Feature Channels: Nature

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A fly introduced to control pests in 1906 is also linked to the decline of several native species of butterflies and moths.

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When a female animal compares males to choose a mate, she can't order a laboratory genetic screen for each suitor. Instead, she has to rely on external cues that may indicate genetic quality. Until now, biologists have focused on elaborate ornaments, such as the peacock's tail, as cues that females might use.

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Researchers found very few grey whales in their traditional feeding grounds in the North Pacific last summer. Earthwatch volunteers will help Bath University's Dr. William Megill investigate unusual feeding behavior exhibited by grey whales off Baja California, Mexico, this winter.

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A group of scientists led by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) working in Mongolia's windswept Gobi Desert recently fitted high-tech GPS (Global Positioning System) collars on eight saiga antelope in an effort to help protect one of Asia's most bizarre-looking "“ and endangered "“ large mammals.

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A study of ten beaked whales of two poorly understood species shows their foraging dives are deeper and longer than those reported for any other air-breathing species. This extreme deep-diving behavior is of particular interest since beaked whales stranded during naval sonar exercises have been reported to have symptoms of decompression sickness.

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CHICAGO"”Almost 50 years ago, Michael Armas, a mining engineer from the central Philippines, discovered some fossils in a tunnel he was excavating while exploring for phosphate. Forty years later, Dr. Hamilcar Intengan, a friend of his who now lives in Chicago, recognized the importance of the bones and donated them to The Field Museum.

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They may be black and white, but new research at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Zoo Atlanta shows that giant pandas can see in color.

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Researchers have uncovered physiological differences among female Glanville fritillary butterflies that allows some to move away from their birth place and establish new colonies. These venturesome butterflies are stronger fliers and reproduce more quickly compared to their less mobile female relatives. The study will be presented at Comparative Physiology 2006.

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The delicate lady bug in your garden could be frighteningly large if only there was a greater concentration of oxygen in the air, a new study concludes. The study adds support to the theory that some insects were much larger during the late Paleozoic period because they had a much richer oxygen supply. The study will be presented Comparative Physiology 2006.

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Scientists at the University of New Hampshire hope to learn more about memory and its evolution by studying the Clark's nutcracker, a bird with a particularly challenging task: remembering where it has buried thousands of pine nuts that serve as its sole supply of food for winter.

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Seals shiver when exposed to cold air but not when diving in chilly water, a finding that researchers believe allows the diving seal to conserve oxygen and minimize brain damage that could result from long dives. This research was presented at The American Physiological Society conference Comparative Physiology 2006: Integrating Diversity.

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The thyroid may play an important role in longevity, with longer-lived rodents showing significantly lower levels of a thyroid hormone that speeds metabolism. The study further strengthens the theory that the faster an animal's metabolism, the shorter its life, and vice versa. The thyroid releases hormones that regulate metabolic rate.

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Nothing can be more fun: Watch cockroaches race for glory, paint your face like a bug, grab a handful of maggots, and taste edible creepy-crawlies at "Insectapalooza 2006," the open house at Cornell University's Department of Entomology on Saturday, Oct. 14, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Comstock Hall.

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Fishermen caught and killed about 1 percent of the world's waved albatrosses in a year, according to a new study by Wake Forest University biologists. The research shows the Galapagos waved albatrosses are unintentionally killed when caught in fishing nets or on fishing hooks, but are also intentionally harvested for human consumption.

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The larvae of Antarctic midges never stop producing special proteins that minimize environmental stress, allowing them to withstand a range of intense environmental conditions in one of the world's harshest environments.

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Scientists have found preliminary evidence that narwhals, Arctic whales whose spiraled tusks gave rise to the myth of the unicorn, produce signature vocalizations that may facilitate individual recognition or their reunion with more distant group members.

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The American Physiological Society's, Comparative Physiology conference taking place October 8-11 includes symposia on the biomedical applications of suspended animation and comparative biology of aging. Here's your chance to talk to scientists who are studying animal physiology that apply to medicine, the environment and more.

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A new study from the National Wildlife Federation based on 65 different scientific studies shows the impact and extent of mercury pollution in wildlife is greater than previously thought.

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Tropical rainforests are among the most stable environments on Earth, but they are still no match for global climate change. Dr. Patricia Wright, primatologist and Professor of Anthropology at Stony Brook University, finds that climate change could mean the difference between survival and extinction for endangered lemurs.

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Purdue University research has shown that the vole, a mouselike rodent, is not only the fastest evolving mammal, but also harbors a number of puzzling genetic traits that challenge current scientific understanding.

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Researchers at the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University finish a six-year study on roadside animal-detection systems.

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This year's population is probably the biggest Monarch watchers have seen in 10 years, but extreme temperatures in Texas and Oklahoma pose dangers.

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A team led by a conservationist from the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society, working with the Chadian government and the European Union project CURESS near Chad's Zakouma National Park, has discovered 100 slaughtered elephants, most of them missing only their tusks "” a sure sign that poaching is on the upswing just outside of this renowned protected area.

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If you could peer microscopically into the closest freshwater pond, you'd hesitate before dipping a toe. Amid the murky water, you'd probably notice an oddly furry, pear-shaped organism gliding along"”and gobbling up everything in its path. This tiny predator has a big name--Tetrahymena thermophila--and a big fan club among scientists, as a star organism for research into how cells work.

