Ecology & Zoology

Black Widows Shake It To Attract Mates- Insert Obligatory Twerking Reference Here

Male black widow spiders on the prowl to mate (and sometimes be victims of black widow cannibalism by females, thus the name Latrodectus mactans) shake their abdomens to produce carefully pitched vibrations and avoid potential attacks by females – who oth ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 17 2014 - 2:29pm

Talking Plants Are Science Fiction- Maybe Not

Plants, like almost all living organisms, have an internal communication system to respond to external stimuli. Whether they are exposed to sunlight, pollutants, nutrients or pests, plants react with a tell-tale electrical signal. The PLEASED project is tr ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 20 2014 - 4:35pm

Agriculture Helps: Soybean Fields Give Rare Birds A New Foothold

While marketing campaigns against farming claim otherwise, agricultural practices can have a broad beneficial influence on bird abundance and diversity. Row crops are considered to be bad for wildlife but a new study shows that isn't necessarily true ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 1 2014 - 12:10pm

Diversity Police- A Fungus In Nature Too

Diversity police regulate success by making overachievers victims of their own success. They spread quickly, preventing too much dominance by undercutting whatever gets ahead and enforcing lots of mediocre equivalence. They're pests. The pests we ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 23 2014 - 12:38pm

It Looks Like A Grand Day For Walkies- The Science

A new paper has demonstrated the power of path tracking to measure social behavior and automatically determine dogs' personalities. How dogs behave during walks reveals a lot about traits such as trainability, controllability, aggression, age and dom ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 23 2014 - 6:44pm

Has Sweet Corn Science Helped Industry?

Yield is economically important in field corn production, and there is no question that has been a success, but sweet corn has an additional metric for being considered a win. It's reported that  crop yield responses due to sweet corn research are ac ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 29 2014 - 1:25pm

Bat Killer: White Nose Syndrome Fungus Can Survive In Caves, Even Without Bats

North American bats are facing a tough new millennium. 600,000 per year are already killed due to government subsidies of wind energy and so far 7 million have died due to White Nose Syndrome. While we are likely stuck with wind energy for the foreseeable ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 30 2014 - 10:19am

Organic Farms Support A Third More Species

Organic farms support more biodiversity, supporting 34% more plant, insect and animal species than conventional farms, according to a new paper. For pollinators such as bees, the number of different species was 50% higher on organic farms, although the au ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 5 2014 - 10:48am

Sweet Tooth Is Nothing- Honeybees Have A Sweet Claw Also

Insects taste through hair-like structures on the body called  sensilla.  Sensilla contain receptor nerve cells, each of which is sensitive to a particular substance. In insects like the honeybee, sensilla are found on the mouthparts, antenna and the tars ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 5 2014 - 10:54am

Magnets, Migration And Fish

Last year, a group of researchers created a correlation between the migration patterns of ocean salmon and the Earth's magnetic field, suggesting it may help explain how the fish can navigate across thousands of miles of water to find their river of ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 6 2014 - 3:07pm