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Commonly used pesticide turns honey bees into 'picky eaters'

Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered that a small dose of a commonly used crop pesticide turns honey bees into "picky eaters" and affects their ability to recruit their nestmates to otherwise good sources of food.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created 2 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Deep sea animals stowaway on submarines and reach new territory

Marine scientists studying life around deep-sea vents have discovered that some hardy species can survive the extreme change in pressure that occurs when a research submersible rises to the surface. The team's ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created 3 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Octopuses focus on key features for successful camouflage

Octopuses camouflage themselves by matching their body pattern to selected features of nearby objects, rather than trying to match the entire larger field of view, according to new research published in the ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created 10 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Warm, dry El Nino weather puts baby sea turtle at risk

Climate variability associated with El Niño was associated with higher mortality for eggs and hatchlings of the critically endangered leatherback turtle, an effect that could be worsened by continuing global climate ...

Biology / Ecology

created 10 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

New tool for visualizing the distribution of vascular plants in Belgium

The Belgian Biodiversity Platform has just released a new website "IFBL Data Portal, Explore Flora Checklists of Belgium". It aggregates about 23,000 checklists of vascular plants in Belgium, compiled since 1939 ...

Biology / Ecology

created 11 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Factors behind past lemur species extinctions put surviving species in 'ecological retreat'

New research out today on the long-term impact of species extinctions suggests that the disappearance of one species does not necessarily allow remaining competitor species to thrive by filling now-empty niches.

Biology / Ecology

created 12 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Top 10 new species list draws attention to diverse biosphere

The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and a committee of scientists from around the world announced their picks for the top 10 new species described in 2011. This ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created 14 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Newly discovered sensory organ in the chin of baleen whales allows them to be world's largest hunters

Lunge feeding in rorqual whales (a group that includes blue, humpback and fin whales) is unique among mammals, but details of how it works have remained elusive. Now, scientists from the Smithsonian Institution ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created 14 hours ago | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

An introduced bird competitor tips the balance against Hawaiian species

Biologists Leonard Freed and Rebecca Cann from the University of Hawaii at Manoa have been studying birds at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge for 20 years. Located on an old cattle ranch on the windward ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created 14 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Old herbicides enlisted in new 'war on the weeds'

The emergence of weeds resistant to the most widely used herbicide is fostering a new arms race in the war against these menaces, which cost society billions of dollars annually in control measures and lost agricultural production. ...

Biology / Ecology

created 15 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Velvet spiders emerge from underground in new cybertaxonomic monograph

Velvet spiders include some of the most beautiful arachnids in Europe and some of the world's most cooperative species. Social species can be very abundant in parts of tropical Africa and Asia with conspicuous co ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created 15 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Deterring signals: Tobacco plants advertise their defensive readiness to attacking leafhoppers

Following herbivory, plants produce jasmonic acid, a hormone which activates several plant defense reactions. Scientists found that leafhoppers can evaluate whether tobacco plants are ready for defense when attacked. If jasmonate-signaling ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created 15 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Tracking endangered elephants with satellite technology

A hundred years ago wild elephants on the Malay Peninsular could be counted in their thousands — now there are less than 1500. Over the last century around 50 per cent of forest cover in Peninsular Malaysia ...

Biology / Ecology

created 16 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

The living fossils of brain evolution

(Phys.org) -- In the course of its evolution, the architecture of the mouse brain may have barely changed. Similar to the tiny ancestors of modern mammals that lived about 80 million years ago, nerve cells ...

Biology / Evolution

created 16 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Forensics ferret out fire beetle secret

Black fire beetles of the genus Melanophila possess unusual infrared sensors. Researchers from the University of Bonn and from the Forschungszentrum Julich have concluded that the beetles' sensors might even ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created 16 hours ago | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0