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Marine Biology

Box Jellyfish Sees and Reacts with “Human-Like Vision”
April 1, 2007
Who would expect a jellyfish to have complex eyes?  Updating what we reported previously about complex optics in the 24 eyes of the box jellyfish (see 05/15/2005), Live Science says the most complex eyes are found on the top and bottom of the cube-like “head” of the animal, “giving it an extreme fish-eye view, so […]
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Dinosaurs

New Dinos Found; What Do They Mean?
March 27, 2007
There is often a wide gap between the bones that are found and the stories that are told about them.  As new dinosaur bones come to light, some reporters cannot resist imagining all kinds of things about their lifestyles.  Here are two recent examples.  As a bonus, we’ll add a non-dinosaur reptile story or two. […]
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Fossils

Missing Link, or Just Jawboning About Ear Evolution?
March 19, 2007
Tetrapod vertebrates (four-footed animals with backbones) comprise a dizzying array of species, both living and extinct.  When is it justifiable to arrange different forms into an ancestral evolutionary sequence, especially when some members are extinct and others are still alive today?  On what basis can scientists claim that a discovery demonstrates evolution?  Some Chinese scientists […]
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Amazing Facts

The Amazing Pigeon Techno-Beak
March 15, 2007
How do homing pigeons find home?  Scientists at University of Frankfurt may have found the answer: magnetic minerals in their beaks.  A press release from Springer Publications describes the amazing pigeon techno-beak: In histological and physicochemical examinations in collaboration with HASYLAB, the synchrotron laboratories based in Hamburg, Germany, iron-containing subcellular particles of maghemite and magnetite […]
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Botany

Is a 100-Year Misunderstanding about Plants Solved?
March 15, 2007
Part of “one of the biggest misunderstandings in botanical history,” a plant has moved from an upper part of the family tree down to the bottom.  Trithuria submersa, an underwater flowering plant from India and Australia that was thought to be a monocot is really not a cot at all, says Science Daily reporting on […]
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Birds

Evolutionary Predictions Fail Observational Tests
March 8, 2007
Lately, some expectations by evolutionists have not been fulfilled.  Here are several recent examples of evolutionary upsets: Dinobird genes cook up scrambled eggs:  Scientists expected that the dinosaurs presumed ancestral to birds would show a decreasing genome size.  The thinking was that the cost of maintaining a large genome takes its toll on flight.  In […]
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Amazing Facts

Turtles Hurtle Through the Sea Magnetically
March 6, 2007
Experiments on sea turtles have shown that they follow the earth’s magnetic field to the exact beach where they were born to lay their eggs.  “It is almost as if they were equipped with a compass pointing towards the beach in question,” says an article on EurekAlert.  “So they can correct any deflection they are […]
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Amazing Facts

The Moth in Spider’s Clothing
February 28, 2007
National Geographic News has a picture story about a moth that mimics a jumping spider.  It appears to work.  Scientists staged a battle royale between contestants of mimics and non-mimics in the ring with their jumping spider enemies, and the mimics won hands down.  The spiders went for the normal moths 62% of the time, […]
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Amazing Facts

Submarine, Make Like a Fish
February 21, 2007
Submarine designers are learning a thing or two from fish.  The latest fish trick to imitate is the lateral line: a row of specialized sensors fish have along their flanks.  Fish use these for synchronized swimming and predator avoidance.  EurekAlert reported on work by scientists at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne to build artificial lateral […]
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Fossils

Fossil Fish Meat Pushes Idea of Early Complexity
February 12, 2007
An article in National Geographic News today has a title to catch the eye (or nose) of seafood lovers: “Fossil Meat Found in 380-Million-Year-Old Fish.”  Knowing how quickly fish spoils if left out, this might strike a reader as surprising.  Sure enough, fossilized muscle, with “bundles of muscle cells, blood vessels, and nerve cells” clearly […]
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Amazing Facts

Cell Quality Control Runs a Tight Ship
January 31, 2007
Without the surveillance and rapid response of quality control, cells would collapse and die.  Here are some recently-published examples of nanoheroes in action. Plant checkpoints:  Picture a child watching the wonder of a seedling breaking through the soil into the light for the first time.  Within hours, the ghostly-white stem turns green, and a day […]
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Amazing Facts

Squid Eye Beats Zeiss
January 29, 2007
A squid whose scientific name means “vampire from hell” wears specs with excellent specs (that’s lenses with excellent specifications, for the pun-challenged).  Elisabeth Pennisi in Science reported on a talk given at an Arizona science conference about the vampire squid, whose “lenses are designed for seeing details, even in virtual darkness.”  Researchers studying cephalopod eyes […]
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Amazing Facts

Robot Legs Can’t Keep Up With Animals
January 25, 2007
Robot designers are envious of animals.  Insects, crabs and lizards leave them in the dust.  Alison Abbott in Nature (Jan 18) described the latest attempts to get the bugs out of insect-imitating “biological robots.”1  “Programming a robot to think like an insect is tough,” the subtitle reads, “but it could help breed machines as manoeuvrable […]
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Amazing Facts

Tiny Fish Smell for Miles
January 24, 2007
Fish hatchlings no more than a few millimeters in size are able to find their way home by smell, scientists from James Cook University found.  After hatching from a reef, baby fish are often swept out to sea for miles.  The scientists were curious how they are able to get back to the particular spot […]
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Amazing Facts

This Bug Is Whiter than White, Brighter than Bright
January 19, 2007
Detergent manufacturers should get a load of this beetle.  Cyphochilus, a resident of southeast Asia, is clothed in one of the brightest white surfaces (per unit thickness) known.  British scientists reporting in Science1  were intrigued how the bug accomplishes this shining performance.  Most bright-white surfaces, such as paint and paper, need a hundred times the […]
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