Geological processes can affect evidence of the original colors of fossil feathers, according to new research by Yale University scientists, who said some previous reconstructions of fossil bird and dinosaur feather colors may now merit revision. (more…)
Imagine having a daylong Thanksgiving feast every day for a month, then, only pauper’s rations the rest of the year.
University of Washington researchers have discovered Dolly Varden, a kind of trout, eating just that way in Alaska’s Chignik Lake watershed.
Organs such as the stomach and intestines in the Dolly Varden doubled to quadrupled in size when eggs from spawning sockeye salmon became available each August, the researchers found. They were like vacuums sucking up the eggs and nipping at the flesh of spawned-out salmon carcasses. (more…)
Sleep plays an important role in the brain’s ability to consolidate learning when two new potentially competing tasks are learned in the same day, research at the University of Chicago demonstrates.
Other studies have shown that sleep consolidates learning for a new task. The new study, which measured starlings’ ability to recognize new songs, shows that learning a second task can undermine the performance of a previously learned task. But this study is the first to show that a good night’s sleep helps the brain retain both new memories. (more…)
The ancestor of all modern African monkeys was alive 3 million years earlier than previously thought and coexisted with members of a now-extinct branch of the monkey family tree, according to new evidence from anthropologists.
“We pushed back the origin of modern monkeys by a huge chunk of time,” said anthropologist Andrew Hill of Yale University, the senior researcher on the project. “This means there are all sorts of things we can think about. You can start to look at animal interactions that might have taken place.” (more…)
Washington, D.C.— It has long been believed that male lions are dependent on females when it comes to hunting. But new evidence suggests that male lions are, in fact, very successful hunters in their own right. (more…)
Christopher Cameron of the University of Montreal’s Department of Biological Sciences and his colleagues have unearthed a major scientific discovery – a strange phallus-shaped creature they found in Canada’s Burgess Shale fossil beds, located in Yoho National Park. The fossils were found in an area of shale beds that are 505 million years old. (more…)
Humans aren’t the only species with a sweet tooth. Research from North Carolina State University shows that the invasive spotted-wing vinegar fly (Drosophila suzukii) also prefers sweet, soft fruit – giving us new insight into a species that has spread across the United States over the past four years and threatens to cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to U.S. fruit crops.
“Because we know that D. suzukii prefers softer, sweeter fruit, we can focus our research efforts into which wild fruits may serve as reservoirs for this species and help identify new crops that might be at risk,” says Dr. Hannah Burrack, an assistant professor of entomology at NC State and lead author of a paper on the research. “These findings may also be a starting point for plant breeders interested in developing new fruit varieties that are more resistant to D. suzukii.” (more…)
Females of a little-known primate from the rainforests of Madagascar have been known to outlive their male peers by many years, despite no obvious differences in hormone levels or lifestyle. A team led by a UA anthropologist has found the likely answer to the mystery
Researchers studying aging in an endangered lemur species report that in old age, females are the safer sex: They live much longer than their male peers. (more…)
