Top 10 Brains
	1. The largest brain belongs to the sperm whale: 7 kg (17.5 kg). The blue whale, the largest animal on the planet, being twice longer and thrice heavier, has a brain weighing 5 kg (12.5 pounds). 2. Human brain has an average weight of 2.7 pounds (1.2 kg), variations between 1.1 and 1.4 kg being considered normal. Our brain represents 2% of our weight, the largest brain in the animal world compared to the body size. 3. The ... [read more >>]
	21 April 2008, 10:12GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Top 7 Mammal-Like Reptiles
	Mammals evolved from reptiles, that's for sure. Primitive living mammals, the monotremes (platypus and spiny anteaters) clearly show this, via many traits, like egg-laying, bones, and... even their penises. But the reptiles from which mammals evolved no longer exist. In fact, if birds evolved from dinosaurs, the reptiles from which the mammals evolved disappeared even before them. In fact, they ruled the Earth before the ... [read more >>]
	19 April 2008, 06:39GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Oldest Australian Mammals
	Mammals are supposed to have bloomed after the disappearance of the dinosaur, 65 million-year ago. During the dinosaur times, all mammals must have been shrew-like creatures hiding during the day and only getting out in the night to hunt for insects. But a fossil jawbone of Teinolophos, an 122 million-year old fossil from southeastern Australia, shows that in the middle of the dinosaur era, platypuses already existed, and they are spec ... [read more >>]
	18 April 2008, 09:15GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Neozoic, the Era of the Mammals
	When dinosaurs went extinct, the Neozoic (New life age) started. Life evolved towards what we experience today. 1. Paleogene (65-23 Ma) was the epoch when small mammals evolved to the high diversity we know today. Many groups perished without descendants. Birds and snakes, too, diversified greatly. The clime was somehow cooler and drier. The Paleogene period was made of three epochs: Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene. The real ... [read more >>]
	17 March 2008, 16:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

8 Amazing Things About the Platypus
	1. The platypus represents one of the most peculiar living mammals. And beyond peculiarity, it is really the most primitive living mammal, together with its relatives, the echidnas, forming the group Monotrema ("one orifice", as they have only the cloaca). They have many traits still common to reptiles, but not found in mammals, like a cloaca or a third bone in the shoulder girdle, the coracoid (which in the other mamma ... [read more >>]
	21 February 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Secret Revealed: How Can Sea Mammals Hold Their Breath for Hours
	Try to hold your breath for more than 2-3 minutes, and those around you will have to call the ambulance. But the sperm whale can dive for more than one hour to depths greater than 1,200 meters (roughly 4,000 feet), with average dives of 45 minutes, to depths of 600-1,000 meters (1,968 to 3,280 feet). Elephant seals can spend up to two hours in depths over 1,500 meters (nearly 5,000 feet), but average dives last only 25-30 minutes, to depth ... [read more >>]
	20 December 2007, 03:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Our Teeth - 165 Million Years Old
	Your teeth pattern rooted within the first reptiles struggling to turn into mammals. A new fossil mammal species from the Jurassic era, during the full blown dinosaur evolution, reveals that the basic tooth pattern encountered in all mammal species today emerged independently at least twice in the past, and also points that early mammals were much varied than previously believed. The remains of Pseudotribos robustus were discovered in 1 ... [read more >>]
	01 November 2007, 03:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Which Is the Best Way of Digging?
	Living underground is not that easy, requiring some special adaptations. Just look at the mole's humerus bones. "When seen in the lab, they are nothing like the long upper arm bones of any other mammal," said Samantha Hopkins, a paleontologist at the University of Oregon, investigating the evolution of burrowing mammals. "Moles and mole rats are examples of mammals that have adapted to moving soil in rocky, root-pack ... [read more >>]
	29 October 2007, 06:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

What Stops Milk Production?
	Healthy and cheap milk could come as the result of a new discovery: both in women and cows, the secretion of the milk is stopped by serotonin ("the feeling good" hormone). "Knowing the chemical responsible for inhibiting milk production could help us to improve milk yields in other mammals," said lead researcher Dr. Nelson Horseman, University of Cincinnati professor of molecular and cellular physiology. ... [read more >>]
	09 October 2007, 05:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Is Our Hearing So Keen?
	Humans can hear sounds between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. Bats and dolphins go much further: they can hear sounds over 20 kHz (ultrasounds), while dogs and elephants hear sounds under 20 Hz (infrasounds). For 30 years, researchers stated various hypotheses on how specialized cells in the mammals’ inner ear amplify sounds. A recent research at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital found that the bouncing cell bodies rather than vibrating, hair-like ... [read more >>]
	30 July 2007, 06:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Dinosaurs' Extinction Made Room for Humans
	The planet made "bang!" and that was all. 65 million years ago, the killer asteroid destroyed all dinosaur life on our planet. But that led to the world of today, filled with placental mammals. This is the conclusion of a new research, in a long debate over when and where these mammals – from rats and whales to humans – first arose. Placentals give birth to a developed new generation, following a long pregnancy, while marsupials ... [read more >>]
	21 June 2007, 02:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Massive Killer Algae Bloom is Making Thousands of Victims off California
	This poison has made many victims amongst the sea-food consumers till now. The domoic acid is a toxin synthesized especially by microscopic diatoms and red algae. It was first isolated from a red alga named in Japanese “duomoi” and used against gut worms. But high levels kill you, too, not just the worms, as it attacks the brain cells and even when it does not kill you, you will suffer from memory loss, nausea and seizures. Now ... [read more >>]
	30 April 2007, 05:39GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Junk DNA Is the Engine of Our Evolution
	We know that DNA is the hereditary molecule from which the genes are made of. But not all DNA represents genes. The non-gene coding and DNA patches with unobvious role have been regarded by scientists for long as junk and useless, a sort of evolutionary ballast. But a new research showed that this tiny, jumping DNA fragments are in fact crucial players in the evolution of the mammals. In the case of the human species, junk D ... [read more >>]
	26 April 2007, 09:29GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

When Did Our Ancestors Stop Laying Eggs?
	You could have been born weighing a few grams and as big as a bean or yuckier from a soft-shelled egg... But instead of carrying you into a marsupium, your mother delivered a 3-5 kg (8-13 pounds) hunk, resembling a human being (more or less). That's because she fed you through an organ called placenta (“pie” in Latin) while inside her womb. In fact, most modern mammals are placental (they possess a placenta and g ... [read more >>]
	18 April 2007, 06:33GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Mammals Would Have Exterminated the Dinosaurs Anyway
	The classical story is that dinosaurs dominated the Earth for hundreds of millions of years, until an asteroid collided into the Yucatan Peninsula and provoked 65 million years ago a mass extinction that permitted the ancestors of today’s mammals to thrive. The asteroid part did occur, but now, the dinosaurs' extinction is contested as playing a major role in the diversification of today’s mammals. An international team includin ... [read more >>]
	29 March 2007, 06:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A Missing Link Showing How Our Ears Evolved
	First mammals roamed with the dinosaurs during the Mesozoic Era. Now, an American-Chinese team has dug a new species of ancestral mammal, 125 million years old, that represents a missing link, providing for the first time fossil evidence on how mammals developed their middle ear, one of the most distinctive traits of all modern mammals. "This early mammalian ear from China is a rosetta-stone type of discovery which reinforces the ... [read more >>]
	15 March 2007, 06:18GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia