Ecology & Zoology

Why Birds Never Go Gray

Birds use sophisticated changes to the structure of their feathers, not dyes and pigments, to create multi-colored plumage, and that is why they never go gray.  Using X-ray scattering at the ESRF facility in France to examine the blue and white feathers o ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 21 2015 - 9:00am

Wild Bees Must Be In Decline, Says Computer Estimate

The first national estimate of U.S. wild bees suggests they're disappearing in many of the country's most important farmlands--including California's Central Valley, the Midwest's corn belt, and the Mississippi River valley. ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 21 2015 - 5:19pm

A Call To Change Water Policy: Millions Of Trees In Danger From California Drought

Millions of trees are in peril from the drought in California but that is not the fault of climate change or even bad luck- every 20 years California has a drought as bad as what just ended. It is instead bad policy; California's water infrastructure ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 28 2015 - 4:13pm

How Two-toned Cats Get A Piebald Patch

Why do the distinctive piebald patches seen in black and white cats and some horses occur? The predominant hypothesis has been that piebald patterns form on animals' coats because pigment cells move too slowly to reach all parts of the embryo before ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 6 2016 - 12:30pm

Killer Whales Eat A Lot More Salmon Than You Do

Killer whales eat 375 pounds of food per day. Now imagine most of that is salmon, the food source they most often in the summer, and you can imagine how devastating that can be to the salmon population of the Pacific Northwest if such whales were higher p ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 7 2016 - 7:31am

Small Males Have More Sex Appeal

Females don't always think bigger is better when it comes to males. Instead, it is just the opposite, in some instances. Females may be more attracted to small partners because they are less likely to get into fights. In many species large males have ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 12 2016 - 12:03am

Coffee Berry Borer Consumes Enough Caffeine To Kill A Human Without Harm

The coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) is a plague that affects coffee crops. It has a detoxification system based on microbial communities so it can perform its life cycle in the plant while exposed to high levels of caffeine. In human terms, the ca ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 12 2016 - 12:04am

Free Range Poison: Animals Love To Eat Toxic Food, Less So When It's Warmer

A new study found that when temperatures get warmer, woodrats suffer a reduced ability to live on their normal diet of toxic creosote, suggesting that global warming may hurt plant-eating animals. ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 13 2016 - 7:01am

Sorry Spider-Man, Geckos Are At The Size Limit For Sticking To Walls

Latest research reveals why geckos are the largest animals able to scale smooth vertical walls- even larger climbers would require unmanageably large sticky footpads. Scientists estimate that a human would need adhesive pads covering 40% of their body sur ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 18 2016 - 5:50pm

First Zinnias Grown In Space

One of the most triumphant moments in the book and recent movie "The Martian" comes when lead character Mark Watney successfully grows a potato crop on Mars. It's more than food for survival, it's a mental and engineering breakthrough. ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 24 2016 - 8:12am