As many as 21 species of giant squid live and die under the surface of our oceans. At least, that’s what we thought. A paper published today by my colleagues and I in Proceedings of the Royal Society B…
Catching prey such as mosquitoes would be pretty hard if you couldn’t focus your vision.
Nature.com
A study released today in Nature shines some light on why bats produce high frequency calls – and why some squeak far higher than others.
Over the last four years I have been researching bats by monitoring…
Female wasp spiders often eat their mate straight after intercourse.
Wikimedia Commons
When it comes to selecting a mate, females are traditionally thought of as the choosy sex; males, meanwhile, aren’t thought to be particularly picky.
This makes sense for many species – the sex that invests…
Chimps, like humans, can relive painful memories and grieve for loved ones.
tgraham
Twenty years ago, Jared Diamond’s book “The Third Chimpanzee” highlighted a startling fact. If we adhere to the scientific rules for classifying species (taxonomy), humans should be classified as a third…
Human sleeping patterns could be about more than light and dark.
Kristof Borkowski
By Greg Murray, Swinburne University of Technology
Eyeless fish that have evolved underground, completely isolated from the day-night cycle, may offer clues to how our body clocks work up here on dry land.
Authors of a report published today in the online…
Estimates on the possible number of species vary wildly.
Holger Hollerman/AFP
An estimated 8.7 million species exist on Earth, according to a paper published today in PLoS Biology. The figure is based on a new validated analytical technique that, it’s said, significantly narrows…
Much of nature’s delicate balance is a case of give and take.
UCCSbiology
We now know that mountain treeshrews and summit rats feed on the nectar secreted by the giant pitcher plant – Nepenthes rajah – then defecate into its pitchers, providing it with much needed nutrients…
The vaccine – which will be given to horses – is currently 18 months away.
AAP
As Queensland authorities confirm the third outbreak of Hendra virus within a week, researchers are moving to fast track a horse vaccination for the deadly virus, which can spread from horses to humans…
The pancake batfish is endearingly ugly, and we may have wiped it out.
Prosanta Chakrabarty (Louisiana State University, USA)
When I told my family that the top ten list of new species had been announced, the teenager asked, “Are we on it?”
Although we’re not on the list, our fingerprints are all over it. Homo sapiens remains…
