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Stromatolites at Shark Bay, Western Australia. Image credit: Paul Harrison / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Viruses May Have Played Important Role in Creating Earth’s Earliest Lifeforms

Mar 4, 2021 by News Staff

Viruses may be the missing piece of the puzzle that could help explain how soft microbial mats transition into hard stromatolites that are prevalent in...

A male superb lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae). Image credit: Alex Maisey, University of Wollongong.

Male Superb Lyrebirds Imitate Alarm Calls of Mobbing Flocks to Lure Potential Mates

Mar 3, 2021 by News Staff

During their song and dance displays, male superb lyrebirds (Menura novaehollandiae) create an elaborate acoustic illusion of a mixed-species flock of...

Global distribution of production rates of radiolytic hydrogen and radiolytic oxidants in marine sediment; rates are expressed in mol electron equivalents/cm2/year; in electron equivalents, water radiolysis produces hydrogen and oxidized chemicals at equal rates; although abyssal clay has a volumetric radiolytic production rate an order of magnitude higher than the volumetric rate for continental-margin sediment types, the sediment layer that blankets open-ocean regions is much thinner and consequently has much lower vertically integrated radiolytic production than the sediment of continental margins. Image credit: Sauvage et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-21218-z.

Subseafloor Microbial Communities Survive on Products of Radioactive Process, Study Suggests

Mar 3, 2021 by News Staff

Radionuclides are ubiquitous in sediment and rock, where their decay leads to the production of hydrogen and oxidized chemicals via radiolysis of water;...

A Meidum goose (left), life reconstruction (center) and a modern red-breasted goose (right). Image credit: A. Romilio / Tambako the Jaguar.

4,600-Year-Old Egyptian Painting Depicts Extinct Species of Goose

Mar 2, 2021 by News Staff

University of Queensland’s Dr. Anthony Romilio has examined the ‘Meidum Geese,’ a painting from the Chapel of Itet at Meidum in Egypt. A Meidum goose...

An oblique photo of a male Pharohylaeus lactiferous. Image credit: J.B. Dorey, doi: 10.3897/jhr.81.59365.

Rare Species of Australian Native Bee Rediscovered

Mar 1, 2021 by News Staff

Pharohylaeus lactiferous, a species of Australian endemic bee in the genus Pharohylaeus, had not been seen on the continent since 1923. An oblique photo...

Captive Pedetes capensis photographed under visible light (three insets) and under 395 nm UV light with a 470 nm longpass filter to documenting the orange to red biofluorescence ( 650 nm) of springhare. Images contain two different captive-bred, captive individuals (female -- bottom two larger images under ultraviolet light; male -- all remaining images) from the Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium in Omaha, Nebraska, the United States. Image credit: Olson et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-83588-0.

Springhares Glow Orange and Red under Ultraviolet Light

Feb 23, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Scientists have discovered a vivid porphyrin-based biofluorescence in two species of springhares, Pedetes capensis and Pedetes surdaster. Captive Pedetes...

Camarillo-Guerrero et al. introduce the Gut Phage Database, a collection of 142,809 non-redundant viral genomes (>10 kb) obtained by mining a dataset of 28,060 globally distributed human gut metagenomes and 2,898 reference genomes of cultured gut bacteria. Image credit: Camarillo-Guerrero et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.01.029.

Biologists Find Almost 143,000 Bacteriophage Species in Human Gut

Feb 19, 2021 by News Staff

A team of biologists from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the European Bioinformatics Institute and the Universidad de los Andes has identified 142,809...

Coralliozetus clausus. Image credit: Phil Hastings.

New Species of Reef-Dwelling Fish Discovered

Feb 16, 2021 by News Staff

A marine biologist from Scripps Institution of Oceanography has discovered a new species of chaenopsid blenny in the waters around Cocos Island (Isla del...

Latimeria chalumnae off Pumula on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast, South Africa, on November 22, 2019. Image credit: Bruce Henderson, doi: 10.17159/sajs.2020/7806.

