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Stories about: Fish


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How Spinosaurs Lived Alongside T-Rex

Many years after the initial fossils were discovered, paleontologists finally managed to learn that the spinosaur was a giant lizard that really loved water. In fact, it loved it so much that it spent most of its life living and hunting in shallow streams or along shorelines. This in turn allowed it to remain relati...

20 February 2010
02:08 GMT

Possible Solutions for Protecting Penguins

The globally declining state of penguin populations worldwide has motivated many biologists and other scientists to investigate possible solutions to this crisis that could inform policymakers. French experts at the Centre d'ecologie fonctionnelle et evolutive, working together with colleagues from the Universit...

11 February 2010
10:05 GMT

Enormous Oarfish Caught on Tape

In a set of observations that may very well be unprecedented, researchers have finally managed to secure some video footage of the giant oarfish in its natural element, as the monster fish was swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. Biologists know of no other occasion on which the animal – which is possibly the larges...

10 February 2010
10:48 GMT

Snake Can Use Tentacles for Navigation

Biologists have recently made a significant discovery, when they have found that a certain species of snakes is capable of using small tentacles on its snout to sense its prey and its surroundings. The investigators believe that the creature may be using these structures to make more sense of its environment when ins...

3 February 2010
16:01 GMT

Decomposing Fish Provide Clues on First Animals

Scientists have recently developed a new method of analyzing our ancestry, by studying fossils more than 500 million years old. This is apparently facilitated by studying modern, decomposing fish. It would seem that the rotting creatures help paleontologists gain new insight into how creatures on our part of the evol...

1 February 2010
03:30 GMT

Lake Superior Is Infected with VHSV

Scientists at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine have been recently able to determine that Lake Superior is contaminated with a very dangerous viral agent, called the viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus, or VHSV. While relatively safe for humans – despite being from the same class of pathogens...

29 January 2010
01:40 GMT

The Real Reason Why Fish Developed Gills

All biology manuals in all countries around the world say that fish species developed gills in order to breathe. Teachers tell their students that the structures help facilitate the transfer of oxygen from the water into the marine creatures, thus basically allowing them to breathe under water. But, now, a new resear...

14 January 2010
14:11 GMT

Fish Feel Pain

In a groundbreaking, new work that could change the way people with a consciousness look at fish, Janicke Nordgreen has demonstrated that, most likely, they can experience pain when they are ill-treated. A doctoral student at the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, the expert has recently presented her findings i...

13 January 2010
19:01 GMT

Stingrays Can Use Tools

For the first time ever, researchers have managed to demonstrate that the freshwater stingray is able to use tools in tests requiring problem-solving abilities, when the need arises. The sea creatures are able to employ the help of the body of water they are swimming through, in order to obtain a hidden meal conceale...

13 January 2010
17:01 GMT

Frozen Ponds Do Not Affect Ecosystems Within

With the recent wave of snow engulfing Europe, numerous ponds across many countries have frozen over on account of the chilly temperatures. Many people have voiced concerns that this is detrimental to the safety of creatures living under the ice, but experts seem to be in agreement – there is no reason for peop...

11 January 2010
15:01 GMT

Some Fish Can't Tolerate 'Bad Manners'

According to a new scientific study, it would appear that even certain fish species are very fond of etiquette and polite behavior, especially during feeding. The paper shows that the males of a select few fish species will punish females if they “misbehave” while eating. What really amazed researchers wa...

8 January 2010
05:26 GMT

Fish Venom Finally Gets the Attention It Deserves

Since ancient times, people have known that some insects and small animals produce venom. Over the years, they have learned how to use these chemicals to their advantage, either by dipping their spears and arrows in the stuff, or by using it for therapeutic purposes. With the advent of modern technologies, scientists...

4 December 2009
17:01 GMT

Algal Blooms May Be Caused by Overfishing

Scientists have recently determined that one of the main reasons why algal blooms spread across the surface of lakes, rivers, seas and oceans is the fact that top predatory fish in these ecosystems are being hunted. The animals usually keep algae in check, but, as they disappear, the organisms spawn out of control. T...

