Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

Dec 31, 2004

Monkeys Pay to See Female Monkey Bottoms

Would you pay to see a monkey's backside? I hope not. Monkeys will, and I guess that's okay, though it sounds awfully close to the sort of thing that lands guys in jail here in the human realm. A new study found that male monkeys will give up their juice...

Nov 30, 2006

Scientists Puzzled by Extreme Penguin Dives

When emperor penguins dive below the Antarctic sea ice in search of food, they can descend five times as deep as a human and can swim on a single breath for up to 20 minutes. Researchers are trying to find out how they manage these incredible feats to potentially help...

Nov 30, 2006

Baby Marine Reptile Buried by Volcano

A massive volcanic blast may have killed and preserved a baby marine reptile, whose skeleton, one of the most complete example of its kind ever found, was recovered from the frozen ground of Antarctica. Plesiosaurs, ancient marine reptiles with paddle-like fins, swam through the Southern Ocean approximately 70 million years...

Nov 30, 2006

Mammals Might Have Soared Before Birds

Mammals might have taken to the sky before birds, scientists announced today. A new order of mammals has been named based on a recently discovered fossil of a squirrel-sized Mesozoic-era animal [image] that lived at least 130 million years ago and was capable of gliding flight. The ancient mammal, Volaticotherium...

Nov 30, 2006

How a Zebrafish Regrows a Fin

If a zebrafish loses a chunk of its tail fin, not to worry, it'll grow the fin back within a week. How this fish along with other cold-blooded animals, such as lizards, newts and frogs, can replace complex body parts with the ease of magicians has eluded scientists. Now a...

Nov 30, 2006

Talking Fish: Wide Variety of Sounds Discovered

Increasingly scientists are discovering unusual mechanisms by which fish make and hear secret whispers, grunts and thumps to attract mates and ward off the enemy. In just one bizarre instance, seahorses create clicks by tossing their heads. They snap the rear edge of their skulls against their star-shaped bony crests....

Nov 30, 2006

Sea Slug Offers Clues to Human Brain Disorders

Beneath a slimy fa?ade, the sea slug is somewhat of a brainiac. At any given time within a single brain cell of this marine snail (Aplysia), more than 10,000 genes are hard at work, suggests a new study looking at aspects of the sea slug's genome. By probing the brain...

Oct 31, 2006

'Missing Link' of Elephant Family Unearthed

A 27-million-year-old fossil could be the “missing link” between modern elephants and their ancestors, scientists have concluded. Researchers led by Jeheskel Shoshani of the University of Amara in Eritrea recently discovered the lower part of a mandible in the northeast African country of Eritrea. The unearthed tooth had a structure...

Oct 31, 2006

Radioactive Fish Give Off Bad Vibes

Fish exposed to dangerous radiation send out chemical signals to alert their pals so they can then turn up their defenses, scientists in Canada report. These results might help regulators identify radiation leaks from nuclear power plants. Since 1921, scientists have known that cells and animals exposed to radiation emit...

Oct 31, 2006

Dolphin May Have 'Remains' of Legs

TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of hind legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land. Fishermen captured the four-finned dolphin alive off the...

Oct 31, 2006

Surprise! Your Cousin's a Sea Urchin

Meet your new evolutionary cousin, the sea urchin. By analyzing the newly sequenced genome of the spineless creature, an international team of scientists found just how much we have in common with them. The research could lead to new drugs for human ills. “The sea urchin is surprisingly similar to...

Oct 31, 2006

Greatest Mass Extinction Gave Oceans a Face Lift

The largest extinction in Earth's history not only wiped out 95 percent of sea creatures and 70 percent of land animals, it also gave the oceans a fundamental face lift, according to a new study. Before the end-Permian mass extinction 250 million years ago, the seas were home to a...

Oct 31, 2006

Female Chimps Fight Back

Female chimpanzees in the wild form coalitions to retaliate against aggressive males, a new study reveals. Nicholas Newton-Fisher of the University of Kent studied a community of eight adult male and 21 adult female East African chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest, Uganda. The females were subject to frequent aggression by...

Sep 30, 2006

Mammal Extinction Blamed on Earth's Wobble

The emergence and disappearance of species of mammals could be due to wobbles in the Earth's orbit, suggests a new study. Surveying 22 million years of rodent fossil records, researchers found that peak species turnover corresponded to variations in the shape of the planet's orbit around the Sun, which oscillates...

Sep 30, 2006

Ancient Miniature Buffalo Discovered

The bones of an extinct dwarf species of buffalo were recently unearthed on the Philippine island of Cebu. Dubbed Bubalus cebuensis (BOO-buh-luhs seh-boo-EN-sis), the miniature buffalo [image] stood at just more than two feet, three times smaller than today's domestic buffalo, and weighed a mere 350 pounds. It probably lived...