News tagged with national museum of natural history

Preventing home invasions means fighting side-by-side for coral-dwelling crabs and shrimp

As any comic book lover knows, when superheroes band together the bad guys fall harder. The strength that comes in numbers is greater than the sum of its parts.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Mar 30, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

DNA traces cattle back to a small herd domesticated around 10,500 years ago

All cattle are descended from as few as 80 animals that were domesticated from wild ox in the Near East some 10,500 years ago, according to a new genetic study.

Biology / Evolution

created Mar 27, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Ancient whale species sheds new light on its modern relatives

Beluga whales and narwhals live solely in the cold waters of the Arctic and sub-arctic. Smithsonian scientists, however, found that this may not have always been the case. They recently described a new species ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Mar 22, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (8) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

The Earth's new water budget

Investigating the history of water on Earth is critical to understanding the planet's climate. One central question is whether Earth has always had the same amount of water on and surrounding it, the same ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Mar 05, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (7) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

Dinosaurs had fleas too -- giant ones, fossils show

In the Jurassic era, even the flea was a beast, compared to its minuscule modern descendants. These pesky bloodsuckers were nearly an inch long.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Feb 29, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (11) | comments 8

New exhibition, website guide visitors through the evolving universe

The cosmos constantly changes. Stars are born, live out their lives, and die - sometimes calmly, sometimes explosively. Galaxies form, grow, and collide dramatically. A new exhibition and website, developed ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 30, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 3

Scientists use fossil feathers reveal lineage of extinct, flightless ibis

A remarkable first occurred recently at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History when ornithologists Carla Dove and Storrs Olson used 700- to 1,100-year-old feathers from a long extinct species ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Nov 22, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Whales in the desert: Fossil bonanza poses mystery

(AP) -- More than 2 million years ago, scores of whales congregating off the Pacific Coast of South America mysteriously met their end.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Nov 19, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 8

Details of ancient shark attack preserved in fossil whale bone

A fragment of whale rib found in a North Carolina strip mine is offering scientists a rare glimpse at the interactions between prehistoric sharks and whales some 3- to 4-million years ago during the Pliocene.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Nov 10, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Survey identifies sea turtle 'hitchhikers'

A recent survey documented the crustaceans, mollusks, algae and other marine organisms that make a home on the bodies Olive Ridley and green sea turtles living in the Pacific.

Biology / Ecology

created Nov 08, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

New study reveals coral reefs may support much more biodiversity than previously thought

Smithsonian scientists and colleagues conducted the first DNA barcoding survey of crustaceans living on samples of dead coral taken from the Indian, Pacific and Caribbean oceans. The results suggest that the ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Nov 02, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Storing vertebrates in the cloud

What Google is attempting for books, the University of California, Berkeley, plans to do for the world's vertebrate specimens: store them in "the cloud."

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Aug 24, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

'Supergene' is key to copycat butterflies

Since Charles Darwin, biologists have pondered the mystery of "mimicry butterflies", which survive by copying the wing patterns of other butterflies that taste horrible to their predators, birds.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Aug 12, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (7) | comments 0

Scientists reveal a first in Ice Age art

Researchers from the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Florida have announced the discovery of a bone fragment, approximately 13,000 years old, in Florida with an incised image ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Jun 21, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (10) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Mastodon skull discovered in Chile

A perfectly preserved skull of a mastodon -- a relative of today's elephant -- was found here during excavation work at a water treatment plant, one of the scientists involved in the discovery said Tuesday.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 18, 2011 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (8) | comments 0