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Most plants are loaded with compounds generically called secondary metabolites that act as a defense method for them in that they are toxic for animals. Caffeine is such an example. Many plants we eat may be loaded with toxins, except for the parts we actually consume, like is the case of the potato or tomato. Nevert... |
24 April 2008
03:28 GMT |
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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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They are associated with the dark and with the myth of vampires (even if only 3 tropical American species consume blood, out of about 1,100 species). In fact, we know that most bats appreciate insects more than other foods. And two new researches published in the Science journal show us why bats control the annoyance... |
7 April 2008
02:54 GMT |
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The 'bat' is only the latest of the series of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles - UAV for short - designed to gather information about enemy sites and urban combat zones, capable of relaying data related to sight, sound and smell back to the command post to be used as intelligence. The 'bat' has been desig... |
14 March 2008
09:36 GMT |
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The flight-adapted fragile bones of the bats are hard to fossilize. That's why scientists have been complaining about the scarce number of bat fossils, for obtaining clues about how mammals evolved for flight. After the description of the oldest known bat species, Onychonycteris finneyi, 52.5 million years old, ... |
10 March 2008
04:46 GMT |
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There are bats whose diet relies on nectar. To feed on it, the bats have to hover like a bumblebee in front of the flower, while they extract the sweet juice with their long tongue. But current aerodynamic theories say bats are too large for this, but still do it. A new research published in the journal "Science" and... |
29 February 2008
02:49 GMT |
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Bats exert a certain magnetism upon many nature lovers. But researchers from the Universities of Leeds and Princeton have found that they actually use electro-magnetism, due to an 'internal compass', enabling them to navigate; they tested Big Brown bats released 20 km (12 mi) north of their home roost and ... |
27 February 2008
03:59 GMT |
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The evolution of bats is still a mystery, as the fragile flying mammals have left few fossils behind. A new study published in the journal "Nature" describes the oldest bat ever and what the fossil has revealed: bats first flew, and after that they developed echolocation. "This new bat [fossil] is clearly a flying an... |
14 February 2008
02:38 GMT |
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1. In the depths of the caves, where current airs, temperature and humidity are practically constant, bats seem to know exactly when it's time to go hunting. In fact, when atmospheric pressure decreases (before a rainfall), the insects gather at low altitude and are easier to be preyed. The atmospheric pressure ... |
2 February 2008
07:19 GMT |
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Human ear cannot detect sounds that have frequencies lower than 20 Hz (infrasounds) or over 20 kHz (called ultrasounds). That's why some species may appear quite silent for us, while in fact they are very noisy... We only lack their hearing to figure this out.1.Dolphins and toothed whales are famous for their so... |
20 December 2007
14:06 GMT |
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The spring, when nature blooms, pollen is everywhere in the air. It is the curse for the allergic people, experiencing the "hay fever". But what's the pollen? The product of the male part of the flowers (stamins), in other words, plant sperm. For a plant to reproduce, the pollen must reach the pistil on the fema... |
27 November 2007
11:00 GMT |
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Humans see with their eyes, dogs are said to "smell" things and bats literally see with their ears. The little flying mammals have a complex sonar, employing ultrasounds (sounds with a frequency over 20 kHz, which cannot be heard by the human ear). Bats employ the sonar especially when hunting and flying through cave... |
12 November 2007
03:29 GMT |
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Those bat species that emit ultrasounds to spot prey and avoid obstacles present a high variation in the FOXP2 gene, pointing that mutations in the gene boosted the evolution of the bat sonar. The protein encoded by FOXP2 appears to control coordination between mouth muscles and speech. In 2001, it was connected to s... |
26 September 2007
02:48 GMT |
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Without a map or GPS, we are completely lost in the middle of nowhere. But many species, such as the mole rat, birds, fish, amphibian, have a magnetic compass. Bats have it too, and a new research shows how these mammals can feel the polarity of a magnetic field, detecting the difference between north and south. This... |
24 September 2007
06:49 GMT |
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Bizarre human sexual behaviors are nothing compared to the extremely weird sex life of the African bat bug. These blood suckers are famous among biologists for a particularly horrible and cruel form of mating and now these insects have also revealed an odd secret to the researchers, "what could be the most extreme fo... |
22 September 2007
06:06 GMT |
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This mysterious virus can kill you in just one week while you're experiencing jaundice, pancreatitis, weight loss, delirium and neuropsychiatric symptoms, hemorrhaging, hypovolemic shock and multi-organ dysfunction with liver failure and even external hemorrhaging from bodily orifices, just like in Ebola. 23-25%... |
31 August 2007
06:42 GMT |
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Scientists couldn't find out if vampire bats can feed on their own blood, but what they did discover is that bats can have a menstrual cycle. At least in the case of a species of fruit bat.The Chinese research team, led by Professor Shuyi Zhang of East China Normal University, and Hongmei Wang of the Institute ... |
21 August 2007
03:41 GMT |
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If you think vampires exist just in books, movies and the rich imagination of some people, you're wrong. There are real vampires which have bat wings, are nocturnal, feed on blood and kill tens of people every year.But the similarities with Bram Stroker's character Dracula - who served as the 'prototyp... |
16 August 2007
13:06 GMT |
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You get fat by only drinking water, but bats can burn sugar faster than top-class athletes, having the fastest sugar-burning metabolism amongst all mammals on Earth. This is the result of a research made on American nectar-feeding bats (encountered in tropical America): within minutes of stopping for sugar-rich flowe... |
9 August 2007
05:19 GMT |
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The top speed for airplanes could be limited by physical rules of aerodynamics, but the birds' flight is much more complex, breaking those rules. Many think that the fastest speeds at which the smallest insects and the largest aircraft can fly are strongly connected to their weight and their wingspan. A team led... |
17 July 2007
04:32 GMT |
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There are just three species of blood-sucking bats and just one of vampire bats which attack humans. But even if tiny, this non-Transylvanian Dracula (they live just in tropical America) can still kill you. Not because of the amount of blood it sucks (no more than two little spoons), but by infecting you with rabies.... |
28 June 2007
05:22 GMT |
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Bats definitely don't rise up to the human standard of beauty. They can be damn ugly with their minute eyes and huge ears. But some bring it to the extremes with the face covered by a multitude of leaf-like skin flaps. And they can get rave reviews when posed for the camera. As in the case of Maclaud's hor... |
25 June 2007
08:44 GMT |
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We, humans, have in our retina two types of photoreceptor cells: the cones for daylight vision and color vision, and the more sensitive rods for night vision. This is also the case with most mammals. But nocturnal bats were traditionally believed to have just rods. Bats are assigned to two evolutionary groups (which... |
16 June 2007
05:11 GMT |
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Poisonous or distasteful animals are more efficient in defending themselves with their chemical weaponry but they can also warn of this. That's why many insects, poisonous frogs or coral snakes, for example, display their vivid colors. But the method is so efficient with the predators, that many defenseless and ... |
31 May 2007
05:25 GMT |
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Have you ever imagined a plane flapping its wings in the bat style?The flexible flight of the bats, so different from the rigid wing beat of the birds, could be a model for new versatile aircrafts.A Swedish research resembles a previous American one, in trying to set up the details of the sophisticated bat flight in ... |
11 May 2007
02:51 GMT |
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After you get drunk to the bone, you are surely craving for sweets the next day. Well, researchers led by Francisco Sanchez from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel) remained open-mouthed when they found that Egyptian fruit bats, close but smaller relatives of the huge flying foxes, also crave for specific... |
2 April 2007
07:15 GMT |
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