Ecology & Zoology

Fences: Former Conservation Must-Have Now Implicated In Ecological Meltdown

Wildlife fences are constructed for lots of reasons, including having them killed by cars (and people along with them) to prevent the spread of disease and to protect small small populations of threatened species. Near more populated areas, the concern is ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 3 2014 - 4:24pm

Biosphere 2 Ocean- A Living Lab In The Desert

A new initiative is underway to breathe life back into the 700,000-gallon ocean tank at Biosphere 2. The new ocean at Biosphere 2 will provide a glimpse into the sea that's closest to Southern Arizona – the Gulf of California, which stretches for a th ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 6 2014 - 5:00am

What's Missing From The World's Largest Cephalopod Exhibit

Guess who’s not being displayed in the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new " Tentacles " exhibit, opening April 12? Who is just too difficult for this award-winning institution to handle? ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Apr 10 2014 - 11:52pm

Ruminate On This: Camels Emit Less Methane Than Cows Or Sheep

Ruminant cows and sheep account for a major proportion of the methane produced around the world- an estimated 20 percent of global methane emissions stem from ruminants. In the atmosphere, methane is a shorter-term problem than CO2 but has 23X the warming ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 10 2014 - 9:58am

Top Gun Drosophila: The Screaming-Fast Banked Turns Of Fruit Flies

Researchers recently used an array of high-speed video cameras operating at 7,500 frames a second to capture the wing and body motion of Drosophila hyde i after they encountered an image of an approaching predator.  The fruit flies are about the size of a ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 13 2014 - 11:12am

Amakusaplana Acroporae: This Coral-Eating Worm May Mean Big Trouble For Reefs

It is barely possible to see the parasitic worm Amakusaplana acroporae when it sits on its favorite hosts, the staghorn coral Acropora, thanks to its excellent camouflage. However, new research from the University of Southampton has found that the small f ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 11 2014 - 9:45am

The Dual Role Of Carbon Dioxide In Photosynthesis

Carbon dioxide, in its ionic form bicarbonate, has a regulating function in the splitting of water in photosynthesis. This means that carbon dioxide has an additional role to being reduced to sugar, according to scientists at Umeå University in Sweden. ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 14 2014 - 1:35pm

Sex Reversal: In Brazilian Cave Insects, Females Have The Penises

Researchers have discovered little-known cave insects, four distinct but related species in the genus Neotrogla, with rather novel sex lives- the first example of an animal with sex-reversed genitalia. ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 20 2014 - 7:11pm

New Electric Knifefish Species Discovered In Brazil's Rio Negro

Researchers report that they have discovered a new genus and species of electric knifefish in several tributaries of the Negro River in the Amazonia State of Brazil. Professor Cristina Cox Fernandes at UMass Amherst, with Adília Nogueira and José Antônio ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 22 2014 - 11:11am

What Do You Do With 1 Million Feral Camels?

Feral camels in the Australian outback are reviled as pests. Yet they thrive, totaling some one million strong. How did they go from historic helper to overbearing invader? As usual, numbers make the difference.  The deserts of the Australian outback are ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 23 2014 - 8:56am