New Giant Toothless Pterosaur Species Discovered:
A researcher at the University of Portsmouth has identified a new species of pterosaur, the largest of its kind to ever be found. It represents an entirely new genus of these flying reptiles that ruled the skies 115 million years ago.
Antioxidants Are Unlikely To Prevent Aging, Study Suggests:
Diets and beauty products which claim to have anti-oxidant properties are unlikely to prevent aging, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust. Researchers at the Institute of Healthy aging at UCL (University College London) say this is because a key fifty year old theory about the causes of aging is wrong.
Evidence From Dirty Teeth: Ancient Peruvians Ate Well:
Starch grains preserved on human teeth reveal that ancient Peruvians ate a variety of cultivated crops including squash, beans, peanuts and the fruit of cultivated pacay trees. This finding by Dolores Piperno, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the National Museum of Natural History, and Tom Dillehay, professor of archaeology at Vanderbilt University, sets the date of the earliest human consumption of beans and pacay back by more than 2,000 years and indicates that New World people were committed farmers earlier than previously thought.
Mammals Can Be Stimulated To Regrow Damaged Inner Retina Nerve Cells:
Researchers at the University of Washington (UW) have reported for the first time that mammals can be stimulated to regrow inner nerve cells in their damaged retinas. Located in the back of the eye, the retina's role in vision is to convert light into nerve impulses to the brain.
Most U.S. Organizations Not Adapting To Climate Change, Report Finds:
Organizations in the United States that are at the highest risk of sustaining damage from climate change are not adapting enough to the dangers posed by rising temperatures, according to a Yale report.
Too Much Commitment May Be Unhealthy For Relationships, Professor Says:
Romantic relationships establish special bonds between partners. Oftentimes, passionate rapport leads to permanent partnerships, and ultimately, the start of families. Sometimes, however, one or both partners place too much emotional weight on their relationship. As a result, men or women may tend to evaluate their self-worth solely based on the outcomes of their romantic interactions. This is what psychologists term as relationship-contingent self-esteem (RCSE), and, according to University of Houston researcher Chip Knee, it's an unhealthy factor in romantic relationships.
Dogs Chase Efficiently, But Cats Skulk Counterintuitively:
A Duke University study suggests that evolution can behave as differently as dogs and cats. While the dogs depend on an energy-efficient style of four-footed running over long distances to catch their prey, cats seem to have evolved a profoundly inefficient gait, tailor-made to creep up on a mouse or bird in slow motion.
The Ocean Research & Conservation Association (ORCA) and its collaborators have announced the world's first use of an acoustic underwater camera to survey juveniles of goliath grouper in mangrove habitats. Goliath grouper, Epinephelus itajara, currently is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature). The largest grouper fish in the Atlantic Ocean, goliaths can exceed six feet (2 meters) in length, weigh more than 1,000 pounds and can live more than 40 years. Juveniles (up to 3 feet, or 1 meter in length) spend almost the first decade of their lives in red mangrove nurseries.
How Mosquitoes Avoid Succumbing To Viruses They Transmit:
Mosquitoes are like Typhoid Mary. They can spread viruses which cause West Nile fever, dengue fever, or yellow fever without themselves getting sick. Scientists long thought that the mosquito didn't care whether it had a virus hitchhiker, but have now discovered, "There is a war going on," said Zach Adelman, assistant professor of entomology at Virginia Tech.
How Wildlife Corridors Work Over Time:
At the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, there are five strange looking "patches" cleared out of the surrounding forest. No, they're not crop circles carved by aliens. They're actually budding longleaf pine forest ecosystems. Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis and their collaborators at North Carolina State University, the University of Florida, and the University of Washington have created these ecological patches with the help of the United States Forest Service-Savannah River to understand whether "corridors" help plants and animals survive habitat fragmentation.
Life Science
Environment