Coelacanths Are Not ‘Living Fossils,’ New Study Shows

Feb 10, 2021 by News Staff

The primitive-looking coelacanth has long been regarded as a ‘living fossil,’ with extant specimens looking very similar to fossils dating back to...

This helium ion microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 virus particles (blue). Image credit: N. Frese / Bielefeld University.

Helium Ion Microscope Captures New Images of SARS-CoV-2

Feb 8, 2021 by News Staff

New images of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus demonstrate the potential of the helium ion microscopy in bioimaging, especially for the imaging of interactions...

A Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) with three cubs at Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, 1909. Image credit: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

Study: Tasmanian Tiger’s Skull Closely Resembled That of Gray Wolf from Birth

Feb 5, 2021 by News Staff

Researchers in Australia have examined thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) and gray wolf (Canis lupus) skulls of different ages, stages and sizes, from...

Bare-nosed wombats (Vombatus ursinus). Image credit: Scott Carver.

Biologists Discover Why Wombat Feces are Square Shaped

Feb 3, 2021 by News Staff

The bare-nosed wombat (Vombatus ursinus) is an herbivorous Australian marsupial, renowned for its cubic feces. However, the ability of the wombat’s intestine...

The Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula). Image credit: Conrad Erb, Science History Institute / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Venus Flytraps Produce Measurable Magnetic Fields, Study Shows

Feb 2, 2021 by News Staff

A team of researchers in Germany has detected biomagnetic fields associated with electrical activity in a species of carnivorous plant called the Venus...

Brookesia nana, male. Image credit: Glaw et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-80955-1.

World’s Tiniest Reptile Found in Madagascar

Feb 1, 2021 by Natali Anderson

An international team of scientists has discovered a new, extremely miniaturized species of the chameleon genus Brookesia living in a montane rainforest...

The naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber). Image credit: Txan Txunai / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Naked Mole-Rats Have Colony-Specific Dialects, New Study Shows

Jan 29, 2021 by News Staff

Naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber) form some of the most cooperative groups in the animal kingdom, living in multigenerational colonies under the...

Casiraghi et al. show that on nights before a full moon, people sleep less and go to bed later on average. Image credit: Florian Kurz.

Study: Sleep Starts Later and is Shorter on Nights before Full Moon

Jan 28, 2021 by News Staff

Before the availability of artificial light, moonlight was the only source of light sufficient to stimulate nighttime activity; still, evidence for the...

The buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris). Image credit: Myriam.

Neonicotinoid Insecticides Disrupt Sleep of Bees and Fruit Flies, New Research Shows

Jan 22, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Neonicotinoid insecticides, such as imidacloprid, clothianidin, thiamethoxam and thiacloprid, affect the amount of sleep taken by both buff-tailed bumblebees...

The neurophysiological and functional significance of silver vine response in cats: the olfactory system in cats detects cis-trans nepetalactol emitted from silver vine leaves and then stimulates release of β-endorphin; activation of μ-opioid receptors by a high level of β-endorphin evokes rubbing and rolling, which is inhibited by naloxone, an antagonist of μ-opioid receptors; face rubbing and rolling over transfer nepetalactol with repellent activity against Aedes albopictus from the leaves onto the cat’s face, head, and body fur where it helps to protect them from mosquito bites. Image credit: Reiko Uenoyama, Iwate University.

Bioactive Compounds Found in Catnip and Silver Vine Protect Cats against Mosquito Bites

Jan 21, 2021 by News Staff

Domestic cats and other felids rub their faces and heads against catnip (Nepeta cataria) and silver vine (Actinidia polygama) and roll on the ground as...

The Volta’s electric eel (Electrophorus voltai) in Xingu River in north Brazil. Image credit: L. Sousa.

Volta’s Electric Eels Hunt in Packs

Jan 18, 2021 by News Staff

New observations made near the mouth of a small lake on the banks of the Iriri River in Brazil’s state of Pará show Volta’s electric eels (Electrophorus...