In a new study published in the online-open access journal PLoS ONE, Per Christiansen at the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, reports the finding that the evolution of skull and mandible shape in sabercats and modern cats were governed by different selective forces, and the two groups evolved very different adaptations to killing.

The cat family comprises some of the most specialized carnivores in the history of mammals, all exclusively eating flesh. The cat family consists of two major sub-groups: the feline cats (including all modern species) and the sabertoothed cats (which are all extinct). Skeletons from the two groups look broadly similar, but their skulls are often remarkably different, and suggest that members of the two groups underwent radically different adaptations to predation during the course of evolution.

The field of robotics makes consistent progress but the great success of so far has been in automating repetitive tasks in process control and assembly, yielding dramatic cuts in production.

The next step - towards cognition and more human-like behavior - remains elusive. It has been difficult to make robots that can truly learn and adapt to unexpected situations in the way humans can, while it has been equally challenging trying to develop a machine capable of moving smoothly like any animal. There is still no robot capable of walking properly without jerky slightly unbalanced movements.

A recent conference, jointly organized by the European Science Foundation (ESF) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and held in Japan, was targeted at young researchers actively working in the fields of cognitive science and robotics.

Physicists from the University of Granada and University of Valencia, analyzing data sent by the Huygens probe from Titan, say they have “unequivocally” proved that there is natural electrical activity on Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons.

Scientists generally believe that the probability of organic molecules, precursors of life, being formed is higher on planets or moons which have an atmosphere with electrical storms.

Juan Antonio Morente, from the Department of Applied Physics at the University of Granada, told Servicio de Informacion y Noticias Cientificas(SINC) that Titan has been considered a “unique world in the solar system” since 1908 when, the Spanish astronomer, José Comas y Solá, discovered that it had an atmosphere, something non-existent on other moons.

Supported by the European Commission 7th Framework Programme of Information Society Technologies, the euroFOT integrated project launched in May and led by Ford involves 28 partners including major European vehicle manufacturers as well as leading automotive technology suppliers and research institutes and will be conducted over a period of 40 months.

In vertebrates with separate sexes, sex determination can be genotypic (GSD) or temperature-dependent (TSD). TSD is very common in reptiles, where the ambient temperature during sensitive periods of early development irreversibly determines whether an individual will be male or female. The number of males and females in a population is the sex ratio, a key demographic parameter crucial for population viability.

Some studies have suggested that TSD may also be very common in some species of fish, with increasing temperatures generally affecting the sex ratio of a species in one of three ways: increased numbers of males, increased numbers of females or increased numbers of males at high and low temperatures, with a balanced sex ratio at intermediate temperatures.

Sleep is regulated by two processes: circadian and homeostatic. Circadian regulation affects the timing of sleep, and the homeostatic mechanism affects the need for sleep.

While scientists and physicians know what happens if you don't get six to eight hours of sleep per night, investigators have long been puzzled about what controls the actual need for sleep. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine might have an answer, at least in fruit flies. In a recent study of fruit flies, they identified a gene that controls sleep.