Biology News

Striped Bodypaintings Deter Blood-Sucking Flies: Study

Reflection-polarization characteristics of the sunlit sticky white-striped brown human model. Image credit: Horvath et al, doi: 10.1098/rsos.181325.
Jan 23, 2019 by News Staff

Bodypainting is widespread in African, Australian and Papua New Guinean indigenous communities. Many bodypaintings use white or bright stripes on brown skin. A new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science shows that these stripes protect skin from insect bites. Reflection-polarization characteristics of the sunlit sticky white-striped brown human model. Image credit: Horvath et al, doi: 10.1098/rsos.181325. Members of different tribes...

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Aedes aegypti mosquitoes after an experiment; the lack of red in their guts indicates the compounds repelled the mosquitoes, which chose not to feed. Image credit: Mayur Kajla.

Powerful Mosquito-Repelling Compounds Isolated from Rare Bacterium

Jan 21, 2019 by News Staff

A mixture of mosquito-repelling compounds isolated from a Gram-negative bacterium called Xenorhabdus budapestensis exhibits potent feeding-deterrent activity...

Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii). Image credit: J.J. Harrison / CC BY-SA 3.0.

New Research Reveals How Facial Tumor Disease Became Transmissible in Tasmanian Devils

Jan 17, 2019 by News Staff

The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii), the world’s largest living carnivorous marsupial, is threatened with extinction by a horizontally transmitted...

In this electron micrograph, Varroa destructor (arrow) is wedged between the abdominal plates of a honey bee’s exoskeleton. Image credit: UMD / USDA / PNAS.

Varroa Mites Feed Primarily on Honeybee Fat Body Tissues, Not Hemolymph

Jan 15, 2019 by News Staff

A parasite called the varroa mite (Varroa destructor) is the most serious pest of European honeybees (Apis mellifera) worldwide. For decades, scientists...

ISS bacteria are just trying to survive. Image credit: Arek Socha.

Space Station Bacteria are Adapting to Survive, Not to Harm, Researchers Say

Jan 9, 2019 by News Staff

A team of scientists from Northwestern University and NASA’s Johnson Space Center has found that — despite its seemingly harsh conditions —...

Barley (Hordeum vulgare). Image credit: Kang B.C.H.

Scientists Discover New Complex Carbohydrate in Barley

Jan 9, 2019 by News Staff

A team of scientists at the University of Adelaide, Australia, has discovered a new complex carbohydrate in the barley (Hordeum vulgare), the world’s...

Hyloscirtus hillisi. Image credit: Gustavo Pazmiño, BIOWEB Ecuador.

Bizarre New Species of Treefrog Discovered in Ecuador

Jan 4, 2019 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador has described a new species of treefrog from Cordillera del Condor, a largely...

Sima et al found that cis-regulatory elements control the 3D compartmentalization, architecture of the genome, and replication timing in a CTCF-independent manner. Image credit: Sima et al, doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.11.036.

Scientists Solve Mystery of How and When DNA Replicates

Jan 3, 2019 by News Staff

A research team led by Florida State University scientists has demonstrated that there are specific points along the DNA molecule that control replication....

Histochemical staining of Arabidopsis thaliana: (i) 7-day-old seedling primary root tip, (ii) rosette leaf, (iii) cauline leaf and (iv) inflorescence of Col-0 and prt6-1 lines expressing wild type VRN2-GUS. Scale bar in (i) - 500 μm. Image credit: Gibbs et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07875-7.

Biologists Unravel Memory Mechanism in Flowering Plants

Dec 27, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands has identified a mechanism that enables angiosperms (flowering plants) to sense and remember...

Physarum polycephalum on an oak log. Image credit: Mushroom Observer / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Slime Mold Can Solve Exponentially Complicated Problems in Linear Time

Dec 26, 2018 by Sam Sander Effron

Researchers from Lanzhou University in China have shown that the slime mold Physarum polycephalum is able to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem, a combinatorial...

Bees can solve seemingly clever counting tasks with very small numbers of neurons in their brains. Image credit: PollyDot.

Bees Can Solve Counting Tasks with Just Four Neurons, New Study Shows

Dec 25, 2018 by News Staff

Bees can count up to four or five items, can choose the smaller or the larger number from a group and even choose ‘zero’ against other numbers when...

Examining 1,000-year-old corncobs from an ancient ruin in Arizona, Peyambari et al found a previously unknown RNA virus. Image credit: Roossinck Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University.

Researchers Find Oldest Known Plant Virus

Dec 13, 2018 by News Staff

Scientists studying ancient corncobs found at Antelope House, an Ancestral Puebloan ruin located at Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona, have discovered...

The Dracula ant (Mystrium camillae) can snap its mandibles at speeds of up to 90 m/s. Image credit: Adrian Smith.

Dracula Ants’ Mandibles are Fastest Known Animal Appendages

Dec 12, 2018 by News Staff

In a study published today in the journal Royal Society Open Science, researchers examined the kinematics and functional morphology of the Dracula ant...

A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s Earth-observing satellite Suomi NPP (named in honor of Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin). This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. Image credit: NASA / NOAA / GSFC / Suomi NPP / VIIRS / Norman Kuring.

Researchers Estimate Total Mass of Earth’s Deep Life: 15-23 Billion Tons of Carbon

Dec 11, 2018 by News Staff

An international collaboration of researchers from the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) has made several important discoveries, including how much and what...

A reticulated siren (Siren reticulata) from the waters of northwestern Florida (Okaloosa County) rests on an aquarium floor. Image credit: Pierson Hill.

Reticulated Siren: New Salamander Species Discovered

Dec 7, 2018 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers has discovered a new species of salamander living in Alabama and the Panhandle region of Florida, the United States. A reticulated...

Microscopy image of Sulfolobus solfataricus. Image credit: D. Janckovik / W. Zillig.

Researchers Find First Ever Evidence for Epigenetics in Archaea

Dec 6, 2018 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of California, Santa Cruz, has found evidence that an evolutionary phenomenon...

Manta rays. Image credit: Masako Uchida.

Study Reveals Origins of Manta Ray’s Horn-Like ‘Cephalic Lobes’

Dec 4, 2018 by News Staff

Manta rays and their relatives of the family Myliobatidae have massive, flapping fins as well as a pair of fleshy projections called cephalic lobes. A...

Toxeus magnus, adult female. Image credit: Chen et al, doi: 10.1126/science.aat3692.

Jumping Spider Mothers Secrete Milk-Like Substance to Feed Their Offspring

Nov 30, 2018 by News Staff

A team of scientists in China has discovered that females of a species of ant-mimicking jumping spider called Toxeus magnus secrete a nutritious milk-like...

This is the adult stage of the parasitoid wasp Zatypota sp.nov. Image credit: Philippe Fernandez-Fournier.

New Species of Parasitoid Wasp from Ecuador Turns Social Spiders into Zombies

Nov 28, 2018 by News Staff

Deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, a newly-identified species of the parasitoid wasp genus Zatypota transforms Anelosimus eximius, one of only about 25 species...

The lesser superb bird-of-paradise (Lophorina minor). Image credit: William Matthew Hart.

Among Birds-of-Paradise, Stunning Plumage Is Not Enough to Attract Mates

Nov 28, 2018 by News Staff

Birds-of-paradise are a family of small to medium-sized forest birds found in the New Guinea region. These birds are among the most beautiful creatures...

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