FLORA FAUNA

5,060 articles

Making teeth tough: Beavers show way to improve our enamel
Feb 15, 2015 (SPX)
Beavers don't brush their teeth, and they don't drink fluoridated water, but a new Northwestern University study reports beavers do have protection against toot...
Earliest-known arboreal and subterranean ancestral mammals discovered
Feb 15, 2015 (SPX)
The fossils of two interrelated ancestral mammals, newly discovered in China, suggest that the wide-ranging ecological diversity of modern mammals had a precede...
Curious monkeys share our thirst for knowledge
Feb 13, 2015 (SPX)
Monkeys are notoriously curious, and new research has quantified just how eager they are to gain new information, even if there are not immediate benefits. The ...
What makes the feather soar
Feb 12, 2015 (SPX)
Dinosaurs may have gone extinct some 66 million years ago, but that's hardly the end of their story. One group of their modern-day progeny, the class Avia -- na...
Even crocodiles need to let loose
Feb 12, 2015 (UPI)
Almost all vertebrates enjoy a little bit of recess, even the ones that don't look like it. It's easy to imagine dolphins and panda bears having fun, spiking be...
Apes prefer the glass half full
Feb 12, 2015 (SPX)
Humans aren't the only species to be influenced by spin. Our closest primate relatives are susceptible, too. For example, people are known to rate a burger as m...
Dogs recognize facial cues like smiles and scowls
Feb 12, 2015 (UPI)
Your dog gets you. It's science. Actually, dogs can get you -- as well as almost any other human -- but it takes training. A new study shows that dogs can learn...
In Kenya, the end is nigh for northern white rhinos
Feb 12, 2015 (AFP)
This is what extinction looks like. No meteor from outer space, no unstoppable pandemic, no heroic, ultimately futile last stand. Instead poor sperm, weak knees...
China tiger farms put big cats in the jaws of extinction
Feb 12, 2015 (AFP)
A fearsome tiger snarled as a doomed chicken flapped helplessly in its mouth -- but campaigners say such "entertainment" in China is putting big cats further in...
Researchers reveal how hearing evolved
Feb 11, 2015 (SPX)
Lungfish and salamanders can hear, despite not having an outer ear or tympanic middle ear. These early terrestrial vertebrates were probably also able to hear 3...
Amber fossil links earliest grasses, dinosaurs and fungus
Feb 10, 2015 (SPX)
A perfectly preserved amber fossil from Myanmar has been found that provides evidence of the earliest grass specimen ever discovered - about 100 million years o...
Feral cats, foxes hunting Australian mammals to brink of extinction
Feb 10, 2015 (UPI)
Scientists at Charles Darwin University, in Australia, say their home continent is suffering an "extinction calamity," and has been for the last two hundred yea...
South Africa weighs legal rhino horn trade
Feb 10, 2015 (AFP)
South Africa has appointed a panel of experts to examine the viability of a legal rhino horn trade, the environmental affairs ministry said Tuesday as poaching ...
Revealing the workings of a master switch for plant growth
Feb 10, 2015 (SPX)
Brassinosteroids, a class of plant steroid hormones, play an important role in promoting plant growth as well as a host of development processes including cell ...
Corps of Engineers to cull Oregon cormorants preying on endangered salmon
Feb 09, 2015 (UPI)
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is moving ahead with a plan to cut the a population of double-crested cormorants on Oregon's East Sand Island in half. Corps of...
Pigeon power
Feb 09, 2015 (SPX)
The more scientists study pigeons, the more they learn how their brains--no bigger than the tip of an index finger--operate in ways not so different from our ow...
Evolution continues despite low mortality and fertility rates in the modern world
Feb 09, 2015 (SPX)
Charles Darwin's theory on evolution still holds true despite lower mortality and fertility rates in the modern world, according to new research by the Universi...
Saudi Royal on rare bird hunting spree in Pakistan
Feb 09, 2015 (AFP)
A Saudi prince is on a hunting spree for rare birds in southwest Pakistan despite a court-imposed ban and the government's insistence that the foreign delegatio...
Federal government designates $3.2M to save monarch butterfly
Feb 09, 2015 (UPI)
The monarch butterfly is getting a helping hand from the federal government, which on Monday announced plans to designate $3.2 million into a program to restore...
Tiny termites can hold back deserts by creating oases of plant life
Feb 06, 2015 (SPX)
Termites might not top the list of humanity's favorite insects, but new research suggests that their large dirt mounds are crucial to stopping the spread of des...
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