A Blog Around The Clock

EDGE Amphibians: World's Weirdest Creatures Just Got Weirder:

A gigantic, ancient relative of the newt, a drawing-pin sized frog, a limbless, tentacled amphibian and a blind see-through salamander have all made it onto a list of the world's weirdest and most endangered creatures.

Scientists Look At Those In Evolutionary Race Who Don't Make It 'Out Of The Gate':

In the race of evolution, scientists until now have only looked at winners and losers. Now, they've come up with a way to look at the contenders who never made it out of the gate. It's the organisms -- in this case lizards -- that die early in life, before scientists can even assess what they might bring to the reproduction game, and that have gone uncounted in the effort to quantify genetic fitness. This group has been dubbed the "invisible fraction." Andrew McAdam, assistant professor of fisheries and wildlife and zoology at Michigan State University, has co-authored a paper in the Jan. 23 Proceedings of the Royal Society which brings that elusive fraction to light.

World's Aging Population To Defuse War On Terrorism:

Changing demographic trends will impact the future of international relations, according to the latest issue of Public Policy & Aging Report (PP&AR). Several hotbed areas in the world that offer the motive and opportunity for political violence are due to stabilize by the year 2030.

How Much You're Willing To Pay Depends On What You Were Just Doing:

Your shopping buddy turns to you and asks, "Which one of these would you get?" Or, you're talking with your spouse about which candidate you'd like to vote for before switching on the nightly news. Turns out simply being asked to make a choice-- especially if you're in a hurry or have something on your mind -- will make you like the next thing you see more, says a new study from the Journal of Consumer Research. The researchers found that asking people to choose among things primed them to think about positive attributes -- and caused them to be in a positive frame of mind when evaluating the next item they saw.

Extinct Marsupial Lion Tops African Lion In Fight To Death:

Pound for pound, Australia's extinct marsupial lion (Thylacoleo carnifex) would have made mince meat of today's African lion (Panthera leo) had the two big hyper-carnivores ever squared off in a fight to the death, according to an Australian scientist.

Secret Of Scottish Sheep Evolution Discovered:

Researchers from the University of Sheffield, as part of an international team, have discovered the secret of why dark sheep on a remote Scottish Island are mysteriously declining, seemingly contradicting Darwin's evolutionary theory. Dr Jacob Gratten and Dr Jon Slate, from the University's Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, led the team, which found that the gene responsible for dark coat colour is linked to other genes that reduce an animal's fitness.