Ecology & Zoology

Don't Blame Grey Squirrels For Their British Invasion- Blame British Royalty

DNA profiling reveals grey squirrels are not as good invaders as we think, and that humans played a much larger role in spreading them through the UK. Grey squirrels were imported to the UK from the 1890s onwards, and the traditional view is that they spr ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 26 2016 - 4:30pm

Magnetic Compass Of Birds Affected By Polarized Light

The magnetic compass that birds use for orientation is affected by polarized light. This previously unknown phenomenon was discovered by researchers at Lund University in Sweden. The discovery that the magnetic compass is affected by the polarization dire ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 26 2016 - 3:57pm

Nature Is Mean, Shows Extinction Of Giant Australian Bird

The belief by Western elites that ancient people lived in some sort of harmony with the land, a belief popular for the last century, has been punctured again. ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 29 2016 - 10:50am

Horses Can Read Human Emotions

Horses have been shown to be able to distinguish between angry and happy human facial expressions, according to psychologists who studied how 28 horses reacted to seeing photographs of positive versus negative human facial expressions. ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 9 2016 - 9:21pm

25 Signs Your Cat Could Be In Pain

Cat owners tare familiar with their pets’ individual personalities, habits and preferences, and they can tell when the behavior is different than normal, but understanding what these changes mean can be much more difficult. ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 28 2016 - 9:55am

Bats In Asia Resitant To White-Nose Syndrome Fungus

As the deadly bat disease called white-nose syndrome continues to spread across North America, scientists are studying bats in China to understand how they are able to survive infections with the same fungus that has wiped out millions of North American b ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 9 2016 - 8:30am

Chemical Fingerprints Implicate Wind Turbines Killing Bats

Thanks to government mandates and ongoing subsidies, wind energy has become more popular, and one impact of large-scale wind energy development has been widespread mortality of bats. A new study tracks down the origin of bats killed by wind turbines in th ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 17 2016 - 9:18am

Green Light Stops Sea Turtle Deaths

Illuminating fishing nets is a cost-effective means of dramatically reducing the number of sea turtles getting caught and dying unnecessarily, conservation biologists at the University of Exeter have found. Dr Jeffrey Mangel, a Darwin Initiative research ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 25 2016 - 8:29am

The Withering Process

During their life, plants constantly renew themselves. They sprout new leaves in the spring and shed them in the fall. No longer needed, damaged or dead organs such as blossoms and leaves are also cast off by a process known as abscission. By doing so, pl ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 18 2016 - 8:30am

Are Lab Mice Too Cold? It Makes A Difference In Science

A typical mouse laboratory is kept between 20 and 26 degrees C, but if the mice had it their way, it would be a warm 30 degrees C. While the mice are still considered healthy at cooler temperatures, they expend more energy to maintain their core temperatu ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 19 2016 - 12:19pm