Foundational concept of ecology tested by experiment
Making a light-harvesting antenna from scratch
(PhysOrg.com) -- Sometimes when people talk about solar energy, they tacitly assume that we're stuck with some version of the silicon solar cell and its technical and cost limitations. Not so.
Nov 29, 2011
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Scientist suggests life began in freshwater pond, not the ocean
(PhysOrg.com) -- For most everyone alive today, it's almost a fundamental fact. Life began in the ocean and evolved into all of the different organisms that exist today. The idea that this could be wrong causes ...
Feb 14, 2012
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First evidence of sleep in snails
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists in Canada noticed pond snails spent around 10 percent of their time attached to the side of their tank with their tentacles partly withdrawn, their shells hanging away from their ...
Feb 18, 2011
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Chocolate makes snails smarter
Chocolate isn't usually on the diet for snails, but when Lee Fruson and Ken Lukowiak from the University of Calgary, became curious about the effects of diet on memory, they decided to try a flavonoid from ...
Sep 27, 2012
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Pond skating insects reveal water-walking secrets
This month's special issue of Physics World is devoted to animal physics, and includes science writer Stephen Ornes explanation of how s effortlessly skip across water leaving nothing but a small ripple in their wake.
Oct 31, 2012
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Robofish grace glides with the greatest of ease
(Phys.org)—A high-tech robotic fish hatched at Michigan State University has a new look. A new skill. And a new name.
Jan 16, 2013
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Team finds how the world's saltiest pond gets its salt
Antarctica's Don Juan Pond might be the unlikeliest body of water on Earth. Situated in the frigid McMurdo Dry Valleys, only the pond's high salt content—by far the highest of any body of water on the planet—keeps it ...
Feb 07, 2013
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Melt ponds cause the Artic sea ice to melt more rapidly
The Arctic sea ice has not only declined over the past decade but has also become distinctly thinner and younger. Researchers are now observing mainly thin, first-year ice floes which are extensively covered ...
Jan 18, 2013
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Some scum! Microbe in pond scum enlisted in new cancer test
Scientists are enlisting the living, self-propelled microbes found in pond scum -- the pea-green surface slicks that form on ponds -- in the development of a long-awaited new test to detect the cells that spread cancer through ...
Mar 25, 2012
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The great pond experiment: Pond communities bear lasting imprint of random events in their past
(PhysOrg.com) -- A seven-year experiment shows that pond communities bear the imprint of random events in their past, such as the order in which species were introduced into the ponds. This finding locates ...
May 27, 2010
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Hydrology affects carbon storage potential of prairie potholes
Prairie potholes, the small, dynamic, unconnected ponds that dot central Canada as well as parts of the north-central United States, can store significant amounts of soil nutrients that can be transformed to carbon dioxide ...
May 07, 2013
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Right/left handedness of snails changed in the lab
(PhysOrg.com) -- Like most animals, snails have either left- or right-handed asymmetry (chirality), both internally and externally, and the handedness is hereditary. A new study has for the first time found ...
Nov 30, 2009
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More than mere pond scum
(PhysOrg.com) -- Algae could soon become a valuable biofuel resource, according to research at the University of Arizona.
Apr 25, 2011
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Forget the Coppertone: Water fleas in mountain ponds can handle UV rays
Some tiny crustaceans living in clear-water alpine ponds high in Washington state's Olympic Mountains have learned how to cope with the sun's damaging ultraviolet rays without sunblock – and with very ...
Oct 13, 2010
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