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News tagged with body size

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

Climate change and the mystery of the shrinking sheep

(PhysOrg.com) -- Milder winters are causing Scotland's wild breed of Soay sheep to get smaller, despite the evolutionary benefits of possessing a large body, according to new research due to be published in ...

Biology / Evolution

created Jul 02, 2009 | popularity 3.1 / 5 (10) | comments 0

Why certain fishes went extinct 65 million years ago

Large size and a fast bite spelled doom for bony fishes during the last mass extinction 65 million years ago, according to a new study to be published March 31, 2009, in the Proceedings of the National Ac ...

Biology / Ecology

created Mar 26, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (12) | comments 1

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

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

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

Is the Hobbit's brain unfeasibly small?

(PhysOrg.com) -- The commonly held assumption that as primates evolved, their brains always tended to get bigger has been challenged by a team of scientists at Cambridge and Durham. Their work helps solve ...

Biology / Evolution

created Jan 27, 2010 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (10) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Does Size Matter? Study shows Taller People Earn More Money

(PhysOrg.com) -- Taller men are able to earn more money than their shorter counterparts simply because taller people are perceived to be more intelligent and powerful, this according to a study published in The Economic Re ...

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created Jul 13, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (4) | comments 4

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.