Mantis shrimps pack a powerful punch, whether they smash or spear their victims. According to Maya deVries and Sheila Patek from University of California, Berkeley, smasher mantis shrimps power their claws' ballistic blows ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 22, 2012
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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 chocolate, epicatechin ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 27, 2012
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Geckos are remarkable little creatures, clinging to almost any dry surface, and Alyssa Stark, from the University of Akron, USA, explains that they appear to be equally happy scampering through tropical rainforest canopies ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 9, 2012
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Shark skin has long been known to improve the fish's swimming performance by reducing drag, but now George Lauder and Johannes Oeffner from Harvard University show that in addition, the skin generates thrust, giving the fish ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 9, 2012
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Lumbering around during the final weeks before delivery is tough for any pregnant mum. Most females adjust their movements to compensate for the extreme physical changes that accompany the later stages of pregnancy. However, ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 24, 2011
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Insulated in a luxuriously thick winter coat, reindeer are perfectly prepared for the gripping cold of an Arctic winter. But the pelt doesn't just keep the cold out, it keeps the warmth in too: which is fine when the animals ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 27, 2011
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Thanks to Hollywood, piranhas have a bad reputation and it would be a brave scientist that chose to plunge their hand into a tank of them. But that didn't deter Sandie Millot, Pierre Vandewalle and Eric Parmentier from the ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 13, 2011
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Gripping tightly to a tree trunk, at first sight a colugo might be mistaken for a lemur. However, when this animal leaps it launches into a graceful glide, spreading wide the enormous membrane that spans its legs and tail ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 28, 2011
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Why don't you ever see baby pigeons? For the same reason you don't see many chicks: they can't fly. It can take months for their partially developed wings and flight muscles to become airworthy, and by then the youngsters ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 23, 2011
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Water spiders spend their entire lives under water, only venturing to the surface to replenish their diving bell air supply. Yet no one knew how long the spiders could remain submerged until Roger Seymour and Stefan Hetz ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 9, 2011
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