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☆ Fossil Catches Starfish Cousin in the Act of Cloning Itself
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-14 | by ( Jack Tamisiea | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Some brittle stars give an arm and a leg (and still another appendage) to reproduce. This process, known as clonal fragmentation, is practiced by almost 50 species of existing brittle stars and their starfish relatives. However, scientists have found it difficult to determine when brittle stars, a gangly group of echinoderms, started reproducing this way. A recently discovered fossil from Germany pushes the origin of cloning sea stars back more than 150 million years. The specimen, he added, shows that “clonal fragmentation is actually much older than people previously thought.”

Persons: ”, Ben Thuy Organizations: Royal Society, National Museum of Locations: Germany, Luxembourg

☆ In Coral Fossils, Searching for the First Glow of Bioluminescence
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-23 | by ( Sam Jones | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Bioluminescence is used throughout the animal kingdom, particularly in marine environments, to lure prey, startle predators and even act as camouflage in the surrounding light. “We always say it’s light-limited in the deep sea, but there are a lot of organisms that produce their own light,” said Andrea Quattrini, a zoologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington. The dazzling glow of bioluminescence is common in Octocorallia, also known as octocorals, a class of over 3,000 Anthozoa species including sea fans, sea pens and soft corals. The prevalence of bioluminescence in these sessile animals makes a lot of sense, Dr. Quattrini said: “They settle somewhere and they’re there.”How long organisms have been able to emit light is at the center of recent research by Dr. Quattrini and colleagues. Their latest study, published Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, resets the timing for the emergence of bioluminescence back to about 540 million years ago, from the existing understanding that it appeared in small marine crustaceans 267 million years ago.

Persons: ”, Andrea Quattrini, Quattrini, “ Organizations: Smithsonian National Museum of, Royal Society Locations: Washington

☆ Feeling older than you are? It could be how you sleep
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Sandee Lamotte | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Not getting enough sleep may cause you to feel five to 10 years older than you really are, according to two new studies. A lack of energy and motivation can certainly contribute to feeling older while limiting a person’s ability to remain physically and socially active, both of which contribute to feeling young, Balter said. For every night of poor sleep during that time, people reported feeling about a quarter of a year older than their chronological age. “These findings support that sleep, a vital biological phenomenon, might hold the key to feeling young,” Balter and her colleagues wrote in the study. “If you suspect that your sleep deprivation is due to a sleep disorder such as insomnia or sleep apnea, it’s crucial to seek evaluation and treatment from a healthcare professional,” he said.

Persons: CNN —, “, ” Leonie Balter, Balter, ”, Chang, Ho Yun, ” Yun, It’s, ” Balter, Sleepiness, chronotype, Yun Organizations: CNN, Stockholm University, Royal Society, Seoul National University, Getty Locations: Sweden, Seongnam, South Korea

☆ ‘Extraordinary’ archive of ancient brains could help shed light on mental illness
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-25 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —An undertaker turned academic, Alexandra Morton-Hayward became interested in brains — specifically how they decompose — during her former job. To understand why, the anthropologist has compiled a unique archive of information about 4,405 brains unearthed by archaeologists. No other soft tissue survived amongst the bones, which were dredged from a heavily waterlogged grave. Morton-Hayward works in a lab in Oxford, England, where she has helped build a collection of 570 ancient brains. Interestingly, many of the oldest brains are preserved in this unknown way, Morton-Hayward said.

Persons: Alexandra Morton, Hayward, “, ”, Martin Wirenfeldt Nielsen, wasn’t, He’s, ” Wirenfeldt Nielsen, Alexandra L, Morton, It’s, “ I’m Organizations: CNN, University of Oxford, Morton, South Denmark University Hospital, University of Southern, Stone Age, Royal Society B Biological Sciences, Hayward Locations: Morton, Bristol, England, Russia, Oxford, Stone, Stone Age Sweden, Sint, Ypres, Belgium, Polish

☆ Great apes tease each other just like humans do, says new study
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-14 | by ( Jack Guy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Researchers have found a new way in which great apes are similar to humans: they tease each other. Researchers found that all four species of great apes demonstrated “intentionally provocative behavior, frequently accompanied by characteristics of play,” according to the press release. The study details 18 different teasing behaviors, many of which were used to provoke a response or attract another ape’s attention. The authors also differentiate playful teasing, which is one-sided, from play, where both apes reciprocate. While primatologists had observed similar behaviors in the past, the study is the first to systematically study playful teasing, Laumer said.

