For red flour beetles, being a female in a male world is advantageous. Unlike humans, where this situation traditionally confers a disadvantage, female flour beetles in male-dominated groups seem to reproduce better and live ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 6, 2018
0
26
As an evolutionary biologist focusing on animal behaviour, I'm sometimes asked what relevance our research has for human behaviour. Years ago, I would duck the question because it was such a passionately polarising, political ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 9, 2017
0
10
Some plants behave like the mythical monster Hydra: Cut off their heads and they grow back, bigger and better than before. A new study finds that these "overcompensators," as they are called, also augment their defensive ...
Ecology
Oct 11, 2017
0
24
Scientists in the UK have observed a fascinating new fact about sex changing fish: the direction of sex change has implication for population numbers.
Plants & Animals
Aug 22, 2017
0
7
Famously, the use of caged birds to alert miners to the invisible dangers of gases such as carbon monoxide gave rise to the cautionary metaphor "canary in a coal mine."
Environment
Aug 11, 2017
7
74
Men are from mars and women are from venus? Whiles this stereotype is extreme and controversial, gender differences in behaviour nonetheless are common in nature. Much variation in animal, including human, behaviour is regulated ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 27, 2017
0
9
Norwegian researchers show that the sperm of Arctic char, a cold-water fish common to alpine lakes, swim at different speeds in different fluids, depending on whether the fish are dominant or submissive. The finding published ...
Evolution
Dec 21, 2016
0
75
A new review indicates that flowers may be able to manipulate the laws of physics, by playing with light, using mechanical tricks, and harnessing electrostatic forces to attract pollinators.
Plants & Animals
Dec 5, 2016
0
27
Research from the University of Sussex suggests that humans are unique among primates in being able to intentionally alter the frequencies of our voices to sound larger or smaller than we really are, a capacity that is likely ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 25, 2016
1
36
Whenever the "widow" spider is mentioned, people tend to sympathise with the hapless male—best known for its tendency to end up as a post-coital snack.
Plants & Animals
Sep 21, 2016
0
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