On some of the Galapagos Islands where human-introduced predators of Darwin's finches were eradicated over a decade ago, the finches are still acting as though they are in danger, according to research published today in the Journal of Animal Ecology.
The study found that the finches' fearful responses - known as antipredator behaviour - were sustained through multiple generations after the threat was gone, which could have detrimental consequences for their survival.
Leadership during cooperation runs in the family for tiny fish called Trinidadian guppies, new research shows.
University of Exeter researchers studied leadership in guppies by selectively breeding for fish that differed in how likely they were to lead a scouting party to examine a predator.
They created 30 breeding pairs of the males and females most likely to lead, and another 30 of those with lowest leadership.
Light is versatile in nature. In other words, it shows different characteristics when traveling through different types of materials. This property has been explored in various technologies, but the way in which light interacts with materials needs to be manipulated to get the desired effect. This is done using special devices called light modulators, which have the ability to modify the properties of light. One such property, called the Pockels effect, is seen when an electric field is applied to the medium through which light travels.
Besides swathes of destroyed vegetation, forest fires in Amazonia leave their imprint on the Amazon River and its tributaries. Incomplete burning of trees results in the production of black carbon, solid particles that enter the waters of the Amazon in the form of charcoal and soot and are transported to the Atlantic Ocean as dissolved organic carbon.
PITTSBURGH--Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a system that can accurately locate a shooter based on video recordings from as few as three smartphones.
When demonstrated using three video recordings from the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead and hundreds wounded, the system correctly estimated the shooter's actual location -- the north wing of the Mandalay Bay hotel. The estimate was based on three gunshots fired within the first minute of what would be a prolonged massacre.
A radio telescope in the Western Australian outback has captured a spectacular new view of the centre of the galaxy in which we live, the Milky Way.
The image from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope shows what our galaxy would look like if human eyes could see radio waves.
Astrophysicist Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), created the images using the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Perth.
Scientists using the MeerKAT radio telescope have discovered a unique and previously-unseen flare of radio emission from a binary star in our galaxy.
The MeerKAT radio telescope in the Northern Cape of South Africa has discovered an object which rapidly brightened by more than a factor of three over a period of three weeks. This is the first new transient source discovered with MeerKAT and scientists hope it is the tip of an iceberg of transient events to be discovered with the telescope.
Childhood obesity affects about 13.7 million children and adolescents in the United States and has been increasing for more than four decades. It is a serious problem that puts children at risk for poor health and chronic disease. Unlike foods served in public schools, which must typically adhere to U.S. Department of Agriculture food guidelines to enable meal reimbursement, most faith-based and private schools and associated afterschool programs operate independently without dietary requirements.
Osaka, Japan - How our eyes detect and respond to changes in light intensity is determined by specialized cells in the eye called photoreceptors. In addition to converting light into electrical signals, effectively allowing us to see, rod-shaped photoreceptors adapt to changes in light intensity to protect the eye from damage caused by excessive light exposure. However, in conditions such as retinitis pigmentosa, these cells do not work properly, leading to progressive vision loss.
In a recent study published in PLOS One researchers from Hiroshima University and Nagoya Institute of Technology found that if you hold your car steering wheel at certain angles (1, 4, or 5 on the clock) then it's likely you're over or underestimating how much force you need to use to steer the car.