Monthly Archives: June 2010
Pigeons carry harmful pathogens
Feral pigeons could be asymptomatic or subclinical carriers of the pathogens Chlamydophila psittaci and Campylobacter jejuni, responsible for acute diarrhea in humans. The scientists tested a total of 118 pigeons, captured using gun-propelled nets during 2006-2007, from the public parks and gardens in Madrid, Spain. Blood and enema samples were analysed and screened for the [...]
Brain’s Expectations
A damaged prefrontal cortex leads to impaired preparation and reaction speeds in response to a stimulus. The brain’s right prefrontal cortex is responsible for anticipation and quick reactions to stimuli. This is involved in preparing for an event before it actually occurs. Research at the University of Granada has investigated the impact of damage to [...]
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Natural selection in favour of specialisation
Despite outliving the Ice Age, the Hundsheim rhinoceros rapidly disappeared without any effective changes to its environment, becoming foe to two more specialised and less ecologically-diverse rhino species that monopolized the food supply in particular climates. German researchers at the Senckenberg Research Institute and the University of Hamburg have explained why, after almost a million [...]
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Life on Mars? New evidence reinvigorates old questions.
High-levels of carbonate minerals suggest a more favourable environment for life in the Red Planet’s past. Findings from ‘Spirit’, one of NASA’s Mars Rovers, hints at a warm, wet climate on Mars some four billion years ago. This hypothesis, although first postulated decades ago, has now been lent credence by dedicated analysis of the Rover’s [...]
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Scientists create artificial mini black hole
Chinese researchers at the Southeast University in Nanjing have successfully built an electromagnetic absorbing device for microwave frequencies. They have utilised the special properties of metamaterials- a class of ordered composites which can distort light and other waves. The device, officially called an ‘omnidirectional electromagnetic absorber’, consists of a thin cylinder containing 60 strips of [...]
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Reef restoration: cheap and simple solutions
Researchers from the University of Rhode Island have found that coral reef conservation can be achieved successfully through transplantation of fragmented corals. Asexual reproduction by fragmentation is the most common form of reproduction in natural populations of Elkhorn corals. Branches break off due to for example wave action in storms and some branches establish on [...]
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Call for citizen scientists
An international team with researchers fthe UK, Australia and China consider how our views of biodiversity can be distorted by the data we look at. With 2010 being the Year of Biodiversity, the question of how to measure the current state of biodiversity and monitor changes is particularly relevant. To understand how different sources contribute [...]
Disease resistance; not always a bonus.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Developmental Biology in Germany have explained an evolutionary dilemma in Nature. Plants, which are resistant to pathogens, grow more slowly and are less competitive than their susceptible relatives when enemies are rare or absent. The group of Detlef Weigel studied mouse ear cress (Arabidopsis thaliana), which grows in [...]
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Bold geese trust themselves
A team of researchers from the Netherlands have fround that the personality of barnacle geese can affect how they use social information. As many dog owners attest, animals have a personality. Ecologists define animal personality as a behaviour that is consistent over time and in different contexts. In this study, ‘boldness’ was measured by how [...]
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The Casanova antidote: how testosterone increases skepticism in women’s perception of men