Trees Communicate with Aspirin
September 25, 2008
Plants communicate with each other through chemical signals. Scientists found a form of aspirin that works as a distress call.
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Ant What it Used to Be
September 18, 2008
A new species of subterranean ant discovered in Brazil is so weird, biologists have classified it as the sole representative of a new subfamily. The alien creature has been whimsically named Martialis heureka: “the ant from Mars.” An article about it in Nature News said, “It adds a new branch to the ant family tree […]
Animals Got Rhythm; Scientists Dont
September 12, 2008
Here’s a biological puzzle with plenty of room for young researchers to solve: the workings of biological rhythms. All animals respond to rhythms in periods of hours, days, weeks, months, and years, but as George E. Bentley (UC Berkeley) wrote in Current Biology,1 how they do it is only partially understood. “Sometimes the questions are […]
Flightlessness Evolved Four Times
September 10, 2008
An article on Science Daily claims that the famous flightless birds – African ostriches, Australian cassowaries and emus, New Zealand kiwis and South American rheas – are unrelated. There was no flightless common ancestor. They lost their ability to fly independently, scientists say, because of “parallel evolution.” This would also mean that emus […]
Butterfly Wings Xeroxed
September 6, 2008
If you can’t build it, copy it. Scientists have had a hard time reconstructing the photonic crystals that make butterfly wings shimmer with light (01/29/2003), so they made, in effect, a carbon copy. PhysOrg described how scientists at Penn State made impressions of the regularly-spaced geometric shapes from a butterfly wing and transferred it to […]
Fully Gecko 40 Million Years Earlier?
September 3, 2008
Amber, or fossilized tree sap, usually contains remnants of insect parts. One piece, mined in the jungles of Myanmar, contained the foot of a gecko – alleged to be 100 million years old. That’s 40 million years older than the previously claimed oldest gecko fossil. This critter may have skittered under the feet of dinosaurs. […]
Plant Perfume Manipulates Pollinator Behavior
August 31, 2008
You’re a plant, stuck in the ground. Around you are organisms with wings flitting freely about. You need to get them to land on your flowers, but not linger too long. How do you do it? Attract them with sweet smells, but send them away with a bitter aftertaste. That’s how the tobacco plant manipulates […]
Use Your Cow Compass
August 25, 2008
Cattle and deer seem to align themselves to magnetic north. German and Czech scientists, reporting in PNAS,1 used aerial observations to detect the tendency of grazing herds to line up in north-south directions. The alignment was to magnetic north, not true north—indicating a sensitivity to earth’s magnetic field, as known to exist in migrating birds, […]
How Chromosomes Pack Without Exploding
August 24, 2008
When preparing to divide, a cell has to copy all its DNA accurately and pack it into chromosomes. A professor at U Chicago told Science Daily this is “like compacting your entire wardrobe into a shoebox.” The cell has another difficulty in this compaction process, though: DNA, being negatively charged, resists packing. Eukaryotes […]
New Camera Imitates Eyeball
August 7, 2008
Scientists at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University have succeeded in manufacturing stretchable optical electronic sensors on curved surfaces. This will open up a whole new world of new imaging products – inventions that imitate the human eyeball. The team said this about the eyeball in their paper in Nature:1 The human eye is […]
Defeat Spam: Imitate the Bodys Defenses
August 5, 2008
Your body’s immune system is inspiring the next generation of email spam-fighters. The University of Southampton reported that “An algorithm for spam recognition inspired by the immune system will be presented at the first European conference on Artificial Life (ALIFE XI) being held in Winchester this week.” The idea is that “in the […]
Can Worms Outsmart Humans?
July 27, 2008
Worms may seem creepy to some people, but they possess some amazing abilities. How many of you had to struggle through calculus class, for instance? Worms know it by heart, reported Greg Soltis at Live Science. Their brains instinctively apply the logic of calculus to input signals from sensory inputs. A University of Oregon biologist […]
Lick Your Wounds
July 27, 2008
Saliva contains a powerful anti-infection protein, say scientists from the Netherlands. Science Daily reported that if this compound could be mass-produced, it offers hope for those with diseases, burns and injuries prone to infection. Saliva is a complex concoction with many kinds of molecules. With controlled experiments, the researchers were able to identify […]
Another Evolutionary Statistic Is Wrong
July 15, 2008
Marine invertebrate diversity has not increased dramatically over time, contrary to conventional wisdom. That’s the conclusion of a team of 35 researchers who spent a decade analyzing seashell fossils from around the world. Science Daily reported the story July 7. A week later, on July 14, Science Daily reported a follow-up story, entitled, […]
Is Artificial DNA Intelligently Designed?
July 15, 2008
Japanese chemists have made a new kind of DNA, reported Science Daily. It resembles natural DNA, but is composed of bases that are shorter, modified forms of the ones cells use. “The finding could lead to improvements in gene therapy, futuristic nano-sized computers, and other high-tech advances,” the article says. An evolutionist should extend his […]