The Biology, Agriculture, and Paleontology thread

Paleo study shows how elevation may affect evolution: "About 34 million years ago, global temperatures took a dive, causing a sudden wave of extinctions among European mammals. In North America, however, life went on largely unscathed. A new study explains why: the rise of the Rocky Mountains had forced North American mammals to adapt to a colder, drier world."

Cooking up cognition: Study suggests chimps have cognitive capacity for cooking: "Many of the cognitive capacities that humans use for cooking — a preference for cooked food, the ability to understand the transformation of raw food into cooked food, and even the ability to save and transport food over distance for the purposes of cooking — are also shared with chimpanzees, new research suggests."

Prehistoric Bird Sported Feather 'Arrows' at Its Butt: "Remains of a Dinosaur Age bird with two tail feathers shaped like arrows have been found in Northeast Brazil.

The hummingbird-sized specimen, described in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications, reveals that early feathers were not just for flying, since the arrow-shaped feathers were not at all aerodynamically optimized."

Is my cat bitter, or does he just taste that way?: "For owners of picky cats, that disdainful sniff—signaling the refusal of yet another Friskies flavor—can be soul-crushing. Some cats are notoriously finicky eaters, but the reasons behind such fussy behavior remain fuzzy. Previous research has shown that cats can’t taste sweet flavors, but little is known about how they perceive bitter tastes. Now, researchers in the pet food industry have identified two bitter taste receptors in domestic cats, which could help explain why some felines are so choosy when it comes to their chow."

Pregnant pipefish fathers are not super dads: "Many aquatic species have a reputation for negligent parenting. Having cast their gametes to the currents, they abandon their offspring to their fate. However, hands-on parenting is taken to a whole new dimension in the Syngnathidae fish family. Instead of leaving the responsibility to the females, seahorse and pipefish males take the pledge to care for their young even before the eggs are fertilized. The females depart soon after placing their eggs directly into the male's brood pouch, leaving the soon-to-be fathers to incubate the developing embryos.

Ines Braga Goncalves from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, explains that the pregnant males support their offspring by removing the youngsters' waste and supplementing their nutrition, but it wasn't clear whether the males also provided the youngsters with an ample oxygen supply. Braga Goncalves explains that the lower availability of oxygen in water was believed to naturally limit the size of fish eggs and, as pipefish eggs are relatively large for the fish's size, it was assumed that the males somehow provided an abundant supply of oxygen, but no one had ever checked. Braga Goncalves and her colleagues Ingrid Ahnesjö from Uppsala University, Sweden, and Charlotta Kvarnemo from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have discovered that contrary to popular belief, pipefish dads supply much less oxygen than thought and they show that the fathers lose weight and body condition when oxygen is scarce."

edited 4th Jun '15 1:13:03 AM by rmctagg09

New species of horned dinosaur with 'bizarre' features revealed: "About 10 years ago, someone stumbled across some bones sticking out of a cliff along the Oldman River in southeastern Alberta, Canada. Now, scientists describe that those bones belonged to a nearly intact skull of a very unusual horned dinosaur — a close relative of the familiar Triceratops that had been unknown to science until now."

Planarian regeneration model discovered by artificial intelligence: "An artificial intelligence system has for the first time reverse-engineered the regeneration mechanism of planaria—the small worms whose extraordinary power to regrow body parts has made them a research model in human regenerative medicine.

The discovery by Tufts University biologists presents the first model of regeneration discovered by a non-human intelligence and the first comprehensive model of planarian regeneration, which had eluded human scientists for over 100 years. The work, published in the June 4, 2015, issue of PLOS Computational Biology, demonstrates how "robot science" can help human scientists in the future."

Archaeologists discover evidence of prehistoric gold trade route: "Archaeologists have found evidence of an ancient gold trade route between the south-west of the UK and Ireland. A study suggests people were trading gold between the two countries as far back as the early Bronze Age (2500 BC)."

Paleo-engineering: Complexity of triceratops' teeth revealed: "When it comes to the three-horned dinosaur called the Triceratops, science is showing the ancient creatures might have been a little more complex than we thought. In fact, their teeth were far more intricate than any reptile or mammal living today."

I'd suggest also reading the study attached, it goes into a lot more detail.

Evolution is unpredictable and irreversible, biologists show: "A study by biologists now provides evidence that, at the molecular level, evolution is both unpredictable and irreversible. The study focuses exclusively on the type of evolution known as purifying selection, which favors mutations that have no or only a small effect in a fixed environment. This is in contrast to adaptation, in which mutations are selected if they increase an organism's fitness in a new environment. Purifying selection is by far the more common type of selection."

