My picks from ScienceDaily

Singing In The Rainforest: Public Vs. Private Signaling By A Tropical Rainforest Bird:

According to the Chinese proverb, a bird sings because it has a song, not because it has an answer. A team of French and Brazilian researchers, however, may have the answer as to how the song of Brazilian white-browed warbler has become so well-adapted to the acoustic properties of the rainforest environment.

New Meat-eating Dinosaur Duo From Sahara Ate Like Hyenas, Sharks:

Two new 110 million-year-old dinosaurs unearthed in the Sahara Desert highlight the unusual meat-eaters that prowled southern continents during the Cretaceous Period. Named Kryptops and Eocarcharia in a paper appearing this month in the scientific journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, the fossils were discovered in 2000 on an expedition led by University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno.

Web Sites Influence Users, Even When They Don't Communicate Directly:

Web surfers may get more than just the music, videos and news updates they were looking for when they log onto trendy next-generation sites such as Last.fm, YouTube and Digg, according to new research by a University of Illinois business professor. Whether they know it or not, they also could be getting swayed -- toward musical genres that stretch their tastes or to video and news clips they might have overlooked without an endorsement by the masses, says business administration professor Mu Xia.

Pioneering Eagle Eye Surgery Removes Cataract, Restores Vision, After Injury:

Surgeons from the University of Glasgow's Small Animal Hospital have restored the sight of a golden eagle. The bird underwent pioneering eye surgery after it flew into electricity cables badly damaging its eyesight.

Worker Or Queen? Harvester Ant Moms Set Their Daughters' Fates:

When it comes to deciding what harvester ant daughters will be when they grow up, mother queens hold considerable sway, according to a new study. The researchers report evidence that eggs are predetermined to become workers or queens from the moment they are lain.

Sheep In Human Clothing: Scientists Reveal Our Flock Mentality:

Have you ever arrived somewhere and wondered how you got there? Scientists at the University of Leeds believe they may have found the answer, with research that shows that humans flock like sheep and birds, subconsciously following a minority of individuals. Results from a study at the University of Leeds show that it takes a minority of just five per cent to influence a crowd's direction - and that the other 95 per cent follow without realising it.

More like this

When I wrote about the new species of predatory dinosaur, Carcharodontosaurus iguidensis, this past December, I made a note of how interesting it was that in Cretaceous Gondwana there seems to be a certain triumvirate of predatory dinosaur groups. According to the data presented in Brusatte and…
Bats; Signaling in the Rain Forest; Sumatran Tiger Body Parts; Humans in the New World 20,000 years ago. Bats are funny. Funny strange, not funny ha ha. There are two kinds of bats, microchiroptera and megachiroptera. The micros are smaller, the megas larger, by and large. and the micros have…
Archosaurs have been making a lot of news over the past day or so. First, there's the diminutive new pterosaur Nemicolopterus crypticus, a toothless Early Cretaceous form that may have been arboreal. As far as dinosaurs go, the hadrosaur Velafrons coahuilensis was described in the December issue of…
Continuing the theme of discussing 'things in the news', we arrive, finally, at dinosaurs. The previous 'late news' pieces looked at fossil anurans and pterosaurs, and assorted mammals. So what news has been announced recently-ish in the world of dinosaurs? Well, frankly, there are always so many…