August 6, 2008
Dogs may be known for their skills at catching sticks, but new research shows that are just as adept at catching our yawns. The result probably comes as no surprise to dog-owners but it's the first time that it's ever been demonstrated under experimental conditions.
Yawning is famously contagious…
August 5, 2008
Thanks to Hollywood, the jaws of the great white shark may be the most famous in the animal kingdom. But despite its presence in film posters, the great white's toothy mouth has received very little experimental attention. Now, Stephen Wroe from the University of New South Wales has put the great…
August 4, 2008
For the first time, scientists have developed drugs that mimics the effects of endurance exercise. With the aid of two chemicals, Vihang Narkar, Ronald Evans and colleagues from the Salk Institute managed to turn regular lab rodents into furry Paula Radcliffes - mighty mice that were capable of…
August 3, 2008
With their latest film WALL-E, Pixar Studios have struck cinematic gold again, with a protagonist who may be the cutest thing to have ever been committed to celluloid. Despite being a blocky chunk of computer-generated metal, it's amazing how real, emotive and characterful WALL-E can be. In fact,…
August 2, 2008
The next time you buy salmon from your local supermarket, think about the hidden costs in each succulent fillet. Compared to wild fish, farmed salmon is far less likely to burden your wallet. But by buying it, you may be placing a much larger burden on the environment. Fish stocks around the world…
August 1, 2008
It's a good time to be a stem cell researcher. Legal and political wrangling aside, the discoveries are starting to come thick and fast now and new breakthroughs seem constantly around the corner. Last November, I was writing about two groups of scientists who had managed to turn adult human cells…
July 31, 2008
They say that all's fair in love and war, and that certainly seems to be the case of Atlantic mollies (Poecilia mexicana). These freshwater fish are small and unassuming, but in their quest to find the best mates, they rely on and Machiavellian misdirection.
The males always prefer larger females…
July 29, 2008
Imagine being able to drink ludicrous amounts of alcohol without getting drunk and without the nasty consequences in the morning. For some people, it would be a dream come true but for the pen-tailed treeshrew (Ptilocercus lowii), it's just part of everyday life.
The treeshrew lives in the…
July 28, 2008
Simon Kirby and Hannah Cornish are watching evolution take place within the confines of their laboratory. But they are studying neither bodies nor genes; their interest lies in languages, and how they change over time.
Regardless of school lessons and textbooks, most of the features of the…
July 26, 2008
In a (very) loose tie-in with the recent release of the Dark Knight, it's Bat Weekend at Not Exactly Rocket Science, where I'll be reposting a few old but relevant pieces. If you were a biologist looking for astounding innovations in nature, you could do much worse than to study bats. They are…
July 25, 2008
To a science-fiction filmmaker, the concept of being controlled by unseen forces is creative gold, but for the rest of us, it's a fairly unsettling prospect. But like it or not, it's clear that parasites - creatures that live off (and often control) the bodies of others - are an integral part of…
July 23, 2008
Soooo....
When I started this blog, the intention was to try and use well-written articles on cool discoveries to get people who wouldn't normally read science blogs to be interested in science. I've now been writing for almost two years and while traffic has grown, it strikes me that I still don't…
July 22, 2008
A complete ban on fishing can save coral reef communities in more ways than one. A few weeks ago, I blogged about a study which found that the coral trout, a victim of severe overfishing, was bouncing back in the small regions of the Great Barrier Reef where fishing has been totally forbidden. It…
July 21, 2008
Social spiders are an arachnophobe's nightmare. While the vast majority of spiders work alone, the odd few live communally and cooperate to hunt and feed. Their numbers, along with the massive webs that they all have a spinneret in creating, allow them to tackle prey far larger than themselves.…
July 19, 2008
In April 1998, an aggressive creature named Tyson smashed through the quarter-inch-thick glass wall of his cell. He was soon subdued by nervous attendants and moved to a more secure facility in Great Yarmouth. Unlike his heavyweight namesake, Tyson was only four inches long. But scientists have…
July 17, 2008
New Scientist's Feedback section has a running series of items on "nominative determinism", that strange phenomenon where a person's bears eerie witness to their occupation, such as a neurologist called Lord Brain, or an article on urology authored by Splatt and Weedon. Well here's another example…
July 16, 2008
Many measures to curb the obesity epidemic are aimed at young children. It's a sensible strategy - we know that overweight children have a good chance of becoming overweight adults. Family homes and schools have accordingly become critical arenas where the battle against the nation's growing…
July 15, 2008
Which of these strings of letters is easier to remember: QKJITJGPI or BBCITVCNN?
