Science & Nature // Current

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21 hours ago

Today's Mystery Bird for you to Identify [pic]

[Mystery bird] photographed at the Big Sioux Recreation Area near Brandon, South Dakota. [I will identify this bird for you in 48... more

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Racehorse Research Identifies Speed Gene

A new PLoS-ONE paper describes the identification of several DNA sequence variants in the myostatin gene, and a genetic... more

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Today's Mystery Bird for you to Identify [pic]

[Mystery bird] photographed in Lyman County, South Dakota. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]. Stunning photograph,... more

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Today's Mystery Bird for you to Identify

[Mystery bird] photographed in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania, Africa. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]... more

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Today's Mystery Bird for you to Identify [pic]

[Mystery bird] photographed in the Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania, Africa. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours] This is a... more

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Fossil Feather Colors Really ARE Written In Stone [pics, video, data]

Scanning electron microscopy reveals that the 155-million-year-old theropod dinosaur, Anchiornis huxleyi, which resembled a large... more

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Evidence builds on color of Dinosaurs

Until last week, paleontologists could offer no clear-cut evidence for the color of dinosaurs. Then researchers provided evidence that a dinosaur called Sinosauropteryx had a white-and-ginger striped tail. And now a team of paleontologists has published a full-body portrait of another dinosaur, in striking plumage that would have delighted that great painter of birds John James Audubon.

“This is actual science, not ‘Avatar,’ ” said Richard O. Prum, an evolutionary biologist at Yale and co-author of the new study published in Science.

Dr. Prum and his colleagues took advantage of the fact that feathers contain pigment-loaded sacs called melanosomes. In 2009, they demonstrated that melanosomes survived for millions of years in fossil bird feathers. The shape and arrangement of melanosomes help produce the color of feathers, so the scientists were able to get clues about the color of fossil feathers from their melanosomes alone.

That discovery prompted British and Chinese scientists to examine some fossils of dinosaurs that are covered with featherlike structures. The 125-million-year-old species Sinosauropteryx, for example, has bristles on its skin. When the scientists examined a piece of its tail, they found melanosomes in the bristles. They concluded that the dinosaur had reddish-and-white rings along its tail.

The discovery, which the researchers reported last week in Nature, supports earlier research showing that birds are dinosaurs, having descended from group of bipedal dinosaurs called theropods.

Dr. Prum and his colleagues, meanwhile, had set out on a similar quest. “We had a dream: to put colors on a dinosaur,” said Jakob Vinther, a graduate student at Yale.

Working with paleontologists at the Beijing Museum of Natural History and Peking University, the researchers began to study a 150-million-year-old species called Anchiornis huxleyi. The chicken-sized theropod was festooned with long feathers on its arms and legs, which it may have used to glide from trees.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/science/05dino.html?hpUntil last week, paleontologists could offer no clear-cut evidence for the color of dinosaurs. Then researchers provided evidence... more

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6 days ago

Today's Mystery Bird for you to Identify [pic]

[Mystery bird] photographed in the photographer's back yard in Houston, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48... more

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7 days ago

Today's Mystery Bird for you to Identify [pic]

[Mystery bird] photographed on the San Bernard Wildlife Refuge, Houston, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours].... more

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8 days ago

Today's Mystery Bird for you to Identify [pic]

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9 days ago

Fetid Fish Revise Understanding of Fossil Formation [story, data, pics, video]

Lots of pictures, video and data figures help explain this important finding regarding the consistent rate of decay prior to... more

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11 days ago

Newly Described Bird-like Dinosaur Predates Archaeopteryx by 63 Million Years

A long-standing scientific debate focuses on the origins of birds: did they evolve from reptiles or dinosaurs? A newly-unearthed... more

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11 days ago

Today's Mystery Bird for you to Identify [pic]

[Mystery bird] photographed at the Arthur Storey Park, Houston, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours] Can you... more

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11 days ago

Why Ostriches Can't Fly

"As the Age of Dinosaurs came to an end, some flying birds swooped in and took up the newly available niches, foraging on the... more

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12 days ago

Today's Mystery Birds for you to Identify [video]

This video is so beautiful that it made me cry. So beautiful that you don't have to identify any of the birds captured on... more

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13 days ago

Orange Stripey Dinosaurs? Fossil Feathers Reveal Their Secret Colors

While looking at museum dioramas that feature dinosaurs, I often overhear people asking "How do they know what color... more

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14 days ago

Pictures: Dinosaur True Colors Revealed by Feather Find

Sinosauropteryx, a turkey-size carnivorous dinosaur, is the first dinosaur—excluding birds, which many paleontologists... more

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13 days ago

Today's Mystery Bird: another snow-print for you to identify [pic]

[Mystery bird] photographed near the Larsen Lake Blueberry Farm in Bellevue, Washington. [No one, not even the photographer, knows... more

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14 days ago

Today's Mystery Bird for you to Identify [pic]

[Mystery bird] photographed on the Katy Prairie, Houston, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours] Can you ID the... more

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14 days ago

Altruistic Chimpanzees Adopt Orphans

"Chimpanzees can be altruistic just like humans, according to a new study that found 18 cases of orphaned chimps being adopted in the wild.

The kind-hearted chimp parents were discovered in the Taï forest in the West African country Ivory Coast. The adoptive caregivers, both male and female, devoted large amounts of time and effort to protecting their young charges, without any obvious gain to themselves.

"I don't know of any other cases of unrelated orphans being adopted," said research leader Christophe Boesch of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. He said the young chimps had lost their genetic parents to predation, injury and other causes.

Until now, some scientists have thought that altruism, or engaging in a costly behavior to aid another without any benefit to oneself, was strictly a human trait. In studies of captive chimpanzees — humans' closest living relatives — instances of selfless giving are rare.

"Based on some of the captive studies, you see very strong claims that what makes humans special is this ability to cooperate and be altruistic toward one another," Boesch told LiveScience. "In that sense the observation of Taï forest requires a big shift in our thinking about what makes us human, in the sense that this ability to be altruistic is something that we also see in chimpanzees."

The finding does tie in to other research of chimps in the wild that found the animals often share food, even meat, which is a very valuable resource. While some experts have argued that this was proof of chimpanzee altruism, others countered that sharing food could be more of a tit-for-tat behavior, and that there's no way to prove the receiving chimps don't reciprocate later on.

But adoption seems like a stronger case for philanthropy, since the adoptive chimpanzee parents don't seem to reap any immediate reward, and could likely survive on their own much easier without a youngling to care for, the researchers say.

"Some adoptions of orphans by unrelated adults lasted for years and imply extensive care towards the orphans," Boesch said. "This includes being permanently associated with the orphan, waiting for it during travel, providing protection in conflicts and sharing food with the orphan."

http://www.livescience.com/animals/chimpanzee-adoption-altruism-100126.html"Chimpanzees can be altruistic just like humans, according to a new study that found 18 cases of orphaned chimps being... more

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Science & Nature 323 items | updated 21 hours ago

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All Rights Reserved