Chimp 'Secret Handshakes' May Be Cultural. Chimpanzees that engage in unusual hand-holding behavior during grooming may be showing off a little culture, new research suggests.
These chimp handshakes, which are seen only among some of the primates, seem to differ from group to group in ways that aren't dependent on genetics or environment. That leaves cultural differences between groups as a possible explanation for why and how the hand-holding occurs. [Related: Chimp attack victim speaks] "We think that this at least indicates that chimpanzees do not only respond to their environment instinctively or based on genetic predisposition," said study researcher Edwin van Leeuwen, a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands. Nor do they learn in a vacuum, van Leeuwen told LiveScience. ‘Super volcano’ could kill millions near site of Pompeii. A "super volcano" could endanger millions of residents.
(ABC News) The eruption of Mount Vesuvius near Naples, Italy, in 79 A.D. killed thousands of Pompeii residents and remains one of the most famous volcanic explosions in history. But scientists say a hidden "super volcano" in the same area has the potential to kill millions. "These areas can give rise to the only eruptions that can have global catastrophic effects comparable to major meteorite impacts," Giuseppe De Natale, head of a project to drill deep under the earth to monitor the molten caldera, told Reuters.
Rogue Dolphin, Alone After Katrina, Menaces Lake Area. A menacing animal is terrorizing residents of an upscale waterfront community just outside New Orleans.
But it's not your run-of-the-mill beastly wild animal. Instead, it's a sweet-faced bottle-nosed dolphin and hospital officials say he's already taken a bite out of three people who have entered the waters of Lake Pontchartrain in Slidell, La. Second in size to the great Salt Lake in Utah, Lake Pontchartrain is home to many wild animals. Allergic to Meat: Lone Star Tick May Make Vegetarians of Some. There's a new weapon in the war on meat: a tiny tick, whose bite might be spreading meat allergies up the East Coast.
A bite from the lone star tick, so-called for the white spot on its back, looks innocent enough. But University of Virginia researchers say saliva that sneaks into the tiny wound may trigger an allergic reaction to meat -- agonizing enough to convert lifelong carnivores into wary vegetarians. "People will eat beef and then anywhere from three to six hours later start having a reaction; anything from hives to full-blown anaphylactic shock," said Dr. Scott Commins, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. "And most people want to avoid having the reaction, so they try to stay away from the food that triggers it. " World's first vegetarian shark spurns meat for celery sticks. Japanese scientists use particle accelerator to create salt-resistant rice.
An unfortunate and little reported side effect of last year’s Japanese earthquake and tsunami is that thousands of acres of farmland were contaminated with seawater.
Rice is a staple crop in Japan, and it requires large amounts of water to grow. The salt in seawater, however, stunts or outright kills the plant. Scientists discover the existence of a three-foot mammoth. Carnivorous Plants Employ Bodyguard Ants. Carnivorous plants can have valuable allies in ants, benefiting from their poop and janitor, bodyguard and cutthroat services, researchers say.
Fluttering both ways: One-in-10,000 Ladyboy butterfly is born half male and half female. By Rob Waugh Published: 14:31 GMT, 9 May 2012 | Updated: 14:57 GMT, 9 May 2012 It should be easy to guess from the fact that one wing is pink and the other blue - but this is an ultra-rare 'ladyboy' butterfly, which is born half male and half female.
The amazing insect, known as a gynandromorph, stunned scientists after it emerged from its chrysalis with a pink wing on its male side and a white wing on its female side. Half male, half female, it is one of nature's rarest phenomena with only 0.01 per cent of hatching butterflies being born as gynandromorph. Chronicle: Figs kill when wasps dont pollinate.
A female fig wasp (Tetrapus americanus) is about to enter a flowering fig (Ficus maxima).
Once inside, the fig wasp will pollinate and lay her eggs in the flowers that line the inside of the fig. Figs and fig wasps have evolved to help each other out: Fig wasps lay their eggs inside the fruit where the wasp larvae can safely develop, and in return, the wasps pollinate the figs. But what happens when a wasp lays its eggs but fails to pollinate the fig? The trees get even by dropping those figs to the ground, killing the baby wasps inside, reports a Cornell and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (published online Jan. 13).
What would life be like if pterosaurs were alive today? Since the obvious answer to the headline title is, "It would be AWESOME, and the only question is, HOW awesome"... what really first struck me about this article is: why the need to be so defensive about spending time speculating?
