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ScienceBiologyHandy Charts Show How To Pet Your Animal Friends Safely
For some reason, we humans have an intense desire to touch animals. Lucky for you, we found a handy, graphical guide to the safest ways to pet, poke, and prod them. Here’s the thing. If the animal isn’t a domesticate – a horse, a cat, a dog – just don’t touch it, okay? Take this … Continued
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ScienceBiologyDid Exploding Whales Just Go Mainstream?
There was a short science lesson in this weekend’s SNL, but if you blinked you might have missed it. Also a pair of methane-filled marine mammals sent their bloody viscera flying onto Taran Killam and Charlize Theron. In case you haven’t heard, the internet spent some time wondering whether a decomposing blue whale that had … Continued
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ScienceBiology
Mango the Brown Bear Makes Veterinary History at an Israeli Zoo
Mango is a 19 year old male Syrian brown bear who lives at Israel’s Ramat Gan Safari Park, a zoo not far from Tel Aviv. Earlier this week, he made veterinary history after undergoing a complex spinal surgery. Mango had been suffering from a condition most commonly known as a “slipped disc.” The formal term … Continued
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ScienceBiology
Ready For Some Croc-on-Croc Violence? Cretaceous Crocs Ate Each Other
We’ve previously brought you impressive images of crocodylians – that’s the group of reptiles that includes alligators, crocodiles, and caimans – being eaten by river otters and by snakes. Now we bring you some intense croc-on-croc violence. We share because we love. Yesterday, paleontologist Pedro L. Godoy and colleagues reported a new fossil found in … Continued
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ScienceBiology
Meet The Lizard That Looks Just Like Spiderman
Meet the Red-headed rock agama, Agama mwanzae. The lizard, native to East Africa is a fascinating critter, and not just because it likes to cosplay as Peter Parker’s alter-ego. These lizards are unique among agamids – there are more than 350 species in the Family – because they cluster in groups. They may group together … Continued
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ScienceBiology
Read George Washington Carver’s Thesis: “Man is Simply Nature’s Agent”
George Washington Carver is perhaps best known for his work on peanut cultivation, but his botanical research was far more wide-ranging than the one legume for which he’d eventually become famous. Agriculture in the Reconstruction-era American South had an over-reliance on cotton. Cultivating the same plant in the same places over and over again leads … Continued
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ScienceBiologyNational Zoo Lion Cubs Pass Most Adorable Swim Test Ever
In March, four cubs were born to African lion (Panthera leo) Shera at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. Now that they’re a little over two months old the cubs almost ready to join their relatives in the lion enclosure, but first they have to pass a swim test. There’s a moat in the lion … Continued
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ScienceBiology
Scientists Tinker with Neurons to Turn Lovers into Fighters
It would be nice to know how and why aggression occurs. It would give us better insight into everything from international war to schoolyard bullying. New research in mice suggests that estrogen may be more important than testosterone in modulating aggressive behavior, and that sex and aggression may be intimately connected. A Caltech research group … Continued
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ScienceBiology
China Commands an Army of Trained Monkeys
There has been a long tradition of employing animals in military operations. The latest example might be China’s troop of macaque soldiers. According to a report in the Washington Post, the People’s Liberation Army revealed that they’ve trained a small troop of macaques at one of their air bases, somewhere in northern China. From the … Continued
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ScienceBiology
Exclusive Photos of the San Francisco Zoo’s New Red Panda
We’ve got exclusive early access to some new photos of the San Francisco’s Zoo’s newest resident, a 10-month-old male red panda. Get ready to make travel arrangements to get yourself to SF, pronto. He’ll be formally introduced to the world on Saturday May 10 at 10am (or 9am for zoo members). The naming rights went … Continued
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ScienceBiology
For These Tiny Frogs, a Pencil is a Log
A few very special frogs just hatched at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. They’re fairly unique among frogs, because they break out of their eggs as fully-formed tiny frogs, not as tadpoles. The Solomon Island leaf frogs, Ceratobatrachus guentheri, which are also known as triangle frogs, complete their tadpole stage fully inside the egg, … Continued
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ScienceBiology
The San Francisco Zoo Got A New Red Panda and He’s Adorable
Next weekend, the San Francisco Zoo will introduce the world to its new 10-month-old male red panda, but we got our hands on some early behind-the-scenes photos of the tiny panda. Yeah, we said panda, because the red panda was formally named and described in the scientific literature before the unrelated giant panda. Did you … Continued
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ScienceBiology
African Bird Steals Food by Stacking Lies Upon Lies
Fork-tailed drongos are among the most clever of liars in the animal kingdom, deceiving other animals in order to steal their food. The avian thieves have discovered a way to keep their targets in the dark. They do it by using lots of different kinds of lies. Clever birds are a dime a dozen; last … Continued
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ScienceBiology
Angry Beaver Stops Traffic To Protest Climate Change
Only in Canada could a lost beaver create a traffic hazard. CBC news reports that the beaver spent most of the afternoon on Tuesday roaming around the streets of Miramichi, causing traffic delays due to concerned drivers who didn’t want to harm the wayward rodent. Jim O’Neill was driving his taxi when he noticed a … Continued
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ScienceBiology
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Emu Poo
All emu poo is not created equal. Hoot, one of the science communication triad at BuzzHootRoar, explains, “it turns out that emus are pretty good at helping seeds spread around by scarfing down fruits and plant material and plopping out fertilized seed cakes all over the land.” Their infographic is one of the best on … Continued
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ScienceBiologyFish Learn To Use Tools, So Let’s Rethink the Definition of Tool Use
When you think of Atlantic cod, you probably think of a strip of fish, battered and fried. But new research suggests that the fish might be able to use tools, and that might cause us to rethink how we evaluate tool use in other animals. In a recent study, a group of researchers led by … Continued
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ScienceBiologyThis Transparent Jumping Spider is the Stuff of Nightmares
There are more than 5000 species of jumping spider. This one, spotted in an Ecuadorian reserve by zoologist Wayne Maddison is both fascinating and terrifying. One thing that unites all jumping spiders is their four pairs of eyes, with one larger pair set a bit farther back from the others. What’s delightfully creepy about this … Continued
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ScienceBiologyUrban Birds Make Music With Their Bodies in “Birds on the Wires”
Prepare to be blown away by the beauty found in apparent randomness. Usually birds make music by singing; these birds did it just by sitting. Brazilian musician Jarbas Agnelli took a photo of birds sitting on electric lines and, using the birds’ positions as musical notes, turned the scene into a song. I was surprised … Continued
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ScienceBiology
How Much Soup Could You (Hypothetically) Make From A Megalodon?
Shark fin soup is a traditional Chinese dish made from the cartilage found inside the fins of sharks. The growing demand for shark fins is one of the main drivers of the global decline in shark populations. One blogger wondered how much soup you can make from the fin of a single megalodon, so he … Continued
Jason G. Goldman
Jason G. Goldman's posts