Understanding how baleen whales hear has posed a great mystery to marine mammal researchers. New research by San Diego State University biologist Ted W. Cranford and University of California, San Diego engineer Petr Krysl reveals that the skulls of at least some baleen whales, specifically fin whales in their study, have acoustic properties that capture the energy of low frequencies and direct it to their ear bones.

Baleen whales, also known as mysticetes, are the largest animals on earth, and include blue whales, minke whales, right whales, gray whales and fin whales. These whales can emit extremely low frequency vocalizations that travel extraordinary distances underwater. The wavelengths of these calls can be longer than the bodies of the whales themselves.

The third chapter in the ongoing saga of the "first direct image of gravitational waves through the primordial sky" has been written. The first chapter was in March of last year when the BICEP2 team announced that it had observed the portion of cosmic background radiation (the "fossil radiation" from the Big Bang) generated by gravitational waves. This would have been the first observation of the cosmological effects of the elusive phenomenon predicted by Einstein's theory of General Relativity. 

A new study indicates that sexual behavior among female university students in Sweden has changed during the last 25 years, with behavior now appearing more risky than before.

The surveys were taken as part of contraceptive counseling delivered at a Student Health Center in Sweden. 

Bowhunting has made a big comeback in the 21st century. Suddenly women love it - and their inclination to shoot something up close and personal without getting their hands messy is reason enough not to provoke American women.

But it won't be for food, and perhaps it stopped being for food thousands of years ago. 

We may think of bowhunting in neolithic times as being functional - to find food - but it may have instead been social cohesion, according to archaeologists who have analyzed the Neolithic bows found in the site of La Draga (Girona, Spain). 


Most in-the-know Americans assumed The
Hunger Games was ripping off Battle Royale. It

Though the anti-vaccine hotbeds in the United States are strongest in regions that are overwhelmingly Democratic, a new paper says it may not be Democrats that are most anti-vaccine. Why would they be? the authors argue, when Democrats like government the most.

A secondary analysis of a mild gestational diabetes mellitus treatment trial long-term follow-up study looked at the relationship between maternal oral glucose tolerance testing and childhood body mass index, fasting glucose, insulin and anthropometrics in the offspring of untreated mild GDM and non GDM assessed at ages five to 10 years.

They concluded that maternal glycemia impacts childhood obesity and metabolic dysfunction.