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News tagged with body size

Big-mouthed babies drove the evolution of giant island snakes

Some populations of tiger snakes stranded for thousands of years on tiny islands surrounding Australia have evolved to be giants, growing to nearly twice the size of their mainland cousins. Now, new research ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 15, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Eye size determined by maximum running speed in mammals

Maximum running speed is the most important variable influencing mammalian eye size other than body size, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 02, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Research reveals evolution of earliest horses was driven by climate change, global warming affected body size

When Sifrhippus, the earliest known horse, first appeared in the forests of North America more than 50 million years ago, it would not have been mistaken for a Clydesdale. It weighed in at around 12 pounds ...

Biology / Evolution

created Feb 23, 2012 | popularity 3.6 / 5 (7) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

'Shish kebab' structure provides improved form of 'buckypaper'

Scientists are reporting development of a new form of buckypaper, which eliminates a major drawback of these sheets of carbon nanotubes -- 50,000 times thinner than a human hair, 10 times lighter than steel, ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Feb 08, 2012 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

A whole new meaning for thinking on your feet

Smithsonian researchers report that the brains of tiny spiders are so large that they fill their body cavities and overflow into their legs. As part of ongoing research to understand how miniaturization affects ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Dec 12, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Study of wolves will help scientists predict climate effects on endangered animals

Scientists studying populations of gray wolves in the USA's Yellowstone National Park have developed a way to predict how changes in the environment will impact on the animals' number, body size and genetics, amongst other ...

Biology / Ecology

created Dec 01, 2011 | popularity 3 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Bigger birds in central California, courtesy of global climate change

Birds are getting bigger in central California, and that was a big surprise for Rae Goodman and her colleagues.

Biology / Ecology

created Oct 31, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 4

Climate change downsizing fauna, flora: study

Climate change is reducing the body size of many animal and plant species, including some which supply vital nutrition for more than a billion people already living near hunger's threshold, according to a ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Oct 16, 2011 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (18) | comments 21

The geometry of sex: How body size could lead to new species

Different species of scincid lizards, commonly known as skinks, rarely interbreed, but it's not for lack of trying.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Aug 26, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 2

Low oxygen triggers moth molt

A new explanation for one of nature's most mysterious processes, the transformation of caterpillars into moths or butterflies, might best be described as breathless.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Aug 22, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Big brains evolved due to capacity for exercise

The relatively large size of the mammalian brain evolved due to a capacity for endurance exercise, researchers conclude in a recent study.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Aug 04, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 18 | with audio podcast

Mini or massive? For turtles and tortoises, it all depends on where you live

(PhysOrg.com) -- Biologists from the UCLA Division of Life Sciences have reported the first quantitative evidence for an evolutionary link between habitat and body size in turtles and tortoises.

Biology / Evolution

created Feb 02, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Climate change causes larger, more plentiful marmots, study shows

This week, one of the world's foremost scientific journals will publish results of a decades-long research project founded at the University of Kansas showing that mountain rodents called marmots are growing ...

Biology / Ecology

created Jul 21, 2010 | popularity 3.5 / 5 (11) | comments 26 | with audio podcast

Brain size associated with longevity

Mammals with larger brains in relation to body size tend to live longer. This is the conclusion reached by researchers at the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), affiliated to ...

Biology / Evolution

created Jul 15, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 1

Childhood body size affects future breast cancer chances

Thinner girls may be at higher risk of breast cancer. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research found that girls who were leaner at age seven were at higher risk of cancer later in lif ...

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created Apr 14, 2010 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

X-height

In typography, the x-height or corpus size refers to the distance between the baseline and the mean line in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the letter x in the font (which is where the terminology came from), as well as the u, v, w, and z. (Curved letters such as a, c, e, m, n, o, r and s tend to exceed the x-height slightly, due to overshoot.) However, in modern typography, the x-height is simply a design characteristic of the font, and while an x is usually exactly one x-height in height, in some more decorative or script designs, this may not always be the case.

Lowercase letters whose height is greater than the x-height either have descenders which extend below the baseline, such as y, g, q, and p, or have ascenders which extend above the x-height, such as l, k, b, and d. The ratio of the x-height to the body height is one of the major characteristics that defines the appearance of a font. The height of the capital letters is referred to as Cap height.

For more information about X-height, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.