A day or so ago people were talking in the tea-room about a clip on TV that showed chimpanzees beating humans hands-down on a test of memory. This piqued my curiosity, because I don't watch a lot of TV & hadn't seen the show. But today I found a link to it – have a look! I […]
Continue readingTag: new science stories
The ancient mariners
One of the 'themes' you need to think about, when studying human evolution, is dispersal – just how did human populations spread about the globe, and when did they do it? In September this year a group of scientists got to together to talk about how and when humans might have become seafarers.
Continue readinga worm, but not as we know it
One of the neat things that have come from advances in molecular biology is our ability to use DNA technology to tease out evolutionary relationships – especially those that aren't immediately obvious (such as the subject of an earlier post). Now here's another example – an animal that looks superficially like a worm – but turns out […]
Continue readingprimates’ closest living relatives?
Scientists have thought for a long time that tree shrews are the closest living relatives of primates. More recently, use of DNA data together with morphological comparisons suggested that colugos are also very closely related to apes, monkeys (& us). These so-called 'flying' lemurs use extensive flaps of loose skin, stretched between their outspread front and back […]
Continue readingdating plant domestication
When did humans first domesticate plants? Well, humans living in what is now known as Turkey had domesticated wheat by 10,500 years ago. How can we be so sure of this date?
Continue readingSexual signals and strong, silent males
On hot summer nights male crickets chirp constantly in their attempts to attract mates, rubbing a toothed ‘file' on one forewing over a ridge on the other forewing to produce their song. But this can be a risky business, as it might not be only females who are drawn by the males' calls. Predators and […]
Continue readingClimate change and human evolution
Models of human evolution give quite a bit of attention to the role that climate change may have played in the evolution and dispersal of hominin species, both ancient and modern. A study just published presents evidence of an extreme and prolonged drought in East Africa, spanning 135,000 – 75,000 years ago – the time when the Out […]
Continue readingCan plants hunt?
Is this a trick question? No. While the majority of plants are free-living autotrophs, some are parasites on other plants (think mistletoe, for example). And while the seeds of many of these parasitic plants won't germinate unless they are in contact with host plant tissue, this isn't true of dodder (Cuscuta species). Dodder actively seeks out […]
Continue readingAnts, drugs & aphid slaves
I was browsing SciTech Daily Review (always a good source of breaking science stories) when this headline caught my eye: Ants drug their aphid slaves. What a tantalising title! It led me to a just-published article (T.H.Oliver et al. 2007) looking at how ants control the aphids that they 'farm'.
Continue readingMagnetism & navigation – in bacteria
Last week I was doing a session with some local Schol Bio students & we were talking about navigation & migration. One of the cues animals use to navigate round their world is magnetism – more specifically, sensitivity to the Earth's magnetic field. We agreed that we'd heard about some birds (e.g. pigeons) using magnetic cues, […]
Continue reading