Crows count on 'number neurons': "Neurobiologists have discovered cells in the crow brain that respond to a specific number of items. The study provides valuable insights into the biological roots of counting capabilities. What makes this finding even more interesting is that a long evolutionary history separates us from birds; as a consequence, the brains of crows and humans are designed very differently."

Dinosaur fossil investigation unlocks possible soft tissue treasure trove: "Scientists have found remnants that have some similarities to red blood cells and collagen fibres in fragments of dinosaur fossils."

Chimps can vary their smiles like humans: "A new study has revealed that chimpanzees have the same types of smiles as humans when laughing, which suggests these smile types evolved from positive expressions of ancestral apes."

Wild mongooses avoid inbreeding with unusual reproductive strategy: "Researchers studying banded mongooses in Uganda have discovered that these small mammals are able to discriminate between relatives and non-relatives to avoid inbreeding even when mating within their own closely related social group.

Inbreeding can be a big problem for social species such as banded mongooses because they grow up in social groups consisting mainly of close relatives. This study is the first to suggest that social animals are able to avoid the costs of inbreeding without relying on un-related mating partners from other social groups."

Spider and centipede venom evolved from insulin-like hormone: "Funnel-web spider venom contains powerful neurotoxins that instantly paralyze prey (usually insects). Millions of years ago, however, this potent poison was just a hormone that helped ancestors of these spiders regulate sugar metabolism, similar to the role of insulin in humans. Surprisingly, this hormone's weaponization occurred in arachnids as well as centipedes, but in different ways."

How the hawkmoth sees, hovers and tracks flowers in the dark: "Using high-speed infrared cameras and robotic flowers, scientists have learned how the hawkmoth juggles the complex sensing and control challenges of seeing in the dark, hovering in mid-air and tracking moving flowers. The work shows that the creatures can slow their brains to improve vision under low-light conditions — while continuing to perform demanding tasks."

Method reveals what bacteria sense in their surroundings: "A new, rapid method is helping detect how bacteria sense and respond to changes in their environment.

Bacteria can pick up external signals, which then relay to internal signaling pathways that direct their behavior. This surveillance also can trigger survival tactics for a variety of harsh situations, such as lack of nutrients or the presence of antibiotics.

In a cover article published June 9 in Science Signaling, microbiologists expressed particular interest in the sensing done by the food-poisoning bacteria, Salmonella. The pathogen is adept at adjusting to different locations and surrounding conditions. One of its safety strategies is to gather into a biofilm: a collection of bacteria huddled together in a protective coating."

World’s heaviest dinosaur just lost tons of weight: "Call it a downsizing of dinosaurian proportions. Last year, scientists described the near-complete fossil of a gigantic species of long-necked sauropod called Dreadnoughtus schrani. Using the dimensions of its leg bones and a formula that projected weight-carrying capacity, they estimated that the massive herbivore tipped the scales at about 59 metric tons, making it the heftiest dinosaur known from a relatively complete specimen. But now, a new analysis casts significant doubt on the previous weight estimate."

Polar Bears Are Eating Dolphins And Freezing The Leftovers: "Polar bears, Ursus maritimus, typically hunt ringed and bearded seals hanging out near sea ice, but they’re opportunistic predators and scavengers too. They’ve been known to dine on at least seven species of whale, for example, when they get the chance. Well here’s something new: on a small fjord in Svalbard, Norway, an adult male polar bear was spotted preying on two white-beaked dolphins. This is the first time that the species has been known to fall prey to polar bears and, as you can see in the photograph above, he started to cover the remains with snow. It looks like he was trying to freeze his leftovers. The work is described in Polar Research this week."

Underpinnings of drought tolerance in plants: Genome-wide analysis elucidates drought-tolerance system in Arabidopsis: "Drought is one of the most urgent environmental crises facing the world today. Scientists have now used a genome-wide approach to studying drought tolerance in plants and identified regulatory pathway that can be used to increase drought tolerance."

Stone tools from Jordan point to dawn of division of labor: Rich array of artifacts shows mix of techniques dating to early Upper Paleolithic: "Charcoal samples enable remarkably accurate estimates of 40,000 to 45,000 years ago for the earliest Upper Paleolithic stone tools in the Near East. The toolmakers appear to have achieved a division of labor that may have been part of an emerging pattern of more organized social structures."

Setting the circadian clock: First successful transplant of a circadian rhythm into a naturally non-circadian species: "Scientists have harnessed the circadian mechanism found in cyanobacteria to transplant the circadian wiring into a common species of bacteria that is naturally non-circadian. The novel work, which for the first time demonstrates the transplant of a circadian rhythm."

