Eureka! from Creators Syndicate

The Mouse that Sang for 07/09/2009

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Researchers have known for a while that male mice sing when courting, their tunes consisting of ultrasonic (beyond human hearing) vocalizations similar to bird song. What wasn't known was exactly why male mice sang. Did they sing for the same reasons as birds? To attract mates or to call out their territory?

A new paper in the journal Biology Letters partially solves the mystery: A male ...

Updated: Thu Jul 09, 2009

Colorful Past for 07/16/2009

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Modern images of the Parthenon in Greece invariably depict it as stark and stunningly white against an azure sky. A British Museum researcher says it may not always have been so: The 5th-century B.C. temple to the goddess Athena may once have been painted — or at least parts of it.

Giovanni Verri reports finding traces of a pigment called Egyptian blue in some of the friezes decora ...

Updated: Thu Jul 16, 2009

A Yarn About Shrinking Sheep for 07/23/2009

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Toss wool socks in a dryer and they shrink. Expose sheep to warming temperatures and, well, they shrink too.

Or so researchers surmise after studying a population of wild Soay sheep on the Scottish isle of Hirta. They say the sheep have been diminishing in size, about 5 percent in both body weight and stature, for more than 20 years.

The suggested reason: Global warming has made l ...

Updated: Thu Jul 23, 2009

Smart Women for 07/30/2009

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The magazine New Scientist recently conducted an online poll asking who was the most inspirational female scientist of all time. The results:

1. Marie Curie (1854-1923). Physicist and first European woman to be awarded a doctorate of science. She won shares of two Nobel Prizes for her work in radioactivity.

2. Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958). Chemist laid the groundwork for James Wa ...

Updated: Thu Jul 30, 2009

Heating Bill for 08/06/2009

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Toco Toucan's bill is among the most remarkable in the avian world. It makes up one-third of the bird's total body length and is the largest bill of any bird, relative to its body size.

Over the centuries, researchers have puzzled over its purpose, speculating that it might be used to attract mates or manipulate fruit (though not the Loops kind).

Glenn Tattersall of Brock Univ ...

Updated: Thu Aug 06, 2009

Ant Misbehavin' for 08/13/2009

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Ants tackle complex challenges much more rationally than multimodal, egg-headed, tool-using, bipedal, opposable-thumbed humans, says a new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences.

According to researchers at Arizona State and Princeton universities, it's not a case of humans being stupider than ants, but rather the ants benefiting from collective wisd ...

Updated: Thu Aug 13, 2009

Exhaust Plume for 08/20/2009

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Chickens may want to avoid crossing roads in Nevada. Researchers at the University of Nevada Reno say they've developed a process to extract fat from chicken feathers and convert it into biodiesel.

Chicken feathers are a byproduct of the nation's poultry industry. For the most part, they are ground up and processed as feather meal, which is used as fertilizer or in animal feed. Feather m ...

Updated: Thu Aug 20, 2009

Killer Smile for 08/27/2009

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The term "sardonic grin" was coined by the ancient Greek bard Homer (seen here, not smiling) to describe the apparent smile on the faces of ceremonial victims on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. Thousands of years ago, he wrote, Phoenician colonists on Sardinia gave their condemned victims an intoxicating herbal potion that reportedly put a smile on their face, then the colonists ...

Updated: Thu Aug 27, 2009

Big Trees, Big Trouble for 09/03/2009

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The famous big trees of Yosemite National Park declined 24 percent during the 20th century, and not just because of insanely stupid acts like cutting tunnels through their bases. The giant sequoia "Wawona" tree in Mariposa grove was 227 feet tall, with a 90-foot circumference at its base. The tunnel through it was finished in 1881; the tree fell down in 1969.

Scientists from th ...

Updated: Thu Sep 03, 2009

'Tweeners' with Fins for 09/10/2009

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Teenage sharks. It seems nobody understands them.

Researchers have traditionally focused either upon baby sharks confined to shallow waters or on ocean-roaming adults. Much less is known about intermediate-age sharks, which are the breeders of tomorrow and roughly similar in development to human teenagers.

A novel study in the Bahamas, however, sheds new light. Over 14 years, scie ...

