Talk about a dirty trick. Rove beetle males squirt an anti-aphrodisiac into their partners to make them unattractive. Along with their sperm, males of the polyandrous rove beetle (Aleochara curtula) deposit a strange pheromone into their partners. To find out what it did, Jerry Schlechter-Helas and colleagues at the University of Freiburg, Germany spiced 14 [...]
Archive for February, 2012
Feb
11
Sharks like hanging out with buddies
A murder of crows, a pride of lions and now meet the posse of sharks. Traditionally considered to be solitary predators, it turns out that sharks like hanging with friends. Johann Mourier and colleagues at the University of Perpignan in France have evidence suggesting that sharks swim in groups for social reasons. The team tracked blacktip [...]
Feb
10
How did the zebra get its stripes?
Why did the zebra evolve to have stripes? The question has puzzled evolutionary biologists for centuries – and even Charles Darwin couldn’t explain the enigma. New Scientist reports The zebra is completely black as an early embryo, and white stripes only appear in a later embryonic stage, when the production of dark pigmentation is blocked. [...]
Feb
5
Supergiant caught in the deep sea
A giant ‘cockroach’ of the deep sea has been unearthed off the coast of New Zealand. The beast, a ‘supergiant’ amphipod, was caught in waters seven kilometres deep in the Kermadec Trench, north of New Zealand. Amphipods are crustaceans commonly found in the deep sea. They are typically between 2 to 3 centimetres long, but [...]
Feb
1
Why is the Ref always wrong?
Don’t blame the ref. You think your team is performing the best, because your brain is wired to be biased. New Scientist reports Pascal Molenberghs at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, divided 24 volunteers into two teams and had them judge the speed of hand actions performed by two people, one from each [...]