Chances are, you chose the latter string, where the nine letters are the combined names of three television networks. This neatly illustrates a fundamental property of human memory - that we remember long strings of…
July 14, 2008
Evolution dances to the tune of death. Killers - be they predators, diseases or competitive peers - can radically shape a species' life cycles by striking down individuals of a certain age. The survivors respond by changing their "life histories" - a collection of traits that defines their…
July 12, 2008
There is an old joke that if Spider-Man has the powers of a spider, he really ought to be shooting webs from somewhere less salubrious than his hands. In the films and comic books, Peter Parker is empowered with the powers of a human-sized arachnid through a spider bite. He effortlessly scales…
July 11, 2008
If you've never had the pleasure of swimming among a coral reef, you might want to get your chance sooner rather than later. Yesterday, the journal Science published the first comprehensive global assessment of the status of the world's reef-building corals, and it's results don't make for…
July 10, 2008
It seems that every scientist has an anecdote about being misquoted, misrepresented or otherwise misled by that most seemingly dangerous of foes - the journalist. And yet, a new survey published in Science suggests that beyond the horror stories, conflict between the two professions is much less…
July 9, 2008
Imagine watching a movie where every now and then, key frames have been cut out. The film seems stilted and disjointed and you have to rely on logic to fill in the gaps in the plots. Evolutionary biologists face a similar obstacle when trying to piece together how living species arose from their…
July 7, 2008
New parents are often extremely picky about where they live, seeking the right combination of spacious housing, local schools, and safe neighbourhoods for their tiny sprogs. A mother mosquito is no less choosy but unlike the white-picket-fence ideal of middle-class humans, she prefers areas of…
July 5, 2008
"Out, damn spot! Out I say!" In Macbeth's fifth act, Lady Macbeth's role in the treacherous murder of Duncan takes its toll, and she begins obsessively washing her hands to alleviate her guilty conscience. Now, some four centuries after Shakespeare penned his play, scientists have found that…
July 4, 2008
There can be few events more devastating for a parent than cot death - the sudden and unexpected death of a baby. Cot death is more formally known as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and it is an apt title, for affected babies often seem outwardly healthy and show no signs of suffering. Studies…
July 3, 2008
Spider silk is a most amazing and versatile material, and spiders put it to all sorts of uses. It helps them to climb, to travel from place to place and most famously, to ensnare their prey. But one group of spiders, the uloborids, use their silk in a unique way - as a murderous garbage-compactor…
July 1, 2008
The mayfly is known for its incredibly short adult life. After spending months as larvae, the adults finally hatches only to fly, mate and die within the space of a day. Now, in the dry south-west corner of Madagascar, scientists have discovered the lizard equivalent of the mayfly - Labord's…
June 30, 2008
If you picture a woman twisting a doorknob, all the elements of this brief event show up in your mind - the woman, the twisting action of her hand and the doorknob. But as I describe this scene and as you read it, the players are mentioned in a very strict order. The subject (the woman) comes first…
June 28, 2008
In the final months of 2001, five people died because they opened their mail. The killers were hidden inside the envelopes, small spores that were inhaled by the unfortunate addresses. Inside their bodies, the spores turned into the deadly bacteria, Bacillus anthracis - anthrax.
Anthrax has a…