Updated: Thu Sep 10, 2009

Of Beaks and Bites for 09/17/2009

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Stowaway mosquitoes, arriving in the Galapagos Islands aboard aircrafts carrying workers and tourists, have the potential of introducing fatal viruses to the native finch species of the islands, birds made famous by the evolutionary studies of Charles Darwin and others.

Scientists have captured mosquitoes surviving in the holds of arriving planes. Though none of the insects found so far ...

Updated: Thu Sep 17, 2009

World's Fastest Kettle for 09/24/2009

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

In case the news flashed by without you catching it: The land speed record for steam-powered cars has been broken for the first time in more than a century.

OK, before you start laughing at images of ancient vehicles chugging at speeds of up to 20 miles per hour, you should know those old cars could really pick up a head of, well, steam. The previous speed record, set in 1906 by American ...

Updated: Thu Sep 24, 2009

Up the Evolutionary Tree for 10/01/2009

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

In the movie "Jurassic Park" and in popular (albeit misguided) dinosaur mythology, the foot claws of velociraptors are used to frightening effect, the terrifying instruments of disembowelment and death.

A new analysis based on fossil biomechanics, however, suggests the curved claws had a more benign use: They helped the turkey-sized velociraptors (actually much smaller than in ...

Updated: Thu Oct 01, 2009

Cosmic Cancer for 10/08/2009

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Lots of things may stop Earthlings in general and NASA astronauts in particular from ever exploring Mars. Cost is a real issue. So, too, are hurdles like building a safe, reliable vehicle to get there or the risk of being cataclysmically struck by errant space debris.

Add to the list this problem: Cosmic radiation.

A government panel reviewing NASA's planned and proposed human spa ...

Updated: Thu Oct 08, 2009

Green Spider for 10/15/2009

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Of the 40,000 or so known species of spiders in the world, the spiders that are NOT carnivores can be counted on one hand. Actually, you don't even need one hand because spiders were, until recently, believed to be strictly predatory, feeding only on insects or other animals.

Now comes word of the first vegetarian spider, a jumping spider whose diet consists primarily of plant food.

...

Updated: Thu Oct 15, 2009

What's it all about, Algae? for 10/22/2009

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The asteroid that struck Earth 65 million years ago notoriously wiped out most of life on the planet, large and small. Even algae in the ocean were affected, though apparently not for long.

New evidence reported by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says ocean algae may have recovered less than 100 years after atmospheric dust from the cosmic impact reduced sunlight ...

Updated: Thu Oct 22, 2009

Cleaning Up, Using Ammonia for 10/29/2009

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

When Archaea, an ancient line of bacteria, were first discovered 30 years ago, it was thought they existed only in extreme environments like deep-sea hydrothermal vents or hot springs like the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park (pictured).

But researchers at the University of Washington say they recently found the bacteria thriving at the bottom of a Seattle Aquarium tan ...

Updated: Thu Oct 29, 2009

Counting Cardsharps Out for 11/05/2009

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

In the 1988 film "Rain Man," the lead characters hope to strike it rich gambling by "counting cards" at blackjack. That is, by precisely remembering which cards have been played, they would have a better of idea of which cards remained. A lot of low-value cards in the discard pile would mean high-value cards likes queens and aces would be more likely to appear, improving a c ...

Updated: Thu Nov 05, 2009

Man-eaters Not So Much for 11/12/2009

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

For more than 80 years, the man-eating Tsavo lions have been a fabulous story and crowd-pleaser. The two lions reportedly killed and ate as many as 135 people in the Tsavo River region of Kenya before being shot and killed in 1898. Their skinned and stuffed bodies, eventually purchased by Chicago's Field Museum, remain among the institution's most popular exhibits.

The story of how the l ...

Updated: Thu Nov 12, 2009

Lessons Drawn for 11/19/2009

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The ancient Nazca of Peru were terrific artists, best remembered now for creating their complex line drawings of animals and geometric objects that can only be fully appreciated from the air. Nazca knowledge of their environment, however, seems to have left something to be desired, and may be the reason the culture disappeared around 1,500 years ago.

A huge flood is usually credited with ...

Updated: Thu Nov 19, 2009