My picks from ScienceDaily

Acoustic Phenomena Explain Why Boats And Animals Collide:

Researchers at Florida Atlantic University have laid the groundwork for a sensory explanation for why manatees and other animals are hit repeatedly by boats. Last year, 73 manatees were killed by boats in Florida's bays and inland waterways. Marine authorities have responded to deaths from boat collisions by imposing low speed limits on boats.

No Place Like Home: New Theory For How Salmon, Sea Turtles Find Their Birthplace:

How marine animals find their way back to their birthplace to reproduce after migrating across thousands of miles of open ocean has mystified scientists for more than a century. But marine biologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill think they might finally have unraveled the secret.

Complex Decision? Don't Think About It:

When faced with a difficult decision, we try to come up with the best choice by carefully considering all of the options, maybe even resorting to lists and lots of sleepless nights. So it may be surprising that recent studies have suggested that the best way to deal with complex decisions is to not think about them at all--that unconscious thought will help us make the best choices.

Boy-girl Bullying In Middle Grades More Common Than Previously Thought:

Much more cross-gender bullying - specifically, unpopular boys harassing popular girls - occurs in later elementary school grades than previously thought, meaning educators should take reports of harassment from popular girls seriously, according to new research by a University of Illinois professor who studies child development.

Unique Archaeological Discovery In Balkan: World's First Illyrian Trading Post Found:

There is jubilation at the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo i Norway. Marina Prusac, Associate Professor in the department of archaeology, has just returned home after conducting excavations in the border area between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the course of several weeks of intense digging this autumn, her archaeological team found the very first traces of an Illyrian trading post that is more han two thousand years old.

Some Beetles Can Quickly Neutralize Bacteria And Reduce Emergence Of Resistant Bacteria At Same Time:

In less than an hour, the immune system of the beetle Tenebrio molitor neutralizes most of the bacteria infecting its hemolymph (the equivalent to blood in vertebrates); this is rendered possible by a cascade of ready-to-use cells and enzymes.

Insecticides Or Genetically Modified Crops? Non-Target Insects Affected More By Insecticides Than By Crops Engineered To Make Insect-specific Toxins:

Non-target insects are probably affected more by conventional insecticides than by crops that contain genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), according to the findings of a study by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and cooperators.

Ice Beetles Impacted By Climate Change:

In the summer of 1968, Dave Kavanaugh set off on a hike that would change the course of his life. As a second-year medical student at the University of Colorado, he had joined a climbing club with a few members of the biophysics department, and the group had set their sights on Gray's Peak--the ninth highest mountain in Colorado. Kavanaugh, who has never been able to do anything slowly, scampered up to the top of the peak in record time and sat down to wait for the rest of the group.

As he peeled an orange and gazed out at the surrounding terrain, a sudden movement caught his eye. A small black beetle had crawled up onto his boot. While most climbers would have ignored (or possibly squashed) the small intruder, Kavanaugh whipped a collecting vial out of his pack--beetle collecting had been a hobby ever since he took an elective entomology course in college--and scooped up the rare specimen. He had never seen it before in Colorado, and as he learned when he got back to campus, neither had many others. There were only two previous records of the species in the state. "That was it," says Kavanaugh with a grin. "I was hooked."

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