Ecology & Zoology

In Sickness And In Health: Mice And Mating

It is no surprise that female mice prefer healthy males, most humans are the same way, but a new study tested the belief that attractive males have better mating success than other males.  Sarah Zala and Dustin Penn of the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Etholo ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 13 2015 - 1:11pm

Chitin Lobster Component Discovered In Vertebrates

 Chitin is a molecule that forms hard structures like fungal cell walls and the exoskeletons of invertebrates such as insects and crustaceans. It forms a strong and pliable material that is made even stronger when complexed with other materials (such as pr ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 16 2015 - 7:30am

Light Pollution's Impact On Food Webs Quantified

A generation ago, environmental activists declared war on yet another field of science- astronomy. A new telescope was going to disrupt a squirrel, they alleged, and so astronomy abandoned places in the U.S. like Arizona and began to move to Chile. Environ ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 15 2015 - 10:10pm

Cannibalism Caused By Parasites

A tiny parasite named Pleistophora mulleri not only significantly increases cannibalism among the indigenous shrimp Gammarus duebeni celticus but made infected shrimp more voracious, taking much less time to consume their victims.  Cannibalism is fairly co ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 18 2015 - 12:21pm

Compensation: Why Some Male Cichlids Build Sand Castles To Attract Females And Others Don't

Cichlid fish in Lake Malawi know how to court and their courtship evolves- fast.  In the shallows where the light is good, males build sand castles to attract females, while deep-dwelling species dig less elaborate pits and compensate with longer swimming ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 18 2015 - 12:16pm

Iberian Lynx Threatened By Habitat Loss

Nearly half of the 36 species of felids that live in the wild in the world are at threat, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature advocacy group, and the main threat they all share in common is the loss and fragmentation of their h ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 31 2015 - 5:53pm

Sci-Fly: How Lifeforms Know To Be Just The Right Size

Shakespeare said "to be or not to be" is the question, and now scientists are asking how life forms grow to be the correct size with proportional body parts. Probing deeply into genetics and biology at the earliest moments of embryonic developme ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 29 2015 - 7:44pm

Global Warming Not Causing Pine Beetle Outbreaks

Warming winters may be linked to mountain pine beetle outbreaks in the coldest areas of the western United States but the causes are multi-faceted, according to a new U.S. Forest Service study. ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 4 2015 - 6:04pm

Thank Your Mother For The Nature Of Nurture

When it comes to survival of the fittest, it's all about your mother, according to a study that analyzed 24 years' worth of data from a population of North American red squirrels in Canada's Yukon and measured maternal genetic effects in squ ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 31 2015 - 9:25pm

Aristotle's Answer: Why Some Mushrooms Glow

Thousands of years ago, Aristotle knew that some mushrooms glowed, so it is no surprise the great thinker wondered why. Science may finally have an answer for his question.  A new study posits that the light emitted from those fungi attracts the attention ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 5 2015 - 8:30am