News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
A 1.4-million-year-old fossil relative of killer whales had teeth that suggest it ate small fish rather than large marine mammals Life 7 March 2022 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre Artistic reconstruction of Rododelphis stamatiadisi Rossella Faleni A 1.4-million-year-old ancestor of orcas and false killer whales seems to have dined on small fish – which suggests its descendants … Read more
Streptomycin, an antibiotic used to treat bacterial diseases in apple orchards, might have a negative impact on bee foraging behaviour Life 23 February 2022 By Gary Hartley A common eastern bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) Clarence Holmes Wildlife/Alamy Exposure to streptomycin, an antibiotic used to treat crop diseases in the US, weakens the foraging ability of the … Read more
Rats trained to leave 3.2 seconds between presses of a lever or to hold it down for this length of time seem able to judge whether they were accurate enough to have earned a reward Life 21 February 2022 By Carissa Wong Rats can judge their ability to keep track of the passage of time … Read more
Captive orangutans that had never seen stone tools could work out how to use them to hit or cut things – but they couldn’t get the hang of making them Life 16 February 2022 By Michael Marshall Orangutans live in trees and rarely encounter stones MERVYN REES/Alamy Stock Photo Captive orangutans that had never seen … Read more
Sparrows on a collection of Canadian islands change their behaviour when they fear predators are nearby, and an experiment shows this reduces their ability to raise their offspring to adulthood Life 7 February 2022 By Luke Taylor Song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) in British Columbia, Canada Jess Findlay/BIA/Minden/Naturepl.com The fear of predators alone is enough to … Read more
Baboons are sociable primates, but females that had a tough early life – because of the loss of their mother or a lack of food – find socialising harder Life 2 February 2022 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre Olive baboons (Papio anubis) Alexa Duchesnneau and Sam Patterson Female baboons that had a harder life as youngsters tend … Read more
Genetically identical fruit flies raised in the same environment still learn at different rates, suggesting that random differences in brain development may have evolved to produce variation in a species Life 2 February 2022 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre Fruit flies may have random variance to account for different learning styles Aleksandar Kitanovic / Alamy Genetically similar … Read more
Purple-crowned fairywrens are more flexible in their breeding behaviour than we thought, which has helped the bird population to grow in one wildlife sanctuary in Western Australia Life 5 January 2022 By Chen Ly Purple-crowned fairywrens in the Northern Territory, Australia Wayne Lawler/Australian Wildlife Conservancy For the second year in a row, researchers have spotted … Read more
Dogs seem to understand the basic way objects should behave, and stare for longer if animated balls violate expectations by rolling away for no obvious reason Life 22 December 2021 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre A dog taking part in the study Rooobert Bayer When 3D animated balls on a computer screen defy certain laws of physics, … Read more
Young male elephants will sometimes attack humans or other animals, but seem less likely to do so if they are in the company of older males Life 22 December 2021 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre A male elephant acting aggressively Connie Allen Young male elephants appear to manage their aggression towards anything that isn’t an elephant by … Read more