Terrestrial Zoology

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Accurate Chemical Classifier Mimics Insect Nose

December 10, 2007

Two Germans have built a better chemical classification system by taking their inspiration from insect olfactory organs. Here’s how they described their achievement in an abstract from PNAS:1 The chemical sense of insects has evolved to encode and classify odorants. Thus, the neural circuits in their olfactory system are likely to implement an efficient method […]

Amazing Facts

Nature Inspires Useful Products

November 16, 2007

Some day soon you may be able to extract water out of thin air, decorate your walls with detachable wallpaper, read street signs clearly in fog, and employ reusable tape underwater. These are some of the innovations coming from biomimetics – science inspired by nature’s designs. Venus flytrap: Alex Crosby at University of Massachusetts was […]

Fossils

Amphibian Imprints Found

October 30, 2007

Full-body imprints of amphibians claimed to be 330 million years old have been reported from Pennsylvania. “The imprints show the unmistakably webbed feet and bodies of three previously unknown, foot-long salamander-like critters that lived 100 million years before the first dinosaurs.” The story in a press release from the Geological Society of America […]

Biomimetics

Nanofabrication Imitates Shells, Butterflies

October 7, 2007

A new plastic “strong as steel” has been manufactured according to the specs in seashells, reported PhysOrg. “By mimicking a brick-and-mortar molecular structure found in seashells, University of Michigan researchers created a composite plastic that’s as strong as steel but lighter and transparent.” (See these previous entries about how marine organisms manufacture their shells: 06/26/2003, […]

Biomimetics

New Atomizer Mimics Bombardier Beetle

October 2, 2007

There’s a new technology coming to market, thanks to a little bug. The bombardier beetle has long been used by creationists as a creature with a weapon against evolutionary theory. Its tightly-integrated combustion apparatus would be useless or dangerous to the beetle unless all the parts worked together from the start. This, creationists argue, is […]

Dumb Ideas

Early Beetle Was Armed

September 23, 2007

According to Live Science, a beetle preserved in amber, dated at 100 million years old, was caught in the act of using chemical warfare. “Soldier beetles” capable of this kind of advanced defense system were not thought to have evolved till 60 million years later. This article contains several statements worthy of the […]

Dumb Ideas

Early Reptile Had Modern Ears

September 18, 2007

Modern ears are nothing new; they go back 260 million years. That’s the gist of a paper in PLoS ONE that reported on a Russian reptile fossil.1 The research team was surprised to discover that the creature had impedance-matched ears, a novelty thought to have evolved 50 million years later. Somehow this innovation survived one […]

Birds

Birds Eat Dark Moths, Therefore God Does Not Exist

September 3, 2007

Michael Majerus watched birds eat peppered moths from his window for seven years (06/25/2004), then drew his conclusions. In a presentation to a science conference in Uppsala, Sweden on August 23, he said that the peppered moth story proves evolution, which means there is no supernatural being to save us, there is no second coming, […]

Amazing Facts

Mosquitos Are Water-Walking Champions

July 18, 2007

We hate ’em, but in one sense we should admire them: mosquitos are the water-walking champions of the animal kingdom. They even beat out water striders, reported Live Science and EurekAlert based on research from Physical Review E. Science Daily wrote of “miraculous mosquito legs” and had a picture of the intricate fan-shaped superhydrophobic structures […]

Early Man

But Is It Evolution?

July 14, 2007

Every week the news media cheerfully present the latest finding that is claimed to be evidence for evolution. The following recent examples, though, might leave a perceptive reader wondering, “What’s Darwin got to do with it?” Slow? No!: If you thought evolution was a gradual process too slow to watch, get a load of this: […]

Terrestrial Zoology

Ma Lizards Dress Their Young

June 12, 2007

Leapin’ lizards: the side-blotched lizards of the American southwest are able to dress their kids in the latest scale fashions. A press release from UC Santa Cruz shows that hormones from mom can dramatically affect the pattern and coloration of offspring. The scientists observing this phenomenon think it has something to do with matching their […]

Amazing Facts

Ant Brain: Software Compression Extreme

May 28, 2007

How can so much software fit in such a small space? An ant brain can’t be very big, but look what it can do. The BBC News and Science Daily both told about the route-finding ability of army ants. Not only do they find the most efficient routes to their targets, they even plug potholes […]

Astronomy

Think Fast: News Briefs

May 21, 2007

Of the many news items that cross the CEH desk, many are noteworthy but go unreported due to lack of time. Here are a few that deserve honorable mention lest they pass into oblivion. Cosmology: Dark future – Several sources like Science Now and Space.com commented on the dark future of the universe if cosmic acceleration […]

Amazing Facts

Spider Silk Admired, Not Duplicated

April 18, 2007

Spiders still maintain the edge in a technology humans want: a material that absorbs huge amounts of energy without breaking. The dragline silk spun by spiders is extremely robust – ounce for ounce stronger than steel, yet more flexible than Kevlar. If a web the size of a football field could be erected in the […]

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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