Category Archives: Medicinal News

Newly discovered Xenomorph wasp has Alien-like lifecycle

A University of Adelaide PhD student has discovered a new species of wasp, named Xenomorph because of its gruesome parasitic lifecycle that echoes the predatory behaviour of the Alien movie franchise monster.

The new species, Dolichogenidea xenomorph, injects its eggs into live caterpillars and the baby wasp larvae slowly eat the caterpillar from the inside out,...

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Dangerous protected reptiles

The south-east Asian island state of East Timor has a problem with crocodiles. Between 2007 and 2014 there was a sharp increase in attacks on humans. Many of these attacks were fatal. Sebastian Brackhane, a research assistant in the Department of Remote Sensing and Landscape Information Systems of the University of Freiburg, has analyzed data...

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Biologists show that female seals have consistent personalities

Female seals don't change their spots, according to a new study by University of Alberta biologists. In fact, individual differences in boldness remain consistent over time.

The study is among the first to examine boldness in wild marine mammals in the burgeoning field of animal personality. Animal personality influences many ecological processes, like how individuals interact...

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Dramatic change in way ancient diets are calculated

Knowing what extinct animals ate has long been determined by analyzing carbon isotopes locked inside fossil teeth. For two decades, a key isotope value in these equations has been assumed to be the same for all plant-eating mammals, but new research led by Julia Tejada-Lara from the American Museum of Natural History and Columbia University,...

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Inbred animals face greater threat from changes to environment

Animals that are inbred make mistakes in response to changes in their surroundings, which threatens their survival, research has found.

A study found that inbred beetles were more likely to make bad decisions amid developing circumstances -- at a cost to themselves and their offspring.

The findings could inform conservation programmes and aid the understanding of wild...

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Paleontologists ID two new Miocene mammals in Bolivia

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University and two other universities have discovered the 13-million-year-old fossils of a pair of new species of extinct hoofed mammals known as "litopterns" from a site in Bolivia.

The animals, which look similar to small moose or deer in a paleoartist's rendering, are being dubbed Theosodon arozquetai and Llullataruca shockeyi, ungulates...

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