Ecology & Zoology

Scientists from the Wageningen University Laboratory of Plant Physiology and an international team of scientists have discovered a new group of plant hormones, the so-called strigolactones. This group of chemicals is known to be involved in the interaction between plants and their environment. They now say that strigolactones, as hormones, are also crucial for the branching of plants. The discovery will soon be published in Nature and is of great importance for innovations in agriculture. Examples include the development of cut flowers or tomato plants with more or fewer branches. These…

The unexplained bee disappearance known as Colony Collapse Disorder, CCD, is a problem that affects more than just honey producers. It may not seem like it, but bees play a big role in ice cream making. The domino-like process begins with the pollination of seeds for hay in order to feed the dairy producing cows for this internationally beloved dessert. California has one fifth of the nations honey bees. More specifically, the state’s honeybees account for $6 billion of the $15 billion in commercial crop pollination value. The CCD problem, involves the abandonment of the hive by adult bees…

I guess the residents of Barbados are not as amused as we are about some fame-whoring scientist tripping over a snake they have seen their whole lives and naming it after his spouse. "How dare this man come in here and name a snake after his wife?" said the writer who identified themselves as Margaret Knight. Even Columbus didn't try to name anything after his wife and he discovered a whole bunch of people no one in Europe had ever seen, but that's science - Hedges was first to 'discover' Leptotyphlops carlae was a new species. I suppose if Barbados residents don't like being made to look…

For dogs, just as for people, the saying “you are what you eat” applies. But modern pet foods are a far cry from the old fashioned chicken-bone based foods of yesterday. Many of today’s pet foods are a combination of meat protein mixed with grains and most are mixed with flavor enhancers. Leading flavor enhancement companies including AFB International and the French based company SPFare continually doing research into what makes dogs go bow wow. At AFB International experts have been testing flavors of ingredients that go into pet food in order to ensure companies that these household…

South Africans don't use bug zappers or commercial flypaper to ward off pesky flies, but instead hang up a bunch of Roridula gorgonias leaves. Attracted to the shiny adhesive droplets on the leaf's hairs, the flies are soon trapped by this 'natural flypaper.' But R. gorgonias plant is also home to a population of Pameridea roridulae (mirid bugs), which dine on the trapped insects and the mirid bugs never get stuck. Curious to find out how that works, Dagmar Voigt and Stanislav Gorb from the Max-Planck Institute for Metals Research, Germany, decided to take a look at the non-stick bugs to…

Sexual harassment from male guppies is so bad that long-suffering females will risk their lives to escape it, according to new research from Dr. Safi Darden and Dr. Darren Croft from Bangor University. Male guppies spend most of their time displaying their brightly-coloured bodies to females in the hope of attracting a mate. The choosy females will usually only mate with the most attractive, high-quality males to ensure the production of strong offspring. If his courtship display is rejected, the male will often attempt to sneak a mating with his chosen female when she is not looking.…

Yesterday, newspapers were telling us half of apes and monkeys face extinction and today we find out we could be overwhelmed by them. The Wildlife Conservation Society released a census showing massive numbers of these great apes alive and well in the Republic of Congo. Western lowland gorillas are one of four recognized gorilla sub-species, which also include mountain gorillas, eastern lowland gorillas, and Cross River gorillas. All are classified as "critically endangered" by the IUCN, except eastern lowland gorillas, which are endangered. "You never asked us how many of us there were."…

You may have laughed when you read in history books that in years gone by maggots were used to cure disease. Laugh no more. It’s not uncommon for someone to suffer from chronic infected wounds for 18 months, despite all sorts of conventional treatment, but when maggots are applied to the same wound they can often begin to clear infection in just a few days. They have even been known to save people from having limbs amputated. MRSA infections cause suffering, amputations and death, not to mention the estimated £1 billion cost to the NHS. Between 2002 and 2006, 6,201 deaths in England and…

Shark researchers from the University of New South Wales, Newcastle University, NSW Department of Primary Industries Fisheries (Australia) and University of California (USA) reveal unprecedented information about the feeding habits of the great white shark by analysing anatomical and biomechanical data from their skull and muscle tissues. They generated 3-Dimensional models the skull of a 2.4-metre male great white shark on the basis of multiple x-ray images generated by a computerized tomography (CT) scanner. Using novel imaging and finite element analysis (FEA), the team reconstructed the…

The world's smallest species of snake, as thin as a spaghetti noodle and small enough to rest comfortably on a U.S. quarter, has been identified on the Caribbean island of Barbados. The species, with adults averaging just under four inches in length, was discovered by Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State. They list the discovery in the journal Zootaxa. Hedges found the new snake -- a type of threadsnake -- in a tiny forest fragment on the eastern side of Barbados. He believes the species is rare because most of its potential habitat has been replaced by buildings and farms…