Entering a 'golden age' of animal tracking: "Animals wearing new tagging and tracking devices give a real-time look at their behavior and at the environmental health of the planet, say research."

What are you looking at? Dogs are able to follow human gaze: "Dogs are known to be excellent readers of human body language in multiple situations. Surprisingly, however, scientists have so far found that dogs do not follow human gaze into distant space. Scientists investigated how this skill of dogs is influenced by aging, habituation and formal training. The outcome: Gaze following to human gaze cues did not differ over the dogs' lifespan, however, formal training was found to directly influence gaze following in dogs."

Dogs snub people who are mean to their owners, study finds: "Dogs do not like people who are mean to their owners, Japanese researchers said Friday, and will refuse food offered by people who have snubbed their master.

The findings reveal that canines have the capacity to co-operate socially—a characteristic found in a relatively small number of species, including humans and some other primates."

Newfound groups of bacteria are mixing up the tree of life: "Bacteria, one of the three major branches of the tree of life, are a fuzzy bit of foliage. While scientists know there are many unidentified species, they have not been classified or characterized because no one can culture them. Now biologists have sequenced a community of bacteria, assembled almost 800 nearly complete genomes and found that many of them represent completely new phyla: more than 35 in all."

Tool use is 'innate' in chimpanzees but not bonobos, their closest evolutionary relative: "First evidence for a species difference in the innate predisposition for tool use in our closest evolutionary cousins could provide insight into how humans became the ultimate tool-using ape."

Why did the dinosaur cross the equator... but choose not to live there?: "For more than 30 million years after dinosaurs first appeared, they remained inexplicably rare near the equator, where only a few small-bodied meat-eating dinosaurs eked out a living. The age-long absence of big plant-eaters at low latitudes is one of the great, unanswered questions about the rise of the dinosaurs.

And now the mystery has a solution, according to an international team of scientists who pieced together a remarkably detailed picture of the climate and ecology more than 200 million years ago at Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico, a site rich with fossils from the Late Triassic Period.

The new findings show that the tropical climate swung wildly with extremes of drought and intense heat. Wildfires swept the landscape during arid regimes and continually reshaped the vegetation available for plant-eating animals.

Do insect societies share brain power?: "The cooperative or integrative aspects of insect colonies, such as information sharing among colony mates, can reduce the need for individual cognition in these societies, a new study suggests. Researchers compared social vs. solitary wasp species and found evidence that social brain evolution could dramatically different in insects than in vertebrates — where complex societies require bigger brains."

Evidence of key ingredient during dawn of life: "Scientists have provided the first direct experimental evidence for how primordial proteins developed the ability to accelerate the central chemical reaction necessary to synthesize proteins and thus allow life to arise not long after Earth was created."

Lefties are all right with kangaroos: "Kangaroos prefer to use one of their hands over the other for everyday tasks in much the same way that humans do, with one notable difference: generally speaking, kangaroos are lefties. The finding is the first to consider handedness in wild kangaroos, and challenges the notion that 'true' handedness among mammals is a feature unique to primates."

How bats actually fly to find their prey: "New research helps elucidate how bats actually fly to find their prey. Every night a bat puts in 600-700 kilometres of airtime. Flying low, the animals catch insects at speeds of around 40 metres per second. At night the bat uses its hearing to navigate its way to prey. Bats catch insects continuously using echolocation, an advanced navigation system."

Watch a Starfish Force a Microchip out of Its Body: "With built-in armor, inside-out stomachs and the power to regenerate lost limbs, starfish are fascinating creatures. They also apparently prefer not to be test subjects, as two biology students have recently discovered.

Much like microchips are implanted into pets to identify and track them, two students were tasked with injecting small tags into starfish to make them easily identifiable for further research.

But these starfish do not want to participate.

A few days later, the students found that the starfish were harmlessly spouting the tags out. The tags, traveling around the starfish without hitting any organs or harming the echinoderm, were being forced out of their arms.

Though researchers aren't quite sure how the starfish are doing this, their findings are described in a paper published in The Biological Bulletin."

Wolves are better hunters when monkeys are around: "Through a rare mixed-species association observed between a carnivorous predator and a potential prey, biologists have identified that solitary Ethiopian wolves will forage for rodents among grazing gelada monkey herds."

Silent flights: How owls could help make wind turbines and planes quieter: "An investigation into how owls fly and hunt in silence has enabled researchers to develop a prototype coating for wind turbine blades that could significantly reduce the amount of noise they make.