Persons: Isabelle Laumer, Laumer, ’ ”, primatologists, ” Organizations: CNN —, BOS Foundation BPI, Max Planck, Animal, CNN, Royal Society, Biological Sciences Locations: Leipzig, Germany, San Diego

☆ NYC has a new weapon against rats but it's still probably not enough to stop the impending rodent takeover.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-11 | by ( Maiya Focht | Jenny Mcgrath | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Rats tend to avoid reproducing in cold weather, Jason Munshi-South, a biologist and associate professor at Fordham University, told Insider. "It's going to be an issue," Munshi-South said, "especially in northern cities like New York City. Rats on the rise Efforts to control the rat population have highly mixed results. AdvertisementAdvertisementBy running his own surveys with exterminators around the city, Corrigan concluded, "there are more rats. In previous years, it would've been cold by then and rats would've stopped reproducing," in NYC, he told Insider.

Persons: it's, Jason Munshi, Munshi, Robert Corrigan, Corrigan, we'll, would've Organizations: Service, Fordham University, Anadolu Agency, Royal Society B, Guardian Locations: York City, New York, Anadolu, New York City

Cheetahs are usually daytime hunters, but the speedy big cats will shift their activity toward dawn and dusk hours during warmer weather, a new study finds. While cheetahs only eat fresh meat, lions and leopards will sometimes opportunistically scavenge from smaller predators. But the new study found that on the hottest days, when maximum daily temperatures soared to nearly 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), cheetahs became more nocturnal — increasing their overlapping hunting hours with rival big cats by 16%. In addition to competition with lions and leopards, cheetahs already face severe pressure from habitat fragmentation and conflict with humans. The fastest land animal, cheetahs are the rarest big cat in Africa, with fewer than 7,000 left in the wild.

Persons: ”, Briana Abrahms, Bettina Wachter, Wachter, Kasim Rafiq, Rafiq —, it's Organizations: Cheetahs, Royal Society, University of Washington, “, Cheetah Research, Leibniz Institute for Zoo, Wildlife Research, Botswana Predator Conservation, Associated Press Health, Science Department, Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science, Educational Media Group, AP Locations: “ Lions, Namibia, Botswana, Africa, Zambia

☆ Crocodiles were played the sound of human babies crying. The higher the infant's distress level, the more the carnivores would respond.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-13 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Nile crocodiles react to the cries of infants from species like bonobos, chimpanzees, and humans. Researchers played audio recordings of infants crying to the carnivorous crocodiles and discovered they were drawn to those in the most distress. While humans primarily responded to the pitch of the cries, crocodiles responded based on levels of "deterministic chaos, harmonicity, and spectral prominences." Nile crocodiles can grow to about 20 feet long and can weigh up to 1,650 pounds, per National Geographic. According to the publication, Nile crocodiles generally live close to humans, meaning encounters happen relatively often.

Persons: – Organizations: Service, Royal Society B, Royal, Geographic Locations: Wall, Silicon, CrocoParc, Agadir, Morocco, Saharan Africa, Madagascar

☆ Remarkable fossils reveal jellyfish that lived 505 million years ago
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-02 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —The oldest examples of swimming jellyfish, which lived in Earth’s oceans 505 million years ago, have been discovered high within the Canadian Rockies. The multitude of Burgessomedusa phasmiformis fossils at the site showed that large, swimming bell-shaped jellyfish evolved more than 500 million years ago. The Burgess Shale was first discovered in 1909 by Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The more that researchers study fossils from the Burgess Shale, the more complex the ancient food chain becomes. “This adds yet another remarkable lineage of animals that the Burgess Shale has preserved chronicling the evolution of life on Earth.”

