Ecology & Zoology

Diversity Police- A Fungus In Nature Too

Diversity police regulate success by making overachievers victims of their own success. They spread quickly, preventing too much dominance by undercutting whatever gets ahead and enforcing lots of mediocre equivalence. They're pests. The pests we ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 23 2014 - 12:38pm

It Looks Like A Grand Day For Walkies- The Science

A new paper has demonstrated the power of path tracking to measure social behavior and automatically determine dogs' personalities. How dogs behave during walks reveals a lot about traits such as trainability, controllability, aggression, age and dom ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 23 2014 - 6:44pm

Has Sweet Corn Science Helped Industry?

Yield is economically important in field corn production, and there is no question that has been a success, but sweet corn has an additional metric for being considered a win. It's reported that  crop yield responses due to sweet corn research are ac ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 29 2014 - 1:25pm

Bat Killer: White Nose Syndrome Fungus Can Survive In Caves, Even Without Bats

North American bats are facing a tough new millennium. 600,000 per year are already killed due to government subsidies of wind energy and so far 7 million have died due to White Nose Syndrome. While we are likely stuck with wind energy for the foreseeable ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 30 2014 - 10:19am

Organic Farms Support A Third More Species

Organic farms support more biodiversity, supporting 34% more plant, insect and animal species than conventional farms, according to a new paper. For pollinators such as bees, the number of different species was 50% higher on organic farms, although the au ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 5 2014 - 10:48am

Sweet Tooth Is Nothing- Honeybees Have A Sweet Claw Also

Insects taste through hair-like structures on the body called  sensilla.  Sensilla contain receptor nerve cells, each of which is sensitive to a particular substance. In insects like the honeybee, sensilla are found on the mouthparts, antenna and the tars ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 5 2014 - 10:54am

Magnets, Migration And Fish

Last year, a group of researchers created a correlation between the migration patterns of ocean salmon and the Earth's magnetic field, suggesting it may help explain how the fish can navigate across thousands of miles of water to find their river of ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 6 2014 - 3:07pm

For A Better Coffee Harvest, Keep Some Biodiversity

A lot of coffee is grown on and around Kilimanjaro, which towers almost 20,000 feet in the air.  The most traditional form of cultivation can be found in the gardens of the Chagga people. In some areas, coffee trees and other crop plants still grow in the ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 8 2014 - 5:30am

Protoazin Parisiensis: Did South American Hoatzins Originate In Europe?

Only one species of hoatzins exists in South America today- or anywhere else.  Opisthocomus hoazin, also known as the Stinkbird or Canje Pheasant, has an unclear evolutionary history but was assumed to have originated in South America. Not so, it seems. Th ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 9 2014 - 6:30am

Crocodiles Climb Trees

When you think of crocodiles, you usually envision them climbing trees. Probably not. Most people imagine them in water or waddling on the ground, but a study has found that the reptiles can climb trees as far as the crowns.  Vladimir Dinets, a research a ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 1 2014 - 8:00am