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This gender-bender exhibits strange behaviour
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This bird might look like a holiday ornament, but it is actually a rare half-female, half-male northern cardinal, with female plumage on the left and male on the right. A new study suggests being half-and-half carries consequences: The cardinal didn’t have a mate, and observers never heard it sing.
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16085 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Ever seen an albino turtle? Check this out
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This rare albino green sea turtle just hatched on a beach in Queensland, Australia. Albinism is the congenital absence of any pigmentation or coloration in a person, animal or plant, resulting in white hair and pink eyes in mammals. Unfortunately, albinism can reduce the survivability of an animal, and the same can be said about this baby turtle. For example, it has been suggested that albino alligators have an average survival span of only 24 hours due to the lack of protection from UV and their lack of camouflage to avoid predators. ...
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16079 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Tricking your brain into thinking you're in a room full of sunlight
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There’s an innovative new light technology that's trying to change the way people think about "artificial light." In Italian company called CoeLux has developed a new light source that recreates the look of sunlight through a skylight so well that it can trick both human brains and cameras. It’s a high tech LED skylight that’s designed to provide "sunlight" for interior spaces cut off from the outdoors. One of the main ideas behind it is that to create realistic sunlight, you can’t just simulate the sun… you need to recreate the atmosphere as well. The scientists who invented the light figured out how to use a thin coating of nanoparticles to accurately simulate sunlight through Earth’s atmosphere and the effect known as Rayleigh scattering ...
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16028 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
When apes sue humans
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In December 2013, four captive chimpanzees in the state of New York became the first nonhuman primates in history to sue their human captors in an attempt to gain their freedom. The chimps' lawyers, members of a recently formed organization known as the Nonhuman Rights Project, were asking a judge to grant their clients the basic right to not be imprisoned illegally. The judges of the New York lawsuits ultimately dismissed them all on the grounds that the plaintiffs aren't people. The appeals are ongoing. ...
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15649 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Ever seen a hairy rhinoceros?
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Sumatran rhinoceroses are believed to be the oldest surviving rhino species - and the closest surviving relative of woolly rhinos, which died off 10 000 years ago. Apart from being the smallest rhino, they're completely covered in hair (shown above), especially the young ones. Their hair is very soft and they also sound like humpback whales when you hear them, making them incredibly cute.
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15597 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Tails designed to fool
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The green wings of luna moths, with their elegant, long tails, aren't just about style. New research finds they also help save the insects from becoming bat snacks by creating a distracting acoustic signal, which causes these predators to zero in on the wings rather than more vital body parts.
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15594 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
How to learn anything using the Feynman Technique
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Richard P. Feynman (1918 - 1988) was a New York City born, Nobel Prize winner in Physics in 1965. He was an American theoretical physicist known for his work in quantum mechanics, as well as in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model. Feynman developed a widely used pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions governing the behavior of subatomic particles, which later became known as Feynman diagrams (below). His passion for science and education later lead him to develop a universal learning model, now called the Feynman Technique, that could help you learn practically anything no matter how difficult or complicated. As long you or the educator uses simple terminology (no complicated words or terms), you ...
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15483 |
duddy |
7 years ago |
Regal ringneck snake
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This is the regal ringneck snake ( Diadophis punctatus regalis), a subspecies of ringneck snake endemic to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Unlike other subspecies of ringneck snakes, the regal ringneck is almost exclusively ophiophagous, meaning that it has a diet that consists almost entirely of other snakes. They have a weak venom that serves to immobilize their small prey, but is harmless to humans.
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15389 |
bio_man |
11 years ago |
Up-close view of a frog eye
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This is the semi-transparent eyelid of the red-eyed tree frog, Agalychnis Callidryas. Frogs aren't the only creatures with 'third eyelids' that keep their eyes moist without blocking vision completely. Sharks, cats, crocodiles, polar bears and camels have them too.
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15365 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Watch this mysterious lake disappear before your eyes
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Lost Lake, located in central Oregon, is known for rapidly draining every year through a six-foot (two-meter) wide hole in the lake's bottom (as shown in the video). Early in the following spring, however, the lake fills up again, as snowmelt from the surrounding mountains accumulates faster than water can drain out through the hole. That hole is really a lava tube - a geologic feature made when lava cools around the edges of a river of molten rock. After the hot lava drains away, it can leave an empty space. ...
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15216 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
The world's most vintage dress
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You're looking at the world’s oldest woven linen garment called the Tarkhan Dress. At 5100 to 5500 years old, it dates to the dawn of the kingdom of Egypt. After it was found in the early 1900s, archeologists have concluded that it signals the complexity and wealth of the ancient society that produced it. The rips at the bottom of the garment also suggests that it probably fell past the knees originally. A handful of garments of similar age have survived to the present day, but those were simply wrapped or draped around the body. The Tarkhan dress, on the other hand, is ancient haute couture. With its tailored sleeves, V-neck, and narrow pleats, it would look perfectly at home in a modern department store. ...
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14587 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Could I borrow your head for a second?
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A 30-year-old Russian man has announced that he will volunteer to transplant his head onto another person's body. Earlier this year, Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero outlined the transplant technique he intends to follow in the journal Surgical Neurology International, a procedure that is predicted to last 36 hours, and requiring the assistance of 150 doctors and nurses. "I would not wish this on anyone," says top surgeon. Watch Dr. Sergio Canavero speak about head transplantation below. ...
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14271 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
One shiny, golden bug
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Nicknamed ‘goldenbugs’, this pretty little molten gold beetle is the golden tortoise beetle ( Charidotella sexpunctata). It grows to around 5.0 to 7.0 mm in length and favour foods such as sweet potato and morning glory. Strangely, it can completely change colour while having sex. ...
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14179 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Why do humans have chins?
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What sets Homo sapiens apart from other animals? Among other things, our chins do. That piece of bone sticking out from your jaw is somewhat of a mystery - one that's inspired a diversity of wild theories to explain its purpose, according to a paper published this month in Evolutionary Anthropology. The author of the paper dismisses a number of these explanations, such as the possibility that the chin serves as a sexual signal (such traits usually only appear in one sex - like the mane of a male lion). Another proposal is that the chin acts to protect your throat - an idea the paper's author also shoots down, because for this to be a substantial advantage, humans would have to be constantly punching each other in the face. So the mystery rem ...
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14026 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
A classic parasitic-host relationship
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This lady beetle (Coccinellidae) is protecting its enemy. The cocoon between its legs holds a parasitoid wasp larva ( Dinocampus coccinellae), which fed on the beetle’s insides before bursting from its belly. Researchers have discovered what makes the beetles act as babysitters: They are infected with a brain-controlling virus. When the larva emerges and spins its cocoon, the virus makes the beetle freeze in place, protecting the baby wasp from predators. ...
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13681 |
duddy |
8 years ago |