A Blog Around The Clock

Long-held Assumptions Of Flightless Bird Evolution Challenged By New Research:

Large flightless birds of the southern continents - African ostriches, Australian emus and cassowaries, South American rheas and the New Zealand kiwi - do not share a common flightless ancestor as once believed. Instead, each species individually lost its flight after diverging from ancestors that did have the ability to fly, according to new research conducted in part by University of Florida zoology professor Edward Braun.

Artificial Meadows And Robot Spiders Reveal Secret Life Of Bees:

Many animals learn to avoid being eaten by predators. Now ecologists have discovered that bumblebees can even learn to outwit colour-changing crab spiders. Bumblebees learn to avoid camouflaged predators by sacrificing foraging speed for predator detection, according to scientists from Queen Mary, University of London.

Sexologists Can Infer A Woman's History of Orgasms By The Way She Walks:

A new study found that trained sexologists could infer a woman's history of vaginal orgasm by observing the way she walks. The study is published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.

What A Sleep Study Can Reveal About Fibromyalgia:

Research engineers and sleep medicine specialists from two Michigan universities have joined technical and clinical hands to put innovative quantitative analysis, signal-processing technology and computer algorithms to work in the sleep lab. One of their recent findings is that a new approach to analyzing sleep fragmentation appears to distinguish fibromyalgia patients from healthy controls.

Social Psychology Can Be Used To Understand Nuclear Restraint:

Social psychology is the study of how people and groups interact. A new study shows how social psychology can help us better understand the puzzle of nuclear restraint and uses the case of Japan to illustrate social psychology on nuclear decision-making.

No Connection Between Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) Vaccine And Autism, Study Suggests:

In a case-control study, the presence of measles virus RNA was no more likely in children with autism and GI disturbances than in children with only GI disturbances. Furthermore, GI symptom and autism onset were unrelated to MMR vaccine timing.

A Virtuous Cycle: Safety In Numbers For Bicycle Riders:

It seems paradoxical but the more people ride bicycles on our city streets, the less likely they are to be injured in traffic accidents.

Rattlesnake-type Poisons Used By Superbug Bacteria To Beat Our Defenses:

Colonies of hospital superbugs can make poisons similar to those found in rattlesnake venom to attack our bodies' natural defences, scientists heard September 8, 2008) at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn meeting being held at Trinity College, Dublin.