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Cooling water temperature during the fall prompts the crucian carp to store vast amounts of glycogen in its brain and vastly reduce the amount of energy its brain needs. These physiological changes keep the brain functioning from February to April, when there is no oxygen in its ponds. The carp, a goldfish cousin, avoids predators this way.

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They take a long time before they mate and, once old enough, don't mate every year. Even so, sturgeons are heavily sought after for their eggs, which are made into caviar. For these and other reasons, many sturgeons - a variety of ancient, bottom-feeding fish - are in trouble.

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To a tiny tadpole, life boils down to two basic missions: eat, and avoid being eaten. But there's a trade-off. The more a tadpole eats, the faster it grows big enough to transform into a frog; yet finding food requires being active, which ups the odds of becoming someone else's dinner.

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A team of researchers from the University of Maryland and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center are mapping out areas of habitat suitable for the ivory-billed woodpecker, the largest and most regal member of the woodpecker family, which may still survive some 60 years after it was thought to have gone extinct.

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Current conservation assessments of endangered Caribbean sea turtles are too optimistic, according to Loren McClenachan and colleagues from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The study, "Conservation implications of historic sea turtle nesting beach loss," appears in the August issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

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The rusty crayfish - a voracious, bullying exotic that has visited ecological havoc on numerous Wisconsin lakes - may have finally met its match.

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A series of deaths involving alligators were reported in Florida this summer, but Ken R. Marion, Ph.D., UAB Department of Biology chair, said there is no need to overreact.

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Coral reef marine protected areas established by local people for traditional use can be far more effective at protecting fish and wildlife than reserves set up by governments expressly for conservation purposes, according to a study by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and other groups.

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Cornell researchers have found that a deadly fish virus detected in the northeastern United States for the first time in June in two species has probably spread to at least two more.

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A Canadian study of high-use drugs released from eight sewage treatment plants indicates that effects on invertebrates, bacteria, and plants in the aquatic receiving environment are unlikely. The study is published in the latest issue of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

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A mammal that embarks on the longest remaining overland migration in the continental United States could vanish from the ecosystem that includes Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, according to a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and National Park Service.

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The Wildlife Conservation Society has launched an ambitious new program that calls for a 50 percent increase in tiger numbers in key areas over the next decade, according to an article in this week's journal Nature.

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A new study by McGill University professor of psychology Dr. Jeffrey Mogil shows that the capacity for empathy, previously suspected but unproven even among higher primates, is also evident in lower mammals.

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A new scientific report by the Wildlife Conservation Society, a 110-year-old science-based conservation organization, says that Northwest Territories' Nahanni National Park Reserve "“ one of Canada's most beloved and storied national parks "“ is too small to maintain its nearly pristine population of grizzly bears, caribou and Dall's sheep.

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A recent wildlife census conducted in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) revealed that several species of large mammal are now recovering from a decade of civil war and rampant poaching, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN).

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Cornell researchers have discovered for the first time in New York state a serious fish virus that causes fatal anemia and hemorrhaging in a wide variety of fish species.

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The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) today "“ with key support from leading energy producers in the Rockies "“ released first-year results from a study on how natural gas development in the Rockies might be influencing wildlife, particularly pronghorn antelope.

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The first images of a live specimen of a small, furry animal once believed to have gone extinct more than 11 million years ago have been captured during a Southeast Asian expedition led by a retired Florida State University researcher of Tallahassee, Fla.

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USC biology professor Dr. Joe Quattro, collaborating with Dr. Jim Grady at the University of New Orleans and Dr. Trey Driggers with the National Marine Fisheries Service, has discovered a genetically distinct species of the hammerhead shark.

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A University of Adelaide PhD physiology researcher has discovered a world first: a diving insect that can regulate its buoyancy in water, just like a scuba diver.

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Like a celebrity living on mineral water, the glassy-winged sharpshooter consumes only the sap of woody plants"”including grapevines in California, where it threatens prized vineyards. Now researchers at The Institute for Genomic Research and colleagues report that the sharpshooter's deprivation diet is sneakily supplemented by two co-dependent bacteria living inside it.

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Some electric fish in Africa have different communication patterns and won't mate with each other, although their DNA is the same, find Cornell scientists. They think the fish are living examples of a species of fish diverging into separate species.

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Scientists investigating the genetic makeup of rhesus macaque monkeys, a key species used in biomedical research, have found the rhesus in Nepal may provide a suitable alternative to alleviate a critical shortage of laboratory animals used in work to develop vaccines against diseases such as HIV/AIDS.

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Recent comparisons between the sea slug Elysia crispata, collected from the Florida Keys, with sea slugs collected from St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, reveal differences significant enough for biologists to name a new species of sea slug.

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Sweet song, but short lived. Dating and mating are unique for many species, but for dark-eyed junco songbirds, researchers led by North Dakota State University assistant biology professor Wendy Reed found something new.

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Researchers from the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine have revealed the genetic basis behind one of the best-documented examples of evolutionary change in the fossil record: how whales lost their hind limbs.