News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
We already knew that anglerfish have light-generating bacteria in their tissues – now it turns out that one species, the Pacific football fish, can also glow by fluorescing green Life 12 January 2022 By Jake Buehler The Pacific footballfish (Himantolophus sagamius) William Ludt/Journal of Fish Biology Deep-sea anglerfish illuminate their pitch-black home using a lure … Read more
The bottlenose dolphin (Tersiops truncatus) appears to have a very large and well-developed clitoris, potentially better placed for coital pleasure than the clitoris of humans, according to new research. The visible tip of the human clitoris is but the size of a pea and located slightly north of the vagina and urethra (although much … Read more
The air around us carries detectable traces of animals living in our midst, scientists have found, and the discovery stands to revolutionize the way researchers monitor and track populations of vulnerable or endangered species. In two new studies conducted by separate teams of scientists, researchers discovered that environmental DNA (eDNA) shed by living creatures … Read more
A video by the team at Yellowstone national park shows the extraordinary sight of a grizzly bear hunting alongside a pack of wolves, only to make off with their prey. The footage, posted to the National Parks Service Facebook page in December, shows the multi-species pack hunting a large herd of elks. A few wolves break away … Read more
Following the time of the dinosaurs, it might well be that the evolution of flowering plants drove the explosion in the diversity of life on Earth, according to a 2021 paper. Most of the plants we now eat, drink, wear, and build with are of the flowering variety. They’re called angiosperms, which roughly translates from … Read more
By Chen Ly The new species – Uvariopsis dicaprio Lorna MacKinnon A tropical, evergreen tree from Cameroon, the first plant species to be named as new to science in 2022, has officially been labelled Uvariopsis dicaprio today in honour of the actor Leonardo DiCaprio. It adds to the list of the strange and spectacular plants … Read more
Our planet’s convoluted history of evolving life has spawned countless weird and wonderful creatures, but none excite evolutionary biologists – or divide taxonomists – quite like crabs. When researchers attempted to reconcile the evolutionary history of crabs in all their raucous glory just earlier this year, they arrived at the conclusion that the defining … Read more
Recently, scientists in Hornsund, Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic ocean – witnessed a polar bear pursuing a reindeer into the sea before killing it, dragging it ashore, and eating it. The video that they captured was widely shared on news and social media platforms. Then, two days later, they saw the … Read more
Inventorying the plants in a tract of woods or fields or searching for invasive species can take days of hot, hard work slogging through thorny brush and tick-infested grass. Now, researchers have shown that simply capturing and analyzing the DNA plants release into the air can work as well as putting boots on the ground—and … Read more
A new study has demonstrated crows can assign value to their tools just like we do. “Many of us will fuss about a brand-new phone, making sure it does not get scratched, dropped or lost. But we may handle an old phone with a cracked screen quite carelessly,” said behavioral ecologist Barbara Klump now at … Read more