Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

May 31, 2009

Crying Baby Monkeys Get on Everyone's Nerves

When baby rhesus monkeys want to suckle, they do what human infants do: cry, cry, cry. Mothers often give in, naturally. When they don't, the babies' cries get on everyone's nerves — sometimes with nasty consequences. In rhesus society, dominant individuals aren't shy about showing anger by chasing, pushing, hitting,...

Apr 30, 2009

The Puppy Mummy

Egyptians were known to preserve cats, birds and even crocodiles. Now researchers have found a mummified puppy at the feet of a human mummy. The dog has been named Hapi-Puppy after an inscription on the tomb, which read Hapi-Men. Not exactly as catchy as King Tut, but at 2,300 years...

Apr 30, 2009

Ants Can Smell Death

When an ant dies, its nestmates quickly pack it off. That way, the risk to the colony of infection is reduced. But how do they know its dead? Theory has held that dead ants release chemicals created by decomposition (such as fatty acids) that signal their death to the colony's...

Apr 30, 2009

New Machine Pumps Disembodied Heart

After a pig's final oink, a new machine can pump the dead animal's extracted heart so that the muscle beats much like the live one did, scientists say. The machine, created by researchers at North Carolina State University, can help scientists experiment with new technologies for heart surgery without sacrificing...

Apr 30, 2009

Good News: Rare Blue Whales on the Move

Blue whales, the world's largest animals, are on the move. These marine mammals migrated from California waters to areas off Canada and Alaska for the first time since commercial whaling ended in 1965, researchers announced recently. The researchers identified 15 blue whales that have appeared off the coast of British...

Apr 30, 2009

Monkey See, Monkey Really Do

The old adage monkey see, monkey do applies not only to mimicking movements, but also to following gaze — monkeys quickly look in a particular direction if they see other monkeys looking that way. Now, scientists think they have found the area of the brain responsible for this mirroring behavior....

Apr 30, 2009

Pea-Sized Seahorse Makes 'Top 10 Species' List

A pea-sized seahorse, caffeine-free coffee and bacteria that live in hairspray are among the top 10 species described in 2008, a group of scientists announced today. The top 10 new species also include the very tiny (a snake just a slither longer than 4 inches or 104 millimeters), the very...

Mar 31, 2009

Tiny Newfound Frog Fits on a Fingertip

A tiny, midget frog that can fit on the tip of a finger — and previously only known by its croaking — has finally been found by researchers. The frog, dubbed Noble’s Pygmy frog (Noblella pygmaea), is the smallest ever found in the Andes and one of the tiniest amphibians...

Mar 31, 2009

Chimps Barter for Sex

The oldest profession isn't restricted to humans. A new study found that wild chimpanzees exchange meat for sex. By stealthily following a group of about 20 adult chimpanzees in Côte d’Ivoire's Taï National Park, behavioral ecologists Cristina Gomes and Christophe Boesch of Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany...

Mar 31, 2009

Cow Genome Decoded

The genome of a cow has been decoded, and the work could lead to breeders selecting for features that would make higher quality milk and better beef. At a cost of $53 million in a project involving more than 300 researchers, one would hope so. The work has shown that...

Mar 31, 2009

Dinosaurs Lived in the Arctic

You know the scenario: 65 million years ago, a big meteor crash sets off volcanoes galore, dust and smoke fill the air, dinosaurs go belly up. One theory holds that cold, brought on by the Sun's concealment, is what did them in, but a team of paleontologists led by Pascal...

Mar 31, 2009

Fish Feel Pain, Study Finds

When you hook a fish, does it hurt? Yes, a new study suggests. Some researchers have previously concluded that fish react to painful stimuli without actually feeling pain in the conscious way humans do. In the new study, researchers gave morphine to one group of fish, and injected the other...

Feb 28, 2009

Photos: The New Amphibian Tree of Life

Scientists revise outdated taxonomy (Image credit: Credit: Taran Grant, AMNH)Six American Museum of Natural History biologists, including Darrel Frost, and 13 colleagues have completed the largest analysis ever of the evolutionary relationships among all living amphibians, a project so ambitious that it also represents the largest analysis of its kind...

Feb 28, 2009

Giant Stingray Could Be World's Largest Freshwater Fish

As part of a National Geographic expedition, scientists caught what could be the world’s biggest stingray. The fish was tagged and released in central Thailand on Jan. 28, during the expedition, which seeks to find and protect specimens of the world's largest freshwater fish. A photo marking the catch was...

Feb 28, 2009

Irish Frogs Survived Ice Age

Ireland is not known for its wildlife, as much of it was wiped out in the Ice Age. But the single species of frog that lives on the Emerald Isle apparently toughed it out during that extreme climate event while the same type of frog back on the British mainland...