Ecology & Zoology

If you own a home, termites are the enemy, but if you want to hold back a desert, their large dirt mounds can be crucial to protecting semi-arid ecosystems and agricultural lands. That's obviously important for feeding people and insert obligatory glo ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 5 2015 - 3:55pm

Colony Collapse Disorder: It Could Just Be Stress

A few years ago, another colony collapse occurred. Though it has happened more times than recorded history has been able to log, the concern was that new pesticides, which replaced the old pesticides blamed for the last colony collapse, might be the cause. ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 10 2015 - 10:00am

Masters And Slaves: Locked In A Deadly Relationship

By Tobias Pamminger, University of Sussex Ants have a reputation of being industrious hard-working animals, sacrificing their own benefit for the good of the colony. They live to serve their queen and take care of all essential tasks including brood care, ...

Article - The Conversation - Feb 12 2015 - 8:30am

After 60 Million Year Breakup, Distant Species Produce Love Child

Evolution starts species off on different paths and even if they arrived in one spot from common descent in the past, they can't reproduce. So in modern times an elephant is not hybridizing with a manatee, or a human with a lemur. Tree frogs...well, y ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 13 2015 - 5:00pm

Killer Shrimp: Invasive Species In The Great Lakes By 2063

The Great Lakes have been invaded by more non-native species than any other freshwater ecosystem in the world, and though there have been increasing efforts to stem the tide of invasion threats, they remain vulnerable. Over the past two centuries, more th ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 20 2015 - 5:03pm

Nicotine Reduces Parasite Infection In Bees Up To 81 Percent

In 2006, there was a large die-off in bees and though their numbers quickly rebounded and have continued upward since, scientists have been looking for ways to make the periodic collapses that occur less dramatic. The cause the last time it happened was t ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 17 2015 - 7:49pm

Plants Survive Mass Extinctions Better Than Animals

At least five mass extinction events have profoundly changed the course of life on Earth- animal life, at least. Plants have been very resilient to those events, finds a new study. For over 400 million years, plants have played an essential role in almost ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 18 2015 - 8:30am

Bottlenose Dolphins Colonized The Mediterranean After The Last Ice Age

A new study to investigate the population structure and historical processes responsible for the geographic distribution of the species in the Mediterranean finds that the bottlenose dolphin only colonized the region after the last Ice Age, about 18,000 ye ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 18 2015 - 10:40am

Phyllopteryx Dewysea: Ruby Seadragon Discovered

Make way for a new color under the sea. The orange tint in Leafy Seadragons and the yellow and purple hues of Common Seadragons is now getting some red: Scientists have discovered a new species named Phyllopteryx dewysea, which means Ruby Seadragon. The di ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 18 2015 - 7:13pm

Animal Research Up 73 Percent Among Largest Federal Grant Recipients

The use of animals in experimental research has soared at US laboratories, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and taxpayer-funded scientists are the culprits. The 25 largest recipients of government funding increased animal ex ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 25 2015 - 7:46pm