Science

Carnotaurus Scaly Skin

Paleontologists have described in detail for the first time the scaly skin of Carnotaurus sastrei, an abelisaurid theropod that lived in South America during the Late Cretaceous epoch, sometime between 72 and 70 million years ago. An artist’s reconstruction of Carnotaurus sastrei based on the scaly skin described by Hendrickx …

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Tardigrades Walking

Tardigrades utilize a tetrapod-like stepping pattern remarkably similar to that observed in insects, despite significant disparities in size and skeletal structure between the two groups, according to new research led by scientists from Rockefeller and Princeton Universities. Hypsibius exemplaris. Image credit: Tarushika Vasanthan & Jonathon Stone, doi: 10.22120/jwb.2020.96855.1037. The vast …

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Meet Titanokorys Gainesi

                  Paleontologists have described the largest Cambrian hurdiid radiodont known so far, named Titanokorys gainesi, from the Burgess Shale, British Columbia, Canada. Reconstruction of Titanokorys gainesi. Image credit: Caron & Moysiuk, doi: 10.1098/rsos.210664. Radiodonts, a group of primitive arthropods that evolved during …

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Vocal Learning Avians

An international team of scientists led by Flinders University has found evidence of prenatal auditory learning in embryos of three vocal learning species (superb fairy-wren, red-winged fairy-wren and Darwin’s small ground finch) and two vocal non-learning species (little penguin and Japanese quail). Colombelli-Négrel et al. demonstrate a capacity to perceive …

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Spotted Skunk Species

A team of U.S. scientists led by Chicago State University has analyzed species limits and diversification patterns in spotted skunks using nuclear and mitochondrial DNA datasets from broad geographic sampling representing all currently recognized species — Spilogale angustifrons, Spilogale gracilis, Spilogale putorius, and Spilogale pygmaea — and subspecies. A spotted …

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Personality Traits in Cats

A team of scientists at the University of Helsinki has studied cat personality and behavior by collecting a large dataset of 4,316 cats from 56 different breeds, house cats and mixed breed cats, with online questionnaires. Mikkola et al. examined the structure, test-retest reliability, inter-rater reliability, convergent validity and discriminant …

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The Kakapo Parrot

An international team of researchers has successfully sequenced and analyzed the genome of the kākāpō (Strigops habroptilus), a flightless parrot endemic to New Zealand. Published in the journal Cell Genomics, their results shows that even after 10,000 years of inbreeding, the species is in surprisingly good genetic health. The kākāpō …

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Early Eocene Primate

Dental cavities or caries is a common disease among modern humans, affecting almost every adult. New research shows that Microsyops latidens, a species of stem primate from the Early Eocene epoch, had a high prevalence of dental caries (7.48% of individuals), with notable variation through time, reaching 17.24% of individuals …

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Better Black Tea

Physicists from the Department of Health Science and Technology in the Institute of Food Nutrition and Health at the ETH Zürich have applied the science of rheology to the seemingly quaint purpose of improving the quality of a cup of black tea. Black tea brewed in tap water; whereas tea …

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Rhinoceros Family

  Researhers have sequenced the genomes of two living and three extinct rhinoceros species and compared them to existing data from the remaining three living species and a range of outgroups. A paleoartist’s reconstruction of the three extinct species whose genomes were sequenced by Liu et al.: in the foreground …

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