Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

Nov 30, 2007

World's Oldest Orangutan Dies

MIAMI (AP) -- A 55-year-old Sumatran orangutan, believed to be the world's oldest, has died at the Miami zoo. Nonja, who was born on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and lived in Miami since 1983, was found dead Saturday morning. Everybody's very sad, especially with an animal like an orangutan,...

Oct 31, 2007

Image Gallery: Great White Sharks

Open Wide (Image credit: © Klaus Jost, www.jostimages.com Used with permission.)An intriguing (and terrifying) look inside the mouth of the great white shark. Catch of the Day (Image credit: © Klaus Jost, www.jostimages.com Used with permission.)Great white shark jumps well above the ocean waters to catch this fish. Just Below...

Oct 31, 2007

The Truth about Tooth Decay

Are you worried that your mass consumption of Halloween candy this year will rot your teeth so badly that you will have the smile of a hockey player by next year? Well, don't take this as an invitation to eat a dozen Zagnut bars in one sitting, but there are...

Oct 31, 2007

Giant Dinosaur Skeleton Found in Museum Drawers

A curator has rediscovered a nearly complete giant Barosaurus skeleton hidden for years in museum drawers. The skeleton was pieced together from an array of giant bones now known to belong to an 80-foot-long (24 meters) dinosaur whose footsteps shook the Earth some 150 million years ago. The Barosaurus skeleton...

Oct 31, 2007

Huge Claw Belonged to 8-foot Sea Scorpion

The giant fossil claw of the largest sea scorpion found yet has just been uncovered. The 18-inch (46-centimeter) claw likely belonged to an 8-foot (2.46-meter) sea scorpion. Sea scorpions are thought to be the extinct aquatic ancestors of scorpions and possibly all arachnids. This is an amazing discovery, said researcher...

Oct 31, 2007

Dogs Do Well on Computers

They sport bejeweled chokers, lavish in spa bubble baths and have their own leather-bag chauffeurs. And now our almost-human dogs might also try their paws at computers. Four dogs strutted their stuff recently by using touch-screen computers to classify color photographs for a study of animal cognition. Using touch-screen computers...

Sep 30, 2007

Why Dogs Bite Kids

Territorial behavior, anxiety and other medical issues lead dogs to bite children, a new study shows. To see if there were any common links among dogs who had bitten a child within a particular four-year period, researchers examined 111 cases of dog bites by 103 dogs, all referred to the...

Sep 30, 2007

Polar Dinosaurs Left Their Tracks

Newly discovered footprints made by carnivorous dinosaurs in Australia reveal the ancient beasts survived in polar climes when the outback was still joined to Antarctica and close to the South Pole. The discovery of the three fossil tracks, each about 14 inches (36 centimeters) long and showing two to three...

Aug 31, 2007

Tiny Dino Was Ready to Fly

Remains of a petite dinosaur reveal that some of the ancestors of birds had already shrunk in size before flight evolved. The dinosaur, a mere 2 feet long (70 centimeters) and weighing the equivalent of two cans of soda, roamed the Earth 80 million years ago during the Cretaceous period...

Aug 31, 2007

Suspect's Family Blames Murders on Snake Bite

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) — Relatives of a man accused of killing six people in Texas and Pennsylvania apologized to their families Monday, said the suspect had psychological problems and suggested a rattlesnake bite may have set him off. We feel it's a psychological stupor he was in, an uncle, Ed...

Aug 31, 2007

Stephen Colbert's Favorite Turtle Missing After Great Race

Shortly after snagging 2nd place in the Great Turtle Race, the leatherback turtle Stephanie Coburtle went missing and she has been offline for more than 100 days, it was announced today. The female leatherback is named after comedian Stephen Colbert, who commented on his turtle on a video played at...

Aug 31, 2007

Asthma Linked to Cat Allergies

More than 50 percent of the current asthma cases in the U.S. are the result of allergies, especially to cats, according to a new National Institutues of Health (NIH) study. Asthmatics, people with allergies and doctors alike have long debated possible connections between pets, dust, ragweed, mold, fungus, foods, cockroaches,...

Jul 31, 2007

Sounds Like ... Apes Play Charades

When humans play charades, the game's ban on talk often reduces players to wild gestures in a frustratingly minimalist form of communication. Still, skillful players get the point across eventually. Apes can't talk at all, of course. But now scientists have found that orangutans rely on the same kinds of...

Jul 31, 2007

Dolphin Species Goes Extinct Due to Humans

The Yangtze River dolphin is now almost certainly extinct, making it the first dolphin that humans drove to extinction, scientists have now concluded after an intense search for the endangered species. The loss also represents the first global extinction of megafauna—any creature larger than about 200 pounds (100 kilograms)—for more...

Jul 31, 2007

Promiscuous Mama Birds Bank on 'Nannies'

Child care can be costly, even in the avian world. Some clever and promiscuous mama birds save their energy and get a boost in health by relying on helper birds for free offspring-care, new research shows. The study reveals how female superb fairy-wrens (Malurus cyaneus) skimp on allocating energy-costing nutrition...