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ScienceBiologyCockatoos Learn To Make Tools By Watching Their Friends
More than fifty years ago, humans were pretty well convinced that they were special, different from the rest of the animal kingdom. That all changed in 1964 when Jane Goodall reported her observations of tool use in chimpanzees. Now we have evidence that Goffin’s cockatoos, parrots that don’t use tools in the wild, have the … Continued
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ScienceBiologyIt Looks Like Monkeys Can Learn from Instructional Videos
That marmosets can learn from other marmosets isn’t all that surprising. Slightly more impressive is that they can learn from unfamiliar marmosets, who they haven’t met before. But what’s really amazing is they can learn from instructional videos. Marmosets are tiny monkeys with awesome hair that, if you weren’t paying attention, you might think were … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Oh Man, All The Space Sex Geckos Are Dead
Sad news from Russia’s Foton-M4 satellite. The spacecraft on which a group of geckos spent a few weeks trying to get it on in microgravity returned to Earth, as planned, earlier today. The only problem? The lizards were frozen solid. As you might recall, there was some drama a few days after the space-bound gecko … Continued
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ScienceBiologyHow A Viral Video Revealed A Previously Undocumented Ant Behavior
Ants are incredible little creatures, known especially for their complex societies and teamwork, but we’ve never quite seen them work together like this. In this video, the speed of the internet meets the deliberateness of the scientific enterprise and reveals the limitations of each. Earlier this week, a viral video on the site LiveLeak revealed … Continued
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ScienceBiologyScientists Found An Algorithm To Turn All Of Us Into Sheeple
The sheepdog is truly a superhero. Somehow, it manages to convince a group of uncooperative sheep to move in a particular direction. It sounds simple, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. What the sheepdog appears to do intuitively has baffled mathematicians. Most attempts to understand optimal sheepdog behavior start from a theoretical perspective … Continued
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ScienceBiology
Vintage Shark Illustrations Are Jaw-Droppingly Gorgeous
The Biodiversity Heritage Library works to make biodiversity-related literature freely available to the world. They’ve got thousands of image libraries to peruse, but one of the richest is their collection of shark illustrations, with more than 370 pages. Here are a few of our favorites. We’re not quite certain just what species some of these … Continued
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ScienceBiology
Citizen Science Helped Us Understand More About The Adorable Olinguito
It was just a year ago when the world first formally met the olinguito. The discovery of the creature – the first mammal discovered in the Americas in 35 years – made it the smallest member of the family that includes raccoons, coatis, kinkajous and olingos. Thanks to crowdsourcing, we now know a whole lot … Continued
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ScienceBiologyHeroic Firefighters Save An Injured Koala By Using Mouth-to-Mouth
Late last week, wildlife rescue workers responded to a call about an injured koala in Melbourne. After rescuers retrieved the marsupial, who they nicknamed Sir Chompsalot, they realized they would have to perform CPR. After becoming injured, the koala managed to climb a tree. While the rescuers were trying to retrieve the little guy, he … Continued
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ScienceBiology
Pizza Science is the Tastiest Science
Everybody knows that pizza is delicious, but did you know that there’s a science to getting that perfectly browned-but-not-too-brown, moist-but-not-oily, haphazard-but-also-uniform arrangement of peaks and valleys for the blistered cheese that rests on top of a pizza? Bryony James, a researcher at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, is interested in the microstructure of … Continued
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ScienceBiologyThe Woodpecker’s Guide to Avoiding Head Injuries
Most woodpeckers use their beaks to drill into tree trunks in search of tasty bugs and their larvae. One group of ‘peckers, the sapsuckers, lick the sap out of the holes they drill using their long, brush-like tongues. The acorn woodpecker drills holes to store individual acorns. Colonies of acorn woodpeckers can store more than … Continued
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ScienceBiology
What Do Animals Dream About?
“Almost all other animals are clearly observed to partake in sleep, whether they are aquatic, aerial, or terrestrial,” wrote Aristotle in his work On Sleep and Sleeplessness. But do other animals dream? On that the Greek philosopher also had an opinion. In The History of Animals, he wrote: “It would appear that not only do … Continued
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ScienceBiology
This Crazy Jellyfish Has No Tentacles, But Its Sting Is Nasty
Meet Keesingia gigas, one of a pair of new species of Irukandji jellyfish recently discovered off the coast of Western Australia. It’s confusing researchers because it appears not to have any tentacles. Actually, Kessingia gigas isn’t actually new. It was first photographed in the 1980s, but it wasn’t until last year that a live specimen … Continued
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ScienceBiology
Giant Alligator Literally Broke The Scale When Biologists Weighed It
The previous record for the largest alligator ever legally hunted in Alabama was, until this week, held by 14-foot, 2-inch, 838-pound specimen caught in 2011. But now that honor goes to an even larger critter. The monster brought in by the Stokes and Jenkins families was easily measured at 15 feet long. But the first … Continued
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ScienceBiology
This Is What The Rattlesnake “Combat Dance” Looks Like
Southern Pacific Rattlesnakes are a common sight in the forests and hiking trails in Southern California, so it was no surprise that a group of mountain bikers – who were also National Park Service volunteers – came across a pair of the rattlers last week. They were, however, treated to a unique bit of snake … Continued
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ScienceBiology
This Worm is Truly, Deeply Terrifying
This unsettling creature is called Eunice aphroditois, or colloquially the Bobbit worm. These critters can grow up to three meters long and have pincers capable of slicing its (sometimes larger) prey right in half. Also? It injects a toxin into its prey to make it easier to digest. Yum. The worm keeps itself buried in … Continued
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ScienceBiologyLearn Real Science Facts About Great White Sharks
Reality is usually more interesting than pseudoscientific nonsense, especially when it comes to sharks. Here’s a double-helping of accurate science about one of the best-known species: great white sharks. First, Derek Muller of Veritasium counts down 10 facts about great white sharks. In some ways they’re actually quite similar to our own species. Then, he’ll … Continued
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ScienceBiologyAnnoyed by Fake Shark Documentaries? Here’s A Double Helping Of Reality
Well, Shark Week has done it again. “Shark of Darkness: Wrath of Submarine,” about a mythical 30-foot great white prowling South African waters, is another fake documentary. As an antidote, each day this week we’ll be sharing videos about sharks that contain actual facts. Shark of Darkness: Wrath of Submarine is a fake documentary In … Continued
Jason G. Goldman
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