検索キーワード： 著者 "Helen Thompson" すべてのカテゴリー

From horses to salamanders, lots of different species display some form of number sense, but the phenomenon hasn’t been investigated in reptiles. So a team of researchers in Italy set up two experiments for 27 ruin lizards (Podarcis sicula) collected from walls on the University of Ferrara’s campus. In the first test, the team served up two house fly larvae of varying sizes. Lizards consistently chose to scarf down bigger maggots.

Paper wasps have a knack for recognizing faces, and a new study adds to our understanding of what that means in a wasp’s brain.

Unlike today’s whales that specialize in making — and hearing — very high- or low-pitched sounds, early whales’ ears probably picked up noises somewhere in the middle, paleontologists Mickaël Mourlam and Maeva Orliac report June 8 in Current Biology.

The fossilized remains of a roughly 520-million-year-old creepy-crawly provide an exquisite portrait of an ancient arthropod’s nervous system. "Fossil Reveals Arthropod's Nervous System" is from the March 19, 2016 issue of Science News.

What happens when you shoot lasers at a dinosaur fossil? Some chemicals preserved in the fossil glow, providing a nuanced portrait of the ancient creature’s bones, feathers and soft tissue such as skin.

Tubelip wrasses eat dangerously, daring to dine on sharp corals lined with stinging cells. New images reveal the fish’s secret to safe eating: lubing up and planting a big one on their dinner.

Charles Darwin returned from his travels aboard the Beagle in 1836 with several curious fossils from South America - including the preserved remains of what appeared to be a giant armored mammal. He thought the ancient animal, later dubbed a glyptodont, must have looked a lot like a supersized armadillo. "Ancient Armadillo Look-Alikes Are Related to Modern Armadillos" is from the March 19, 2016 issue of Science News.

Researcher dissects howler monkey roars.

H. severus belongs to a group of crabs first found in shadowy caves on Christmas Island.

When it comes to hopping between branches, tiny parrots try only as hard as they need to. The finding comes from high-speed video taken to measure how Pacific parrotlets (Forpus coelestis) shift momentum from takeoff to landing.

 Europe's structural contradictions mean it will never succeed. 

Everybody poops, but the poop of bloblike filter feeders called giant larvaceans could be laced with microplastics.

Dad bod is a big deal for albatrosses. Bigger male wandering albatrosses live longer and are more likely to breed successfully compared with lighter birds, while mass has no observable effect on female breeding or survival, researchers report.

Mapping the relationships between different dog breeds is rough (get it?), but a team of scientists at the National Institutes of Health did just that using the DNA of 1,346 dogs from 161 breeds. Their analysis, which appears April 25 in Cell Reports, offers a lot to chew on.

Researchers examined lead levels in dirt drilled from two Roman harbor sites, Ostia and Portus, on the Tiber River. The samples spanned 1000 B.C. to A.D. 1000. Up until around 200 B.C., harbor waters were pristine, but then contamination started to creep in.

Five, six, seven, eight! All together now, let's spread those jazz hands and get moving, because synchronized dancing improves our tolerance of pain and helps us bond as humans, researchers suggest October 28 in Biology Letters. A team of psychologists at the University of Oxford taught high school students varied dance routines - each requiring different levels of exertion and synchronized movement - and then tested their pain tolerance with the sharp squeeze of a blood pressure cuff.

Hydras, petite pond polyps known for their seemingly eternal youth, exemplify the art of bouncing back.

Physics of skeeter wingbeats suggests insects may have traded efficiency for alluring buzz.

Dental plaque preserved in fossilized teeth confirms that Neandertals were flexible eaters and may have self-medicated with an ancient equivalent of aspirin.

Early Cretaceous fur ball with spikes discovered in Spain.