Early tests of the material, which mimics the intricate structure of an owl's wing, have demonstrated that it could significantly reduce the amount of noise produced by wind turbines and other types of fan blades, such as those in computers or planes. Since wind turbines are heavily braked in order to minimise noise, the addition of this new surface would mean that they could be run at much higher speeds - producing more energy while making less noise. For an average-sized wind farm, this could mean several additional megawatts worth of electricity."

Birds of a feather: Pigeon head crest findings extend to domesticated doves: "A few years ago biologists found that a prominent change in pigeon plumage, head crests, could be traced to a mutation in a single gene. Now the research team has found an almost exact repeat in the evolutionary playbook in distantly related doves."

Dinosaur tracks reconstructed: "Twelve years ago, footprints of carnivorous dinosaurs were discovered and excavated in a quarry near Goslar. Paleontologists have now created a three-dimensional digital model based on photographs of the excavation. The reconstruction of the discovery site suggests that carnivorous dinosaurs hunted herbivorous island-dwelling dinosaurs about 154 million years ago. They believe the predators could have immigrated via a land bridge as sea levels dropped."

Darwin's finches have reached their limits on the Galapagos Islands: "The evolution of birds on the Galapagos Islands, the cradle of Darwin's theory of evolution, is a two-speed process. Most bird species are still diversifying, while the famous Darwin's finches have already reached an equilibrium, in which new species can only appear when an existing one becomes extinct. This finding expands the classical theory on island evolution put forward in the 1960s."

Forgotten fossil indicates earlier origin of teeth: "A tiny tooth plate of the 410 million year old fossil fish Romundina stellina indicates that teeth evolved earlier in the tree of life than recently thought. Jaws and teeth have been important innovations in the evolution of vertebrate animals. More than 98% of vertebrate animals have jaws."

Rainbow of glowing corals discovered in depths of the Red Sea: "Glowing corals that display a surprising array of colours have been discovered in the deep water reefs of the Red Sea by scientists from the University of Southampton, UK, Tel Aviv University and the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences (IUI), Israel, together with an international team of researchers.

The researchers, whose findings have been published online today in research journal PLOS ONE, hope that some of the coral pigments could be developed into new imaging tools for medical applications."

Why parrots are great vocal imitators: "Scientists have uncovered key structural differences in parrot brains that may help explain why this group of bird species can mimic speech and songs so well. These brain structures went unrecognized in studies published in the past 34 years. The results may lend insight into the neural mechanisms of human speech."

After 50 years, scientists discover head of the insane Hallucigenia 'worm': "Sometimes it's hard to tell what an animal looks like when it's been extinct for over 400 million years — just ask Hallucigenia. Scientists have studied the thumb-sized worm for more than 50 years now, and have only just discovered which end is the head.

A new model for the creature includes a ring of teeth around its mouth, a simple pair of eyes, and a foregut lined with tiny little teeth. The discovery means that Hallucigenia not only makes sense now — it’s also way scarier than we thought."

That's a disturbing sentence.

Finally!

Chimps are sensitive to what is right and wrong: "How a chimpanzee views a video of an infant chimp from another group being killed gives a sense of how human morality and social norms might have evolved. A new study provides the first evidence that chimpanzees, like humans, are sensitive to the appropriateness of behaviors, especially those directed toward infants."

Starfish that clone themselves live longer: "Starfish that reproduce through cloning avoid aging to a greater extent than those that propagate through sexual reproduction."

Are there any specific numbers on the average widths of particular constrictor snake species/genera? Google-fu doesn't seem to be cooperative today.

On a different note, I'm proposing that we rename this thread to "The Zoology Thread" or "The Animal Thread" (this one risks confusion with a similarly named but otherwise dead thread in Yack Fest).

edited 27th Jun '15 7:45:24 PM by MarqFJA

Personally I'm partial to the Biology, Agriculture, and Paleontology thread.

Songbirds have a thing for patterns: "You might think that young children would first learn to recognize sounds and then learn how those categories of sounds fit together into words. But that isn't how it works. Rather, kids learn sounds and words at the same time. Now, researchers present evidence from European starlings showing that songbirds learn their songs in much the same way."

Rats 'dream' paths to a brighter future: "When rats rest, their brains simulate journeys to a desired future such as a tasty treat. Researchers monitored brain activity in rats, first as the animals viewed food in a location they could not reach, then as they rested in a separate chamber, and finally as they were allowed to walk to the food. The activity of specialized brain cells involved in navigation suggested that during the rest the rats simulated walking to and from food that they had been unable to reach."