Persons: Burgess, Jean, Bernard Caron, Medusozoans, ”, Joe Moysiuk, Desmond Collins, Raymond Quarry, Charles D, Walcott, Royal Ontario Museum’s Richard Ivey Organizations: CNN, Canadian Rockies, Royal Ontario Museum, Royal Society, University of Toronto, Royal Ontario, Smithsonian Institution Locations: Burgess, Canada's, British Columbia, Washington ,

☆ 505-Million-Year-Old Jellyfish Fossils May Be the Oldest Ever Found
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-01 | by ( Jack Tamisiea | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jellyfish have been floating through Earth’s oceans seemingly forever. They rarely show up in the fossil record because jellyfish are 95 percent water and are prone to rapid decay. But Dr. Caron and other scientists recently described a cache of jellyfish fossils from the Cambrian period that found an improbable pathway to preservation. In a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the scientists posit that these 505-million-year-old animals are among the oldest swimming jellyfish known to science. “These new fossils represent the most compelling evidence of Cambrian jellyfish to date,” said David Gold, a paleobiologist at the University of California, Davis, who was not involved in the new study.

Persons: ”, Jean, Bernard Caron, Caron, David Gold, Davis Organizations: Royal Ontario Museum, Royal Society B, University of California Locations: Toronto

☆ 27,000-year-old pendants crafted from the skin of extinct giant sloths could help rewrite the human history of the Americas
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-15 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Researchers found what appeared to be pendants made from the now-extinct giant sloth. It suggests humans lived in South America thousands of years earlier than previously thought. "It's very likely that multiple waves of people came to Americas," she said, according to The AP. Giant ground sloths could reach 13 feet long, weighed more than a thousand pounds and were equivalent in size to an Indian elephant. It walked on all fours and was one of the largest creatures in South America, per the report.

Persons: Mirian Liza Alves Forancelli Pacheco, Jeffrey Greenberg, Briana, paleoanthropologist Organizations: Service, Royal Society B, Royal, North America, Federal University of Sao, Associated Press, Universal, AP, Smithsonian Institution's National, of Locations: South America, Wall, Silicon, Siberia, Alaska, South, North, Federal University of Sao Carlos, Brazil, Florida, Americas, Washington

☆ ‘They’re Outsmarting Us’: Birds Build Nests From Anti-Bird Spikes
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Emily Anthes | More About Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The crows seemed to use the spikes differently, turning the sharp pins toward the interior of the nest. Although the idea remains unproven, positioning the spikes this way might provide the nests with more structural support, Mr. Hiemstra speculated. It is not entirely clear whether the birds are simply using the spikes because they are available — in the urban wild, they might be easier to come by than thorny branches — or whether they might be even better suited for the job than natural materials are. But the use of artificial nesting materials is common across the avian universe, according to a new review of the scientific literature by Dr. Mainwaring and his colleagues, which was published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B on Monday. They found reports of tens of thousands of nests — built by 176 different bird species, on every continent except for Antarctica — that contained artificial materials, including plastic bags, cloth straps, fishing line, paper towels, dental floss, rubber bands and cigarette butts.

Persons: Hiemstra, Mainwaring Organizations: Royal Society

☆ Ancient pendants made from giant sloth bones suggest humans were in Americas earlier than thought
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

While G. phoenesis was thought to have been a relatively small species of giant sloth, some ancient sloth species were so big that their fossilized burrows are now caves in southern Brazil that humans can walk through. One of the three pendants made from giant sloth bone. However, Pansani said the team dated other material — sediment, charcoal and other giant sloth bones — from the same layer as where the artifacts were recovered. Many experts are skeptical that humans occupied the Americas any earlier than 16,000 years ago, the study noted. For the new study, Pacheco said the team hadn’t considered the possibility of trying to extract genetic material from the sloth-bone pendants.

