The second documented case of a female shark bearing a live young without ever being exposed to the presence of a male has recently been recorded. But this doesn't mean that there haven't been such cases before, even though they were not observed and analyzed by specialists. But before all feminist supporters possibly reading this article start crying out loud that “See, we can fare very well even without men's only needful feature,” it should be stressed out that this is perceived by biologists rather as a natural aberration than a normal response to being deprived of the presence of the opposite gender. Fur... [read more >>] The state of Earth's wildlife is bleak at best, say researchers. More than 50 percent of all mammal species are endangered and a quarter of them are in immediate danger and face extinction. Out of the 5,487 mammals studied in this year's edition of the Red Book, a publication that keeps track of the danger levels on all animals worldwide, more than 1140 are going to completely disappear during our lifetime. The statistics are frightening and ecologists are warning that human activities are the main cause for this decline. According to them, reduction of habitats, hunting and deforestation are the main causes that determine an... [read more >>] The fatidic date of December 21, 2012 was linked by many to the drastic decrease in strength of our planet's magnetic field and to the complete reversal of its poles. This would leave Earth undefended against solar radiation, as well as force our satellites down from their orbit, wrecking the GPS system, further causing social collapse. But don't worry, real science contradicts all that. Perhaps it will happen later in time, but not now.Most obviously, people tend to manifest an attraction for numerical patterns in dates, in that they link them to possibilities of Armageddon-like events that mean the end of the world as we know it... [read more >>] Direct consumption and agricultural uses of water, together with other industrial purposes, have recently become more and more worrying in quantitative terms. While people generally worry they will eventually come to lack food, in fact the water that provides it should be their main source of concern.Many millennia have passed since man first began to use water for other purposes than drinking. About 8.000 years ago, the discovery of irrigation had influenced mankind's behavior, diet and migrations. Today, on a rough average, people drink approximately 2 liters of water per day. But if all the water that is involved in providing their ... [read more >>] A rare species of a type of threadsnake, measuring only 10 centimeters in length, was discovered recently in the Caribbean island of Barbados by Blair Hedges, evolutionary biologist at the Pennsylvania State University and researcher, also known for discovering the world's smallest species of frogs and lizards. The area inhabited by the snake is actually a small forest on the eastern side of the island."Habitat destruction is a major threat to biodiversity throughout the world. The Caribbean is particularly vulnerable because it contains an unusually high percentage of endangered species and, because these animals live on islands, they... [read more >>] Squids and their relatives, cuttlefish and octopuses, have the most complex eyes in the invertebrate world, closely resembling in structure the eyes of vertebrates. On top of that, the eyes of these animals are relatively large compared to their size. These things considered, it's no wonder that the examination that started last week, of the largest colossal squid ever caught (and largest invertebrate ever captured) has revealed the largest eye on Earth. The 1,089-pound (490 kg), 26-ft (8.6 m) long colossal squid had been captured accidentally in February 2007 by a New Zealand fishing crew off the coast of Antarctica (in the northern R... [read more >>] The length of a day is not affected only by tides and winds. Underground forces are prolonging our days by milliseconds, as revealed by a new research published in the journal "Science." Phenomena from the mineral layer at the core-mantle boundary, 1,615 mi (2,600 km) deep, appear to impact the Earth's spinning speed. "The length of a day … is changing due to the interaction between the mantle and the core in the very deep Earth. This is basically because the bottom of the mantle has very high electrical conductivity," said co-author Kei Hirose, a geoscientist at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, in Japan. The Japanese team made a lab... [read more >>] The killer whale, or orca, is one of those animals with an unmistakable color pattern that cannot fool even an uninitiated person. But now, researchers have taken pictures of a white killer whale near the Aleutian Islands (western Alaska). The beast of the myths turned into reality."I had heard about this whale, but we had never been able to find it. It was quite neat to find it," said Holly Fearnbach, a biologist at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory, in Seattle, who took pictures of the rare mammal.The animal was detected in February 2008, while a team aboard the Oscar Dyson, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research s... [read more >>] Blue whales may have 2,4 m (8 feet) long penises, but that's relatively short: it is like a human having a 10 cm penis, as the blue whale can reach 33 m (100 feet) body length. But barnacles, small crustaceans looking like small shells fixed on rocks or man made structures (or sometimes even on whales!) with a muscular stalk or not are better known for other reasons: Gooseneck barnacle, for example, is one of the most expensive seafoods.Barnacles are hermaphroditic and alternate male and female roles over time. But how to mate with you neighbor when you're stuck on the place? Simple: by developing the longest penis in the animal k... [read more >>] Cobras are famous for their hood display, but some African species also because... they spit venom, like the black necked spitting cobra (Naja nigricollis) or ringed necked spitting cobras (Hemachatus hemachatus). They target the eyes and can spit with precision to a distance of 1.8 m (6 ft), but the venom can go even 4 m (13 ft) away. These cobras can launch up to 12 successive shots, at a pressure of 1.5 atmospheres, due to the instantaneous contraction of the muscles surrounding the venom glands. The venom harms only if it touches the eyes, and if it is not rapidly removed, it can cause blindness. Now, in Kenya, scientists have discovere... [read more >>] | 
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