A Blog Around The Clock

Synthetic Adhesive Mimics Sticking Powers Of Gecko And Mussel:

Geckos are remarkable in their ability to scurry up vertical surfaces and even move along upside down. Their feet stick but only temporarily, coming off of surfaces again and again like a sticky note. But put those feet underwater, and their ability to stick is dramatically reduced.

Monkeys Don't Go For Easy Pickings: Study Shows Primates Consider More Than Distance When Searching For Food:

Animals' natural foraging decisions give an insight into their cognitive abilities, and primates do not automatically choose the easy option. Instead, they appear to decide where to feed based on the quality of the resources available and the effect on their social group, rather than simply selecting the nearest food available.

Foxes Get Frisky In The Far North: First Genetic Evidence Of Polyandry With Multiple Paternity Found:

Bees do it, chimps do it... Now it seems Arctic foxes do it, too. New research looking at the DNA fingerprints of canids in the Far North has revealed that foxes once thought to be monogamous are in fact quite frisky.

Flying Precisely: Fruit Fly Research May 'Clean Up' Conventional Impressions Of Biology:

The metamorphosis of biology into a science offering numerically precise descriptions of nature has taken a leap forward with a Princeton team's elucidation of a key step in the development of fruit fly embryos -- discoveries that could change how scientists think not just about flies, but about life in general.

What Determines The Speed At Which Birds Fly?:

Aerodynamic scaling rules that explain how flight varies according to weight and wing loading have been used to compare general speeds of a wide range of flyers, from the smallest insects to the largest aircraft. In a paper published this week in the open access journal PLoS Biology, Thomas Alerstam, Mikael Rosen, and colleagues from the University of Lund in Sweden analyze the flight speeds of 138 bird species and overturn the general assumption that maximum flight speed of a species is solely determined by such rules. Flight speed doesn't just depend on the size of the bird (mass and wing loading), but also reflects functional constraints and the evolutionary lineage of the species in question.

Study Identifies Energy Efficiency As Reason For Evolution Of Upright Walking:

A new study provides support for the hypothesis that walking on two legs, or bipedalism, evolved because it used less energy than quadrupedal knucklewalking.

Miraculous Mosquito Legs:

Mosquitoes walk on water better than water striders, cling to smooth ceilings and walls as tightly as geckos, and clutch the skin of their victims with annoying tenacity in search of blood. Now a collaboration of physicists from Dalian University in China and Simon Fraser University in Canada are looking beyond the insect's pesky reputation to discover how the tiny creatures manage to be so comfortable on such a diverse range of surfaces.

Rounding Up Rodeo Injuries Helps Prevention:

Every other sport has one, except for the sport that may need it the most. This summer, University of Calgary sports epidemiologist Dale Butterwick, a leader in the field of rodeo injury study and treatment, is opening a registry for catastrophic injuries in pro rodeo to get a better idea of how frequently cowboys around the world are seriously hurt.

Bernese Mountain Dogs Prone To Infection By Lyme Disease-related Bacteria:

Borrelia burgdorferi seem to be particularly successful at infecting Bernese Mountain Dogs, according to research published in the online open access journal BMC Veterinary Research. Swiss researchers found that more than half of the dogs they tested were infected with the spiral-shaped bacteria, which are passed on by ticks and can also cause Lyme disease in humans.

Natural Selection At Work In Dramatic Comeback Of Male Butterflies:

An international team of researchers has documented a remarkable example of natural selection in a tropical butterfly species that fought back - genetically speaking - against a highly invasive, male-killing bacteria. Within 10 generations that spanned less than a year, the proportion of males of the Hypolimnas bolina butterfly on the South Pacific island of Savaii jumped from a meager 1 percent of the population to about 39 percent. The researchers considered this a stunning comeback and credited it to the rise of a suppressor gene that holds in check the Wolbachia bacteria, which is passed down from the mother and selectively kills males before they have a chance to hatch.

New Data About The Laws Governing Embryo Development In Organisms Emerge:

Research aimed at understanding the mechanisms underlying embryo development has taken a step forward thanks to collaborative work between biologists specialized in the study of the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) and scientists specialized in the design of mathematical models that simulate the functioning of biological systems.