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33868 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Some birds are afraid of butterflies
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It turns out that butterflies with eyelike spots evolved to scare off predators. A recent study concluded that about 68% of the birds that were shown an image with eye-mimicking spots, flew away or showed signs of being startled such as chirping a warning call as they flew in for food (within a controlled setting). That’s on par with the 57% showing the same reactions to the owl with open eyes, the research team notes. The full study can be analyzed in the link below: Source: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1806/20150202 ...
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31753 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Try dates, not honey
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While they are super sweet, syrup made from this ancient fruit has antibacterial compounds that are more effective than honey. In case you've never had it or seen it before, dates are a thick, dark brown, and super-sweet fruit used in Middle Eastern cuisine. New research suggests that date syrup contains chemical compounds that help ward off a number of bacterial infections, including those caused by Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. This was discovered after scientists inhibited the growth of these pathogens for about six hours, which researchers say is faster than manuka honey - a honey known for its antibacterial and wound healing properties. ...
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29867 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
How to tell the best joke
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According to a new study, it's your voice that is to blame if your joke ever falls flat. Researchers recorded men and women telling corny one-liners and then manipulated the pitches of their voices. Artificially lowered voices made the speakers sound more dominant; higher pitched voices made them sound less so. Volunteer listeners then rated each joke’s funniness. Female listeners laughed or groaned regardless of the comic’s voice pitch, but for men it depended on how burly and dominant they were. Guys with bigger biceps and higher self-rated attractiveness were more likely to prefer lower-pitched jokes than less dominant listeners, and vice versa, according to a study in press in Evolution and Human Behavior. The researchers suggest humor ...
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25487 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
This newly discovered bat has one LONG tongue
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The researchers found the bizarre tube-lipped nectar bat ( Anoura fistulata) - the first record of this species in the park. Described in Ecuador just a decade ago and known from only three records. It has the longest tongue in relation to its size of any mammal - stretching 8.5 cm to reach into the deepest flowers. PS: I added the picture of Dorian (villain from The Mask) below it simply because it was the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw the picture. ...
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22341 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Surfing spider discovered
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The creature you see above is a spider that can actually surf on top of waves and hunt for a wide variety of animals including not only insects but also fish and toads. Dubbed the Dolomedes briangreenei, this species of spider floats on top of water and senses vibrations below to detect potential prey. The spider can even submerge itself underwater for up to an hour to hunt down prey, which makes it doubly frightening for any creatures caught in its path. The largest animals that the spider has been known to eat are cane toads, which can measure up to nine inches in length. For comparison, the D. briangreenei is about the size of a human palm. ...
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21349 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
What some fish will do to survive
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Shallow waters will sometimes get too hot, forcing one fish to make a break for the shore. The tiny mangrove rivulus (shown above) avoids neurological damage from hot swamps by escaping to land. Retreating to land allows the fish to cool down through a process called evaporative cooling, which is akin to human sweating but using water from the environment. Previously, scientists had suggested that the fish, besides simply escaping hot water, might be taking advantage of evaporative cooling. Source: http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/11/10/20150689 ...
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20479 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Hair loss no more - a promising treatment for baldness
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Isn't it strange, two FDA-approved drugs - topical ruxolitinib or tofacitinib - can reawaken dormant hair follicles! According to the study, within 3 weeks, mice that received topical ruxolitinib or tofacitinib had regrown nearly all their hair (right photo; drug was applied only to the right side of the mouse). Little to no hair growth occurred in control mice during the same timeframe (left photo). According to researchers at Columbia University Medical Center, inhibiting a family of enzymes inside hair follicles that are suspended in a resting state restores hair growth. These drugs, known as JAK inhibitors have been approved to treat blood diseases (ruxolitinib) and the other for rheumatoid arthritis (tofacitinib). Both are being tested ...
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20470 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Bacteria spray gun
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In the reproductive tract of the Hawaiian bobtail squid, there is a mysterious gland that releases bacteria that protect the squid’s eggs from fungus. When researchers applied antibiotics to freshly-laid squid eggs, fuzzy fungus soon moved in, smothering the eggs of the gemlike creatures. For more information, visit: http://www.nap.edu/read/13500/chapter/2#15 ...
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18248 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Mosquitoes have preferences too
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According to a new study published in the journal PLOS One, it was found that identical twins are equally attractive to mosquitoes than fraternal - or non-identical - twins. This correlation lead researchers to conclude that mosquitoes might be making preferential choices based on differences in our DNA. What causes this preferences? While it may be nice to believe that that mosquitoes are attracted to "sweeter blood", it's not true at all. Female mosquitoes - the ones that bite, in order to get protein necessary for egg development - are actually drawn to us by chemical signals related to body odour. ...
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17845 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Tiniest snails you'll ever see!
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Angustopila dominikae is the only known specimen measuring the astounding 0.86 mm in shell height. That means ten of them could fit into the eye of a large sewing needle at the same time! Until now, the smallest known land snail was a thai species measuring about 0.9 millimeters long. Researchers believe that it probably feeds on microorganisms and may be hermaphroditic. However, because the team didn’t recover any DNA, a lot of uncertainly remains. ...
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17717 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Pluto up-close
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Taken from a range of just 17 000 km, these images were snapped during the spacecraft's closest approach to Pluto, from its flyby of the dwarf planet in July this year. They document an 80-kilometre strip of the planet's surface, offering an intimate perspective of its cratered, mountainous and glacial terrains. The photos scan from Pluto's jagged horizon about 800 kilometres north-west of the informally named Sputnik Planum, across the al-Idrisi mountains, over the shoreline of Sputnik, and across its icy plains. Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-05/new-pluto-close-ups-to-help-nasa-piece-together-planets-history/7004516 ...
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17370 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Balding? Try deliberately plucking your hair
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While it may sound counter-intuitive, new research suggests that selectively plucking hairs in very close proximity can stimulate some startlingly dense regrowth. The team behind the study, led by researchers at the University of Southern California, demonstrated that by carefully extracting 200 hairs, one-by-one, from the back of a mouse in a specific configuration and density, they could trigger the growth of around 1,200 new hairs in the area - a five-fold increase. The biological mechanism is shown below: While it's very early days, the researchers say their findings, which were reported in the journal Cell, could pave the way for new treatments for balding, or alopecia. ...
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17061 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Time to update the science textbooks
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The periodic table has been given four new elements, changing one of science’s most fundamental pieces of knowledge. Elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 will now be added to the table’s seventh row and make it complete, after they were verified by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry on December 30 th. The new elements were discovered by team from Japan, Russia and the USA, who will all get to name their own new elements. All of the four new admissions are man-made. The super-heavy elements are created by shoving lighter nuclei into each other and are found in the radioactive decay - which only exists for a tiny fraction of a second before they decay into other elements. The elements have been worked on since at least 2004, when st ...
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16544 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Glow-in-the-dark shark
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Meet the ninja lanternshark. It's a newly discovered animal that's really weird. It hides in the deep - and its black skin keeps it camouflaged - but it also glows in the dark. The ninja lanternshark was discovered by a team at the Pacific Shark Research Centre, in Moss Landing, California. Its official Latin name is Etmopterus benchleyi, after Jaws author Peter Benchley. The ninja lanternshark is roughly half a metre, or 18 inches long, and it lives at a depth of about 1,000 metres off the Pacific Coast of Central America. Its odd combo of dark and light helps it creep up on its prey, according to its discoverers. ...
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16484 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
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