2 December 2009
03:50 GMT

Underwater Probes to Survey Aquatic Ecosystems

Nature is the most potent source of inspiration for just about every aspect of human activity, from painting and music to nanotechnology and, apparently, underwater biomimetic probes. Two experts at the Michigan State University (MSU) have recently taken it upon themselves to create robotic fish, made out of advanced...

2 November 2009
06:01 GMT

Farms Cover Half of Global Fish-Consumption Levels

Once upon a time, aquaculture was not one of the well-developed branches of food production. It fact, its contribution to the total amount of fish the world's population consumed was negligible. This is no longer the case today. A new report from an international group of scientists comes to show that more than ...

16 September 2009
20:01 GMT

Robots to Get Fish's 'Sixth Sense' Ability

The amazing ability that fish have of essentially touching objects around them without actually coming in physical contact with them comes from their unique sensory system, called the lateral-line. This allows them to sense obstacles in their paths, and to steer clear of predators. Robotics engineers are currentl...

29 August 2009
06:55 GMT

New Surveillance Fish Soon to Patrol Waters

Collecting live information from inside fish colonies and marine ecosystems was never an easy task for naturalists and documentary reporters. The human factor is always tainting the results of studies, and it therefore needs to be eliminated. This is precisely what a new type of robotic fish will do, in addition to p...

27 August 2009
08:53 GMT

'Organic' Lakes Cannot Sustain Large Fish Populations

A new comparative research has revealed the fact that the main factor creating differences between fish production levels in clear mountain lakes and brown forest lakes is light, and not access to nutrients, such as previously held. The counter-intuitive discovery was made by experts at the Climate Impacts Research C...

24 July 2009
13:01 GMT

We've Been Eating Fish for 40,000 Years

In their analysis of human remains dating back more than 40 millennia ago, researchers have determined that at least one of our ancestors ate fish regularly. The find helps set another piece in the puzzle of human development, and offers a better understanding of the diets that people had long before the first modern...

8 July 2009
04:30 GMT

Water Snake Tricks Fish into Swimming in Its Mouth

A small and otherwise harmless water snake has learned a neat trick, which ensures that unsuspecting fish commit suicide via snake mouth (and die from it) a large number of times. Coiled up in a specific position, the water snake expects its prey to approach, and then scares it away with a single body move; unfortuna...

1 July 2009
21:11 GMT

CO2 Causes Massive Ear Bones in Fish

Experts at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD) Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) have recently discovered in a new study that high levels of the dangerous greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2), which is largely blamed for global warming, also cause numerous mutations in fish. Among these, they high...

26 June 2009
15:01 GMT

The Sea Lamprey Sheds One Fifth of Its Genome When It Grows

The sea lamprey is one of the weirdest fish in the oceans, and is a direct descendant of animals that lived millions of years ago. This earned it the classification of “living fossil,” because it also looks very strange, as if from a different time. Now, researchers have discovered that there's more ...

23 June 2009
02:27 GMT

Fish Species Think in 'Human-Like' Patterns

A new scientific study, conducted by researchers at the St Andrews and Durham universities, shows that some fish species may have an innate ability to learn that is similar, pattern-wise, to that humans have. According to the joint team, the common nine-spined stickleback could be the first fish discovered to employ ...

16 June 2009
22:01 GMT

We've Been Overfishing for At Least 1,000 Years

On account of the fact that fish stocks from all over the world are currently under threat because of overfishing, a group of experts has conducted a survey focused on analyzing the history of fishing in Europe. The conclusion of their investigation is troubling – the Old Continent has been harvesting more fish...

25 May 2009
05:25 GMT

Vitamin D Will Make You Smarter

Sunshine and fish may be the two things that are indispensable to the development of the human brain, a new scientific study from experts at the University of Manchester shows. The health experts argue that vitamin D, which can be abundantly found in fish, has the ability to increase the mass of gray matter inside th...

21 May 2009
09:21 GMT

Analyzing the Impact of Evolution on Ecosystems

Naturalists have known for a long time that different types of environments play a crucial part in the development of new species, as well as in the extinction of new ones. However, thus far, no one has been able to prove the contrary. Following a rigorous series of scientific experiments, experts from the University...

