams had a secret weapon for forcing out other species. The clams, who have special adaptations that let them survive in dirty, low-oxygen water, built chimneys out of their own feces, making the wood a 'crappy' home for any animal except them.

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Sediment cores obtained from Eifel maar sites provide insight into the presence of large Ice Age mammals in Central Europe over the past 60,000 years: Overkill hypothesis not confirmed. Herds of megafauna, such as mammoth and bison, have roamed the prehistoric plains in what is today's Central Europe for several tens of thousands of years. As woodland expanded at the end of the last Ice Age, the numbers of these animals declined and by roughly 11,000 years ago, they had completely vanished from this region. Thus, the growth of forests was the main factor that determined the extinction of such megafauna in Central Europe.

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Though plants can serve as a source of food, oxygen and décor, they're not often considered to be a good source of electricity. But by collecting electrons naturally transported within plant cells, scientists can generate electricity as part of a 'green,' biological solar cell. Now, researchers have used a succulent plant to create a living 'bio-solar cell' that runs on photosynthesis.

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Discoveries at a major new fossil site in Morocco suggest giant arthropods -- relatives of modern creatures including shrimps, insects and spiders -- dominated the seas 470 million years ago.

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Without clocks or modern tools, ancient Mexicans watched the sun to maintain a farming calendar that precisely tracked seasons and even adjusted for leap years.

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Analysis of teeth of extinct lemurs has revealed fascinating clues to the evolution of humans, a new study has found.

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While the Diprotodon -- the extinct megafauna species that is distantly related to wombats but was the size of a small car -- is commonly (but incorrectly) thought of as Australia's 'giant wombat', researchers have shed light on a large species that does belong in the modern-day wombat family. The complete skull of this true fossil giant wombat, found in a Rockhampton cave in Queensland, Australia and estimated to be around 80,000 years old, has been described for the first time.

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Researchers calculated that 74 metric tons of microplastics are dropping out of the atmosphere onto the city annually, the equivalent of more than 3 million plastic bottles falling from the sky.

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Wildlife researchers have completed a study that may settle the question of why, in October 2009, a group of coyotes launched an unprovoked fatal attack on a young woman who was hiking in a Canadian park. Researchers concluded that the coyotes were forced to rely on moose instead of smaller mammals for the bulk of their diet -- and as a result of adapting to that unusually large food source, perceived a lone hiker as potential prey.

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MIT researchers developed a scalable fabrication technique to produce ultrathin, flexible, durable, lightweight solar cells that can be stuck to any surface. Glued to high-strength fabric, the solar cells are only one-hundredth the weight of conventional cells while producing about 18 times more power-per-kilogram.

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The biochemical process by which cyanobacteria acquire nutrients from rocks in Chile's Atacama Desert has inspired engineers at the University of California, Irvine to think of new ways microbes might help humans build colonies on the moon and Mars.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have tested the biting efficiency of Smilodon, an extinct species of carnivore close to the extant felines. Using high-precision 3D scans and simulation methods, the team has just revealed how these animals managed to bite despite the impressive length of their teeth.

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Two-million-year-old DNA has been identified -- opening a 'game-changing' new chapter in the history of evolution. Microscopic fragments of environmental DNA were found in Ice Age sediment in northern Greenland. Using cutting-edge technology, researchers discovered the fragments are one million years older than the previous record for DNA sampled from a Siberian mammoth bone. The ancient DNA has been used to map a two-million-year-old ecosystem which weathered extreme climate change.