Ecology & Zoology

Social Bonding, Vampire Bat Style: They Groom And Share Blood

Social bonding in vampire bats is no surprise, they have roommates. What is uncommon is that they demonstrate behavior some might call friendship; unrelated vampire bats engage in social grooming and food sharing to form life-saving bonds that can last a l ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 19 2020 - 12:06pm

All Hail Cthulhu- And Its 45 Tentacles

There is one Cthulhu it's safe to invoke; Sollasina cthulhu, obviously named after H.P. Lovecraft's tentacled monster, a 430 million-year-old fossil that has been identified as a new species related to living sea cucumbers. The new cthulhu, Solla ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 8 2020 - 11:11pm

Ophraella Communa: Leaf Beetle Significantly Reduces Pollen And That's Great For Allergies

The leaf beetle  Ophraella communa can significantly reduce pollen and that may mean a more cost-effective way to reduce allergies and their health care costs using science, while still appealing to activists that otherwise would oppose it. Ambrosia artemi ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 21 2020 - 12:09pm

Hipposideridae: Four New Species Of Bats Revealed, Cousins Of The Horseshoe Bats Behind SARS-CoV-2

COVID-19 resulted from a coronavirus that originated in a horseshoe bat in China but with at least two dozen species of horseshoe bats in China (no one knows how many there really are), no one can determine which species  was involved. Bats carry diseases, ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 22 2020 - 11:20am

Google Lab-Bred Mosquitoes May Stop Diseases Without Pesticides

A new series of experiments by an Alphabet (the parent company Google created) group shows lab-bred mosquitoes that cannot successfully reproduce might be able to stop malaria and other mosquito-spread diseases in countries where those are still endemic- t ...

Article - Hank Campbell - May 4 2020 - 11:31am

Farmland Improves Bee Health

The biggest cause of bee die-offs is just random luck. For as long as bee numbers have been reported there have been reports of sudden, large-scale die-offs. Nature is out to kill them like it is all of us. Yet more recently, it has been found that we can ...

Article - News Staff - May 15 2020 - 1:10pm

The Ins And Outs Of Nutrition In Sex Change

There is a rare condition in humans and other vertebrates where they genetically belong to one sex but also have characteristics of the other. Decades ago, scientists found that Oryzias latipes (Japanese rice fish, also called medaka) often undergo sex rev ...

Article - News Staff - May 21 2020 - 2:44pm

Does Your Dog Really Want To Rescue You? Yes

We know dogs will try to rescue humans, those Lassie stories were based on events that have happened for as long as humans and dogs have co-existed, but simply observing dogs rescuing someone doesn't tell you much about dogs' actual interest in r ...

Article - News Staff - May 29 2020 - 4:45pm

How Science Stopped Murder Hornets In Their Tracks

Panic-stricken headlines about “murder hornets” are thankfully mostly behind us. The nickname may have staying power, but it is certainly unearned. First spotted in British Columbia in August 2019, the Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia) poses little th ...

Article - The Conversation - Jul 7 2020 - 1:55pm

Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals And The Secret Sex Lives Of Leeches

Leeches are found on every continent in freshwater habitats where there is little flow. They are popular bait for fishing, and doctors continue to use them in medical treatments. Environmentalists have even been using them to advance their beliefs that tra ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 21 2020 - 4:29pm