The researchers say that their results “challenge the notion that DNA replication is uniform and consistent”
Ecology
Is the Australian wild dog, the dingo, really a “unique species”?
They want to protect the dingo, mainly for Australian cultural reasons. Fine. Why not just admit that instead of cooking up some nonsense about “speciation”?
Gaia needs a reboot and New Scientist is here to explain
A machine built from scavenged parts from Britain’s Royal Air Force started randomly but ended in equilibrium. Can it boost the Gaia cult?
Insectologists swat insects-are-doomed paper
The temptation for some seems to be to resort to apocalypse voodoo to demonstrate a crisis, at the expense of the methods that make scientists worth listening to, as an alternative to supermarket tabloids. File this one with: The real reasons people don’t “trust science”
Move over, bee! Tortoise, feared extinct, turns up again
As with Wallace’s giant bee, also feared extinct, the researchers had gone out looking for the tortoise.
Polar bears overrun small northern Russia town
One senses that bear-proof garbage disposal will become more of a local priority there. And there’s always the Canadian solution, the polar bear jail.
Researchers: Coralline red algae existed 300 million years earlier than thought
Four hundred and thirty million years ago, according to ScienceDaily: The discovery made by FAU palaeontologists Dr. Sebastian Teichert, Prof. Dr. Axel Munnecke and their Australian colleague Dr. William Woelkerling has far-reaching consequences. ‘Our finds mean that we must now look at the fossil record in a completely new way’, explains Dr. Sebastian Teichert. Up […]
Researchers: Termites protect their ecosystem against drought
You’d almost think the system was designed to be stable over a range of climate conditions while slowly changing over time.
Are synthetic chemicals altering the fabric of our bodies?
It’s certainly worth reflecting on: It’s fair to say that PCBs and fluorocarbons have altered the biochemical composition of the food web and the interior of the human body, and in the case of the PFASs, the water we drink. (Some PFASs can even fall with rain.) These have been swift, sweeping changes over the […]
Can beavers contribute to evolution by transforming the tundra?
Anyone familiar with beavers will know that the big busy rodents can transform roads into ponds. They are making a comeback in Alaska: Beavers may be infiltrating the region for the first time in recent history as climate change makes conditions more hospitable, says Ken Tape, an ecologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Or […]
Researcher: Human impact is a “reshaping of the tree of life”
Sarah Otto, a University of British Columbia researcher, tells media about her research, Her paper is replete with examples from bird species slowly forgetting to migrate to mosquito breeds adapted specifically to underground subway tunnels. Backyard bird feeders are behind changes in the beak shape and strength of house finches. Different mammals are becoming nocturnal as […]
News: Anthropologist does not see chimpanzees as fuzzy humans
It’s great to see concern for primate apes taking a rational turn that can actually be in their interests: In recent years, wildlife sanctuaries, conservation organizations, and animal rights groups have told the public to stop touching chimpanzees and other wild animals. National Geographic, PETA, and even Instagram draw explicit links between human touch and […]
Assumed extinct, tree kangaroo reappears
The wondiwoi was spotted by an expedition led by amateur botanist Michael White, who spends vacations looking for rare flora: The Wondiwoi tree kangaroo had not been collected, seen, or reported since that first sighting [in 1928]. Despite weighing up to 35 pounds, tree kangaroos are remarkably cryptic, often remaining totally hidden high in the […]
New Scientist: Monkeys “look like” they are domesticating wolves
Then that is the monkeys’ mistake, not the wolves’: In the alpine grasslands of eastern Africa, Ethiopian wolves and gelada monkeys are giving peace a chance. The geladas – a type of baboon – tolerate wolves wandering right through the middle of their herds, while the wolves ignore potential meals of baby geladas in favour […]
Researchers: As soon as macroscopic life evolved, it formed communities
In short, there was no long, slow, Darwinian development of complex communities. We need a word for this: How about… ecological creationism?