2 April 2009
10:50 GMT

Washington Residents Become Dishwasher-Detergent Smugglers

People in the city of Spokane, Washington have turned from law-abiding individuals into detergent smugglers, a new research seems to show. Because their state implemented legislation regulating the use of phosphate-based dishwasher detergent, some have begun smuggling it in from out of the state, as they say that the...

28 March 2009
06:46 GMT

Fish Around the US Contaminated with Drugs

Health inspectors analyzing fish caught in five locations around the US have just made a terrifying find – most of the animals are infected with pharmaceutical residues, including drugs for depression, heart conditions, and other similar afflictions. On Wednesday, scientists reported that the study turned out s...

26 March 2009
04:56 GMT

New Artificial Fish to Test Ocean Pollution Levels

Scientists in the United Kingdom have just finished working on a new type of fish, which has been created from scratch using brand new technologies. The creatures look and behave like the real deal, but they are actually robots, designed for the only purpose of swimming in various portions of the oceans and recording...

23 March 2009
06:07 GMT

'Dracula Fish' Has Vampire Teeth

Experts at the Natural History Museum in London, the UK, were puzzled to learn that they had had specimens of a new species of fish in custody for more than a year. Upon initial inspection, they thought that the animals belonged to a different family, and left them to go about their business in captivity. A year late...

12 March 2009
08:22 GMT

Captured Stingray Is the World's Largest Fish

As part of a bid to track down and protect the largest freshwater fish in the world, a team of scientists who have been part of a National Geographic expedition have captured what may be the largest fish in the world, a stingray weighing in excess of 771 pounds, although some claim that the creature could tip the sca...

11 March 2009
03:37 GMT

Fish Fossil Preserves 300 Million-Year-Old Brain

Since the beginning of archeology and anthropology, scientists working in these fields have been looking for the oldest brain on the planet, whichever its origins may be. It would appear that now their prayers have been answered, as a 300 million-year-old fossil, recently found in Kansas, revealed the contents of its...

3 March 2009
03:43 GMT

Fish Can Look Through Its Own Head

The Macropinna microstoma, a type of barreleye fish, has to be one of the most amazing creatures to have ever existed on the face of the Earth. Accustomed to living in the pitch black of the deep seas, the animal developed an unique and very useful ability – to see through its own head. During the evolution of ...

24 February 2009
03:19 GMT

UK Chips Are 'Enriched' with Countless Perfumes

Traditionally, the United Kingdom loves its chips, as evidenced by the fact that people eat them everywhere, from dinner parties to evening dinners, during hikes or walks on the beach, on the street or in fancy restaurants. Trying to understand what exactly makes this dish so popular, researchers at the Leeds Univers...

11 February 2009
06:57 GMT

The Oceans Could Be Suffocated by Pollution

University of Copenhagen scientists, led by Gary Shaffer, attempted to answer the very serious question raised by increased global pollution – what will become of the planet in the long run? In an attempt to provide the best answer, the team used the most up-to-date computer models to predict changes in our pla...

30 January 2009
15:01 GMT

Wine and Fish Extremely Beneficial for the Heart

The health benefits of wine and fish separately are common knowledge by now, with both doctors and nutritionists encouraging us to integrate them into our daily meals for a boost in stamina and wellbeing. A recent study led by Dr. Romina di Giuseppe of the Catholic University in Campobasso, Italy, has showed concrete...

20 December 2008
12:31 GMT

Diabetic Kidney Decline Averted by Fish Consumption

New scientific research points to the fact that diabetes sufferers who eat fish dishes at least twice a week have a much lower incidence of kidney disease. Though regularly doctors advise patients to limit the amounts of proteins they ingest, the new UK study seems to indicate that the source of the proteins is the p...

28 November 2008
05:55 GMT

VIVACE Will Harness Energy from Water

A new source of hydro-energy lies where not many of us expected – in the dangerous grip of the oceanic or river currents. With this in mind, Michael Bernitsas, a professor at the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from the University of Michigan, managed to conceive a machine that would tak...

