Monthly Archives: September 2018

Ancient past of a body plan code probed

Researchers from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have opened a window on another piece of evolutionary biology. They have found that Hox genes, which are key regulators of the way the bodies of bilaterally symmetrical animals form, also play a role in controlling the radially symmetric body plan of the starlet sea anemone, Nematostella...

Read more

Why a 'cuckoo in the nest' can go undetected

Researchers at the Universities of Exeter and Cambridge have shed light on why some species cannot tell the difference between their own offspring and those of intruders that have been slipped into their nests.

It has previously been observed that parents are often incapable of recognising genetic differences between their offspring and the offspring of another...

Read more

PCB pollution threatens to wipe out killer whales

More than forty years after the first initiatives were taken to ban the use of PCBs, the chemical pollutants remain a deadly threat to animals at the top of the food chain. A new study, just published in the journal Science, shows that the current concentrations of PCBs can lead to the disappearance of half...

Read more

Ledumahadi mafube: South Africa's new jurassic giant

A new species of a giant dinosaur has been found in South Africa's Free State Province. The plant-eating dinosaur, named Ledumahadi mafube, weighed 12 tonnes and stood about four metres high at the hips. Ledumahadi mafube was the largest land animal alive on Earth when it lived, nearly 200 million years ago. It was roughly...

Read more

Silver fox study reveals genetic clues to social behavior

In 1959, Russian scientists began an experiment to breed a population of silver foxes, selecting and breeding foxes that exhibited friendliness toward people. They wanted to know if they could repeat the adaptations for tameness that must have occurred in domestic dogs. Subsequently they also bred another population of foxes for more aggressive behavior.

After 10...

Read more

In the battle of cats vs. rats, the rats are winning

The first study to document interactions between feral cats and a wild rat colony finds that contrary to popular opinion, cats are not good predators of rats. In a novel approach, researchers monitored the behavior and movement of microchipped rats in the presence of cats living in the same area. They show the rats actively...

Read more