We're all familiar with those awesome armored giants of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods -- Stegosaurus and Ankylosaurus -- and their amazing, weaponized tails. But why aren't similar weaponized tails found in animals living today? In a study covering 300 million years of evolutionary history, researchers from North Carolina State University and the North Carolina...
New light on the mysterious origin of Bornean elephants
How did Borneo get its elephant? This could be just another of Rudyard Kipling's just so stories. The Bornean elephant is a subspecies of Asian Elephants that only exist in a small region of Borneo. Their presence on this southeastern Asian island has been a mystery. Now, in a study published in Scientific Reports, a...
No-fishing zones help endangered penguins
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Small no-fishing zones around colonies of African penguins can help this struggling species, new research shows....
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Are amoebae safe harbors for plague?
Amoebae, single-celled organisms common in soil, water and grade-school science classrooms, may play a key role in the survival and spread of deadly plague bacteria.
New Colorado State University research shows that plague bacteria, Yersinia pestis, not only survive, but thrive and replicate once ingested by an amoeba. The discovery could help scientists understand why plague...
Great scat! Bears — not birds — are the chief seed dispersers in Alaska
It's a story of bears, birds and berries.
In southeastern Alaska, brown and black bears are plentiful because of salmon. Their abundance also means they are the primary seed dispersers of berry-producing shrubs, according to an Oregon State University study.
The OSU team used motion-triggered cameras to record bears, birds and small mammals eating red berries of...
'Rainbow' dinosaur had iridescent feathers like a hummingbird
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Scientists discovered a dinosaur fossil with feathers so well-preserved that they were able to see the feathers' microscopic color-bearing structures. By comparing the shapes of those feather structures with the structures in modern bird feathers, they're able to infer that the new dino, Caihong juji ('rainbow with the big crest') had...
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