In a deadly game of heads or tails venomous sea snakes in the Pacific and Indian Oceans deceive their predators into believing they have two heads, claims research published today in Marine Ecology.
The discovery, made by Dr Arne Redsted Rasmussen and Dr Johan Elmberg, showed that Yellow-lipped Sea Kraits (Laticauda colubrina) use skin markings and behaviour patterns to fool predators into thinking their tail is a second head, complete with lethal venom.
Temple University biologist Erik Cordes and a team of researchers are developing a means for protecting vital coral communities from an expanding frontier of thousands of oil platforms pushing deeper into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Stories of ships mysteriously sent to watery graves by sudden, giant waves have long puzzled scientists and sailors. New research by San Francisco State professor Tim Janssen suggests that changes in water depth and currents, which are common in coastal areas, may significantly increase the likelihood of these extreme waves.
URBANA - In a little over seven hours, University of Illinois weed scientist Patrick Tranel got more genetic information about waterhemp than in two years time in a lab. The genetic information was obtained using pyrosequencing technology in the Keck Center at the U of I. The genetic sequence will allow scientists to study herbicide resistance in waterhemp.
The Naval Research Laboratory's satellite suite, the Atmospheric Neutral Density Experiment 2 (ANDE-2), was deployed from NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour on July 30, 2009.
The ANDE-2 satellite suite consists of two nearly perfectly spherical micro-satellites with instrumentation to perform two interrelated mission objectives. The first objective is to monitor the total atmospheric density along the orbit for improved orbit determination of resident space objects. The second is to provide a test object for both radar and optical U.S. Space Surveillance Network sensors.
At a time when water supplies are scarce in many areas of the United States, scientists in Minnesota are reporting that production of bioethanol — often regarded as the clean-burning energy source of the future — may consume up to three times more water than previously thought. Their study appeared in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Faculty of 1000, a scientific evaluation service, has highlighted research providing evidence for the evolution of a new species.
Birds use plumage color to recognize and select potential mates. A mutation of a single DNA base can lead to a striking color change, as demonstrated by two closely related flycatcher populations in the Solomon Islands.
Researchers at the University of California Riverside (UCR) have developed a new mid-season maturing variety of tangerine. They call it DaisySL, for for Daisy seedless. It is made from an irradiated bud of the seedy diploid mandarin cultivar 'Daisy,' that is a hybrid of the mandarins Fortune and Fremont
Washington, DC—The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), in collaboration with industry partner AGR Drilling Services, has engineered an ultra-deepwater drilling technology for use by IODP drilling vessels in scientific research. Originally developed for shallow-water oil and gas exploration, the "riserless mud recovery" technology (RMR™) holds great promise for scientists striving to reach the long-held goal of Project Mohole in the 1950s: drilling all the way through ocean crust into the Earth's mantle; a frontier not yet explored today.
What do the Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone," global climate change, and acid rain have in common? They're all a result of human impacts to Earth's biology, chemistry and geology, and the natural cycles that involve all three.
On August 4-5, 2009, scientists who study such cycles--biogeochemists--will convene at a special series of sessions at the Ecological Society of America (ESA)'s 94th annual meeting in Albuquerque, N.M.
Animals and plants communicate with one another in a variety of ways: behavior, body patterns, and even chemistry. In a series of talks at the Ecological Society of America's annual meeting, to be held August 3-7 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, ecologists explore the myriad adaptations for exchanging information among living things.
Bugs pretending to be ants are protected against attack
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Pine trees grown for 12 years in air one-and-a-half times richer in carbon dioxide than today's levels produced twice as many seeds of at least as good a quality as those growing under normal conditions, a Duke University-led research team reported Monday (Aug. 3) at a national ecology conference.
Hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, is normally an insulating gas, but at high pressures it may turn into a superconductor. Now, scientists at the Carnegie Institution in Washington D.C., US, have discovered a hydrogen-based compound that could be helpful in the search for metallic and superconducting forms of hydrogen. The results are reported in Physical Review Letters and highlighted in the August 3rd issue of APS's on-line journal Physics (physics.aps.org).
Increasingly, human urban development overlaps with habitat for wild animals and plants, creating environments that degrade natural landscapes. But people, animals and plants all have in common the need for healthy, sustainable freshwater ecosystems. In a series of presentations at the Ecological Society of America's Annual Meeting, ecologists present research results that guide efforts to balance an increasingly urbanized society with the need to conserve and protect water and aquatic ecosystems.
Urban stream pollution can be good for mosquitoes