It’s certainly something to crow about. New Caledonian crows are known for their ingenious use of tools to get at hard-to-reach food. Now it turns out that their Hawaiian cousins are adept tool-users as well. Christian Rutz at the University of St Andrews in the UK has spent 10 years studying the New Caledonian crow […]
New Scientist
Warming seas linked to rise in cholera bacteria in Europe and US
There’s nothing like swimming in cold water. Warming oceans caused by climate change may be leading to an increase in cholera and other infections caused by Vibrio bacteria, according to more than 50 years of data on climate and populations of ocean microbes. Read more in New Scientist.
Are we ready for the gold rush on the sea floor?
One firm reckons its planned sea-floor mines are more sustainable than those on land. But the diggers could destroy rare life and more. THE submersible Alvin encountered its first “black smoker” 2000 metres deep off the coast of the Galapagos Islands. It was 1977, and the realisation that life could survive in pitch darkness next […]
Whooping crane recovery puts human chick ‘parents’ out of a job
When this year’s clutch of captive-bred whooping cranes hatch at the International Crane Foundation (ICF) in Baraboo, Wisconsin, they’ll see something that previous generations missed out on – their parents. Read more in New Scientist.
Watch a baby sea turtle being hypnotised so we can weigh it
Baby sea turtles are an energetic bunch. As soon as they emerge from their sandy nests they scramble down the beach and swim out to sea. This frantic burst of activity helps the turtles evade predators, but it can be a real headache for researchers who want to gather measurements from these tiny, squirming subjects. […]
Tentacled sea creatures are taking over the Earth’s oceans
Octopuses and their tentacled brethren are taking over the seas, as ocean temperatures climb and humans snaffle up their natural predators. Zoe Doubleday, a marine biologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, and her colleagues were studying an iconic local species, the giant Australian cuttlefish, which had been in decline for several years. Doubleday […]
Baby turtles work together to dig themselves out of a nest hole
Baby sea turtles work together to dig their way out of sandy nests, and the more of them there are, the less energy they use doing it. We knew of this group-digging behaviour, called social facilitation, for a long time, but the reasons for teamwork were unclear. Possible explanations included speeding up nest escape or […]
North Pacific’s sea slug invasion linked to mystery ocean blob
Unusually warm waters in the Pacific Ocean are driving dozens of species of nudibranch – a photogenic type of sea slug – northward at a surprising pace. This could signal the beginning of a major climate shift in the region, says Jeffrey Goddard, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Read more in New […]
Smallest perching bird’s long-lost family revealed by genetics
The pygmy bushtit’s diminutive size makes it a superlative species, and it has a genus all to itself. But now genetics is showing that it’s not so special after all. The pygmy bushtit isn’t much to look at. It’s an inconspicuous dull grey, but it is absolutely tiny. So small in fact, that it is […]
Trees share vital goodies through a secret underground network
Call it the wood wide web. Although we think of trees as competing with each other for resources, we know from lab studies that they share information and nutrients underground.Trees of the same species growing close together will sometimes fuse their roots and exchange materials. And seedlings of different species can share nutrients via mycorrhiza, […]