26 November 2008
18:01 GMT

Bleaching Coral Reefs Affect Fish Populations

The symbiotic relations that form between corals, algae and fish are essential for preserving a balance of species in the oceans of the world. Any measure of imbalance and the whole ecosystem can collapse, which would send ripples throughout the maritime species, as inter-connections go a long way. The whitening of t...

3 November 2008
10:57 GMT

Robofish Tracking and Investigating Devices

A team of researchers from the University of Washington has come up with a group of complex underwater robots that use exactly the same swimming moves as fish to travel through the liquid medium. The robots are not relying on human remote control for their movement process, and are also able to communicate among the...

31 October 2008
05:42 GMT

Future Soldiers Could Wear Fish-like Armor

By studying the scaled armor of a species of fish that have been swimming through the freshwater pools of Africa for the past 100 million years or so, engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology now revealed the secrets to one of the most effective aquatic armors, which could eventually lead to the devel...

29 July 2008
10:33 GMT

Ancient Fish Moms Gave Birth

Scientists have recently found the oldest known fossil that indicates that reproduction through birth was encountered in vertebrate animals as early as 380 million years ago. The fossil belongs to an armored fish female that was about to give birth, but it perished and got fossilized along with the embryo inside it. ...

29 May 2008
07:23 GMT

Grilled Trout with Tomato and Red Onion

Fish must be an integral part of any eating plan, whether we're talking about a weight loss diet or simply a healthy life regime that involves getting all the beneficial substances that your body needs in order to function properly. The American Heart Association recommends at least two servings of fish every we...

27 May 2008
11:26 GMT

Starfish City Found on Underwater Mountains

Scientists studying the Macquarie Ridge sea mountains south of New Zealand, which are part of a string of underwater volcanoes inactive for several million years, have discovered an area populated by millions of tiny starfish, feeding in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current - world's biggest oceanic current. It was...

19 May 2008
10:53 GMT

4 Things about Gannets and Boobies

1. Gannets and boobies are coastal seabirds famous for their dive for fish. They have been thought to be related to the pelicans, but DNA analysis revealed that their closest relatives are the snakebirds and, more distantly, the cormorants. The oldest known relative of the gannet is the Odontopterix, which lived 50 ...

12 May 2008
11:27 GMT

5 Things About Pelicans

Pelicans look like birds hailing from prehistoric times. Truth is, they are precisely that. These birds are believed to have appeared 100 Ma ago, during the dinosaur era, and it is said they reached their peak of diversity 65-57 Ma ago, when about 57 species roamed the Earth. Today, only 8 species of pelicans can be ...

7 May 2008
11:07 GMT

Victoria Beckham's Japanese Diet

When it comes to putting the words "Victoria Beckham" and "diet" in the same sentence usually signals the beginning of a very long expose, riddled with rhetoric questions such as "does she really starve herself" or "I wonder if it's possible for any other woman out there to keep that thin". The fact is, it all b...

23 April 2008
09:29 GMT

A Metal Alloy for Repelling Sharks

Sharks are extremely sensitive to electric fields, and this enables them to detect their preys, as all living creatures emit weak electric fields. But this ability of the sharks comes with pros and cons: in captivity, sharks avoid metals reacting with seawater and producing an electric field. In fact, this may be the...

23 April 2008
03:59 GMT

The Oldest Vertebrates

Chinese researchers from the University of Xi'an found in 1999, in Kunming area, Yunan (southern China) vertebrate fossils older than 500 Ma.Myllokunmingia and Haikouichthys had muscles with a "W" shape (myomeres) in transversal section of the body and a cartilaginous skull and spine. The previous oldest vertebr...

16 April 2008
11:03 GMT

Top 10 Weird Tongues

Tongue is an organ specific to the vertebrates. And they can do a lot of things with their tongues...1. A blue whale weighing 60-70 tons (and the largest blue whales can double this weight) has a 3 tons tongue. It is by far the largest tongue in the animal world. And the whale tongue is not large because of the overa...

12 April 2008
07:04 GMT


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