Attractive female flies harmed by male sexual attention: "Too much male sexual attention harms attractive females, according to a new study on fruit flies. The study showed that male harassment of females hampered the species' ability to adapt to new environmental conditions."

edited 27th Jun '15 8:01:04 PM by rmctagg09

Exit dinosaurs, enter fishes: "A pair of paleobiologists have determined that the world's most numerous and diverse vertebrates — ray-finned fishes — began their ecological dominance of the oceans 66 million years ago, aided by the mass extinction event that killed off dinosaurs."

Spiky monsters: New species of 'super-armored' worm: "A newly-identified species of spike-covered worm with legs, which lived 500 million years ago, was one of the first animals on Earth to develop armor for protection."

Key element of human language discovered in bird babble: "Stringing together meaningless sounds to create meaningful signals was previously thought to be the preserve of humans alone, but a new study has revealed that babbler birds are also able to communicate in this way."

How petunias know when to smell good: "A team of biologists has identified a key mechanism plants use to decide when to release their floral scents to attract pollinators. Their findings connect the production and release of these fragrant chemicals to the innate circadian rhythms that pulse through all life on Earth."

Scientists program solitary yeast cells to say 'hello' to one another: "Researchers have produced cell-to-cell communication in baker's yeast — a first step in learning to build multicellular organisms or artificial organs from scratch."

Study finds males may contribute to offspring's mental development before pregnancy: "A new study from Indiana University provides evidence in mice that males may play a positive role in the development of offspring's brains starting before pregnancy.

The research, reported July 30 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, found that female mice exposed to male pheromones gave birth to infants with greater mental ability.

'This is the first study to show that pheromone exposure exerts an influence across generations in mammals,' said Sachiko Koyama, an associate research scientist at the IU Bloomington Medical Sciences Program and visiting scientist at the IU College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, who led the study."

Creating a stopwatch for volcanic eruptions: "Why is the seahorse's tail square? An international team of researchers has found the answer and it could lead to building better robots and medical devices. In a nutshell, a tail made of square, overlapping segments makes for better armor than a cylindrical tail. It's also better at gripping and grasping."

First comprehensive analysis of the woolly mammoth genome completed: "The first comprehensive analysis of the woolly mammoth genome reveals extensive genetic changes that allowed mammoths to adapt Arctic life, including skin and hair development, insulin signaling, fat biology, and even traits such as small ears and short tails. A mammoth gene for temperature sensation was resurrected in the lab as a functional test."

What bee-killing mites can teach us about parasite evolution: "An infestation of speck-sized Varroa destructor mites can wipe out an entire colony of honey bees in two to three years if left untreated. Pesticides help beekeepers rid their hives of these parasitic arthropods, which feed on the blood-like liquid inside of their hosts and lay their eggs on larvae, but mite populations become resistant to the chemicals over time."

Seafaring spiders depend on their 'sails' and 'anchors': "Spiders travel across water like ships, using their legs as sails and their silk as an anchor, according to new research. The study helps explain how spiders are able to migrate across vast distances and why they are quick to colonize new areas."

Surprising culinary preferences of an abyssal sea anemone: "The surprising culinary preferences of an abyssal sea anemone have been unveiled by a team of scientists from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC).

New time-lapse photography of the abyssal sea floor shows that this type of anemone can eat animals up to six times its weight and moves around the ocean floor by burrowing. The lead author of this study, Jennifer Durden, a PhD student at the NOC, explained that these heavy meals can take the anemone up to 80 hours to digest. The abyss is the term given to any area of the sea floor below 3000 metres from the sea-surface."

Old World monkey had tiny, complex brain: "The brain hidden inside the oldest known Old World monkey skull has been visualized for the first time. The ancient monkey, known as Victoriapithecus, first made headlines in 1997 when its 15 million-year-old skull was discovered on an island in Kenya's Lake Victoria. Now, X-ray imaging reveals that the creature's brain was tiny but surprisingly wrinkled and complex. The findings suggest that brain complexity can evolve before brain size in the primate family tree."

Considering many of earth's smartest animals have the smallest brains for their body size (elephants, orcas, crocodiles, crows, Komodo dragons, great white sharks, jumping siders, etc) this should have been obvious.

Using sonar to navigate: Bats do it, dolphins do it, and now humans can do it, too: "Bats have been using sonar to navigate and communicate for ages, and now humans can do the same, thanks to lightweight and efficient ultrasound microphones and loudspeakers developed by physicists. The devices owe their flat frequency response to graphene, which makes a stiff and responsive diaphragm far superior to those in today's ultrasound receivers and transmitters. Biologists can even slap one on a bat to record its nightly ultrasonic conversations."