Persons: —, Thais Pansani, Federal University of São Carlos, phoenesis, Thaís Pansani, Pierre Gueriau, Mírian Pacheco, Pacheco, ” Pansani, Pansani, “, ” Pacheco, hadn’t, ” Organizations: CNN, Federal University of São, Paleobiology, Royal Society Locations: Brazil, Santa, Americas, South America, New Mexico, Russia

☆ Ancient shrimplike predator was misunderstood, according to new research
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-04 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. CNN —With appendages growing out of its head and an armored mouth, an ancient shrimplike creature was thought to be the quintessential apex predator of its time. The 2-foot-long (0.6-meter-long) Anomalocaris canadensis was one of the largest marine animals to live 508 million years ago. The model was based on a well-preserved but flattened fossil found in the Burgess Shale formation in the Canadian Rockies. The marine animal was one of the largest of its time.

Persons: ”, Russell Bicknell, Anomalocaris canadensis Bicknell, Bicknell, ” Bicknell Organizations: CNN, American Museum, Natural, University of New, Canadian Rockies, Royal Society Locations: University of New England, Australia, Germany, China, Switzerland, United Kingdom

☆ This Extinct Dolphin Had Tusks That Fish Were Wise to Avoid
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Jack Tamisiea | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The waters off New Zealand 25 million years ago were home to early baleen whales, megatooth sharks and human-size penguins. Now researchers are adding a bizarre dolphin to the mix that may have used tusklike teeth to thrash prey into submission. “Mentally, I just couldn’t figure out what could possibly need teeth like that,” Dr. Coste said. In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Dr. Coste and her colleagues described the snaggletoothed dolphin as a unique species, Nihohae matakoi. The curious cetacean’s genus, Nihohae, is a combination of the Maori words for “teeth” and “slashing.”

Persons: Amber Coste, Coste Organizations: New Zealand, University of Otago, Royal Society B Locations: New, Otago

☆ Tons of other animals have clitorises — and they can teach us more about human sexuality
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Many animals have clitorises, a female sex organ, but experts say they're understudied. She said she's seen more interest in this field in recent years, mostly from young female researchers. They found that all female snakes studied have a pair of clitorises — or hemiclitores, a two-part clitoris. Brennan said the fact that snake species have intersex individuals has heightened confusion about the creature's genital organs over the years. Their findings suggest that, like those in human females, the dolphin's clitoris provides pleasure during sex.

CNN —Scientists have discovered that female snakes have a clitoris — a previously overlooked or dismissed part of their anatomy (and that of many other animals), according to a new study. Female genitalia is not an easy subject to bring up sometimes and I think people were happy saying ‘it doesn’t exist. Folwell decided to investigate the female genitalia of snakes after noticing that very little research had been done on the topic. Studies of female genitalia in the animal kingdom are relatively sparse because of an “overwhelming focus on male genitalia,” according to the study. Last year, Patricia Brennan, an associate professor of biological sciences at Mount Holyoke College and coauthor on the new snake study, revealed dolphins also have functional clitoris.

☆ Father's Day: 5 animal dads worse than you
▼ + stars: | 2022-06-19 | by ( Kristen Rogers | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Glenn Boozan's "There Are Moms Way Worse Than You: Irrefutable Proof That You Are Indeed a Fantastic Parent" features a few "bad" animal fathers, too. Workman PublishingQuestionable animal fathers include grizzly bears that eat their young when food is scarce, and lions that primarily stand guard and look tough while female lions venture out to hunt and kill. Male pipefish that were less interested in the pipefish mothers were less nurturing toward their young, investing fewer resources in them. David Tipling/Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images“Horses seem like super dads, but, eh, they’re not the best,” Boozan wrote. “Buying a specific swaddling blanket or a different kind of Binky isn’t going to make you a better or worse parent,” Boozan said.

Persons: Glenn Boozan’s, ” Priscilla Witte, Glenn Boozan's, ” Boozan, Pipefish, David Tipling, “ They’ll, Diamanto, can’t, Guenter Fischer, “, Boozan Organizations: CNN, Workman Publishing, M University, Royal Society B, Stallions, Diversity, University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology Locations: Stigmatopora, Edithburgh, Yorke, South Australia, Texas, Camargue, Provence, France, Peru

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