Biology

Stanford researchers have hacked the Lego Mindstorms platform as a springboard to create a liquid-handling robotics kit, using inexpensive, off-the-shelf parts. They’re hoping to get the kits into classrooms and STEM-curious kids’ hands as soon as possible, to open up the “wet sciences” — biology, chemistry, and medicine — for …

A 20-year demographic study of a relatively undisturbed and exceptionally large community of eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) at Ngogo, Kibale National Park, southwestern Uganda, has revealed that our close primate relatives can lead surprisingly long lives in the wild. A member of the Ngogo community of chimpanzees in Uganda’s …

A new species of tapaculo — called the Tatama tapaculo (Scytalopus alvarezlopezi) — has been discovered in the cloud forests of Colombia’s Western Andes. The Tatama tapaculo (Scytalopus alvarezlopezi) upon capture at Cerro Montezuma, Risaralda department, Colombia, April 2, 2015. Image credit: Julian Heavyside, doi: 10.1642/AUK-16-205.1. The Tatama tapaculo was …

According to a new study published in The Science of Nature, the annual prey kill of the global spider community is in the range of 400-800 million metric tons (fresh weight), with insects and springtails composing more than 90% of the captured prey. Jumping spider Phidippus mystaceus feeding on a …

After only nine generations, the same plant species is larger and more fragrant if pollinated by bumblebees rather than flies, according to University of Zurich evolutionary biologists Florian Schiestl and Daniel Gervasi. The study by Florian Schiestl and Daniel Gervasi focuses on the role insect pollinators can play in plant …

A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals the link between breeding season and the hormone melatonin, made in the pineal gland in the brain during long winter nights. Castle-Miller et al have discovered how animals link the change in seasons to their …

Brazilian taxonomists have discovered and described three new species of the ‘bird-eating’ tarantula genus Avicularia from Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. Avicularia merianae, female. Image credit: H.-W. Auer. The description is published in a new issue of the journal ZooKeys, authored by Dr. Caroline Sayuri Fukushima and Dr. Rogério Bertani, researchers …

The True’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon mirus) is a poorly known member of the family Ziphiidae, second largest family of cetaceans (which includes whales, dolphins and porpoises). Little is known about its distribution, abundance and calving rate. However, an international team of researchers has now obtained the first images of a …

Frogs have the ability to see color even when it is so dark that humans are not able to see anything at all, according to a new study published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. According to Yovanovich et al, frogs can see color in extreme …

Earth came into being roughly 4.5 billion years ago, and a new discovery in Canada indicates life developed not long after. Scientists studying ancient rock formations in Quebec have identified microscopic structures in the rock that they believe are the fossilized remains of microorganisms that lived on Earth between 3.7 …