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Chimpanzees have a gift for numbers
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Watch this video.It turns out that our evolutionary cousins can recall number placement better than people can. In the experiment, the task requires the chimp to touch the numbers in ascending order and he has only seconds to make his decisions. The numerals appeared only for a certain limited duration, and were then automatically replaced by white squares. After touching the number one, the rest of the numbers are obscured by squares, making the chimp reliant on his memory to correctly pick the numbers in the right order. After a whistle sounds, the numbers reappear in different positions, so the chimp has to remember the position of all nine numbers after seeing them only briefly. And the chimp quickly aces the test time and time again, r ...
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3249 |
bio_man |
10 years ago |
Can anyone whisper, evolution?
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Zookeepers at Central Park Zoo in the US assumed their cotton-top tamarins were falling silent every time someone entered their enclosure, but spectrograms, which provide visual representations of sound, revealed what was really going on. These little monkeys were actually whispering their alarm calls instead of shouting them, which is the first evidence of whispering in a non-human primate species.
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3066 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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2584 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Catch me if you can
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The relative speed is based on body length. The tiger beetle ( Cicindela hudsoni) run so fast, their eyes can’t process information as quickly as they need to and they temporarily blind themselves. Some sources claim that the tiger beetle can up to 9 km/hour! When attacking prey, the beetle will aim itself at its target and start running, but will need to stop and relocate the prey because it cannot keep an eye on it. Once it has reoriented itself, it charges forward again and hopes to run into the target. ...
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4403 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Next time you experience acne, try not to remember this
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Demodex folliculorum and Demodex brevisare are parasitic mites that particularly favour the hair follicles of eyebrows and eyelashes and measure a mere fraction of a millimeter long. They crawl about your face in the dark to mate and then crawl into the pores to lay their eggs and die. Healthy adults have around one or two mites per square centimetre of facial skin, though people with the condition rosacea can have 10 times more. Demodex does not have an anus and therefore cannot get rid of its faeces. Instead, their abdomen gets bigger and bigger, and when the mite dies it decomposes and releases its faeces all at once into the pore. ...
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5286 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Birds evolving from fish, a possibility?
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A flying fish moves its tail up to 70 times per second to propel itself up and out of the water. Those specialised pectoral fins are spread wide and tilted slightly upward to provide lift, and then folded back against the body to lower the fish back into the ocean. Flying fish (family: Exocoetidae) are eaten by dolphins, tuna, birds, squids and porpoises, so they needed to develop an ingenious mode of escape - such as flying - in order to survive.
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2881 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Ink poisoning
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Varieties of the inky cap mushroom can be around the world. While they are edible, ingesting alcohol while eating the mushrooms increases symptoms of nausea and vomiting, and can even cause a heart attack. After the mushroom has released its spores, the cap begins to liquefy. The thick black liquid that is seen dripping from the edges is how the inky cap got its name.
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4564 |
savio |
10 years ago |
So, chemistry is all theory, right?
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Using high-resolution atomic force microscopy, a hydrogen bond has been imaged for the first time. This technique is quite similar to the one used to photograph bonds breaking and reforming that was announced earlier this year.
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4732 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Gold comes in many different forms
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The Golden Tortoise beetle is found in the Americas. They feed on the leaves of plants related to the sweet potato, including the morning glory and bindweed, though they rarely eat enough to cause serious damage to the plant.
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5285 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Ever seen a potoo?
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Potoos are a small New World family of solitary and nocturnal birds. Most are so poorly known they seem more fiction than substance, their gruff or wailing cries ghostly delusions of the dim nocturnal world they inhabit.
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2738 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Why does airplane food taste strange?
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If you've been fortunate enough to fly on an airplane, you've probably noticed that the food tastes a bit strange. It turns out that it's not actually because of the food itself (even if you are sitting in economy) but the reduced atmospheric pressure on board and the dry nose and mouth we get from flying, says an expert.
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2753 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
A sculpture made from light
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This sculpture is constructed by quickly rotating a rope stretched from ceiling to floor through white light. The vibrating string becomes invisible, but the white light that’s being reflected off the rope becomes visible in an exchange that let’s our eyes see magic, as real as science can make it. The colors change and twist, forming double-helixes that stem from the shape of the swinging rope. Some of these light sculptures are small and handheld, but many of the larger ones include touch screens that allow viewers to adjust the beams. All of them are spinning at very high speeds that result in a constantly moving body of light. ...
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3606 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Beetles the size of period
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The water beetle is about 1 mm in length and has been named Hydraena ateneo. Most of the discoveries made in the Philippines occur in their forests, making this discovery even more surprising.
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3550 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Blue blood is quite costly
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Did you know one quart of horseshoe crab blood costs $15,000 dollars? The critter's blue blood is a sort of bacteria killing machine that clots around ‘invaders’, eliminating them and protecting horseshoe crabs from lethal infections. Researchers have been harnessing the power of this blue blood to test medical supplies for contamination.
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3716 |
savio |
10 years ago |
The nastiest cheese on earth
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Casu marzu is a traditional Sardinian sheep milk cheese, notable for containing live insect larvae. It is found almost exclusively in Sardinia, Italy. Casu marzu is created by leaving whole Pecorino cheeses outside with part of the rind removed to allow the eggs of the cheese fly Piophila casei to be laid in the cheese. A female P. casei can lay more than five hundred eggs at one time. The eggs hatch and the larvae begin to eat through the cheese. The acid from the maggots' digestive system breaks down the cheese's fats, making the texture of the cheese very soft; by the time it is ready for consumption, a typical casu marzu will contain thousands of these maggots. ...
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4071 |
savio |
10 years ago |