The Flashing of the Clam Ctenoides ales: Underwater Light Show

Depth of ocean stores many beautiful creatures that are still alien to us. Researchers are baffled to see that even in the deepest and the darkest part of the oceans have different forms of life flourishing. They study the deepest parts of the water to find creatures and to understand how they flourish in such depths of oceans. One such marine organism that caught the attention of underwater divers is ‘disco clam’ (Ctenoides ales, a species of saltwater clam). Native to Indo-Pacific coral reefs, they are named so because they…

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Geologic processes in Earth’s Interior responsible for creating Oceans: Geoscientific Mystery

Emergence of water is the best part in the origin of life on the planet Earth. Without water, Earth might not have looked like what it is today, but the question how water first appeared on our Blue Planet is still a mystery. The most popular theory suggests that the collision of enormous icy comets with dry and inhospitable Earth, resulted in deposition of water on the surface. 

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Femme Fatale Mantis deceives Males for Snacking: Risking Lives for Sex

Sexual cannibalism in mantis is a very well known phenomenon. Female mantises bite off the male’s head after or during sex, therefore, is also known as fatale femme. However, the reason behind such sexual cannibalism remains debatable. Female mantises use pheromones to attract males for mating, however, females most of the time ends up eating male mantis, even before the poor male gets a chance to mate. Researchers until now believed that well fed females attracts more males and in turn laid more eggs. Nevertheless, a new study rebuts this…

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Volcanic Eruptions or Asteroid Collision: What really killed the dinosaurs?

Reason related to what led to the extinction of dinosaurs remains debatable. Until now, the most acceptable theory states that around sixty six million years ago, an asteroid as wide as 5 miles and moving at a speed of 70,000 miles per hour bumped into the Earth. The dust from this massive collision blocked the sun and in turn causing catastrophic chains of events that led the extinction of dinosaurs along with three-quarters of other species of the planet. 

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Peruvian Mummy curled up for 1,000 years: Human Remains on Display

In an excavation work near Lima, capital and the largest city Peru, a mummy dating back to the eleventh century has been discovered. As per the experts, the skeleton is that of a 50-year-old woman, sitting in a foetal position. It is expected that during some ceremonial ritual of the Pachacamac civilization, the resting position was such that with the passage of time (years), the skeleton retained the foetal position. Burial site was happened to be at a significant distance from the abandoned civilization’s temple.

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Cat-Sized Dinosaur Fossil Discovered in Montana: Aquilops americanus

Dr Andrew Farke a paleontologist and his team from Raymond have surfaced a new species of dinosaurs that were herbivorous and beaked belonging to the family of Ceratopsia or Ceratopia. These genus dinosaurs occupied North America, Europe, and Asia, during the Cretaceous Period, nearly 108 million years ago. American eagle face Due to its looks, it’s also called the Aquilops americanus that stands for American eagle face. Unlike Triceratops, also the herbivorous ceratopsid dinosaurs that were expected around late Cretaceous period, its famous relatives, it did not have horns neither…

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Animals Self-Medicate to Detoxify Stomach and even Induce Birth: Zoopharmacognosy

It’s been quite some time now that I have had noticed our pets, a cat and two dogs trying to eat grass (at times) and I have always thought that it might be their natural process of cleaning out stomach, now I feel like sharing it here that I was correct. Animals across Brazil, Kenya, US and the UK have been observed doing self-medicating, also called the zoopharmacognosy.

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Electric Eel can remotely Control its Prey: Hijacking Neural Pathways

Recent research has surfaced eels’ ability of using shock waves to incapacitate as well as manipulate prey. The predators either discharge a single zap or produce high torrents of voltage causing fish to experience massive involuntary muscle spasms. In some cases, the shocking tactics is used by the eels to generate minor muscle twitches in prey only to get acquaint with their location, the working is similar to that of a sonar. Muscle powered biological batteries is what keeps these eels an edge of discharging nearly 600 volts. This is…

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Affordable Artificial Leaf to produce Clean Hydrogen Fuel: Nanowire Mesh for Direct Solar Water Splitting

Today nations across the world are trying to cut down their greenhouse gas emissions. Alternative energy sources are being tried and tested to replace non-renewable fuel sources and in this race, hydrogen fuel also known as zero emission fuel, definitely seems to have a promising future. Many automobile companies are doing R & D to come up with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the auto market. Unfortunately, availability of naturally occurring pure hydrogen on Earth is very limited and therefore, production of hydrogen gas requires tremendous energy. To overcome this…

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Electricity producing Trees: Plastic Leaves to Create Power

Very soon, we might witness our streets and garden lined up with electricity producing trees. Unbelievable but true. Couple of French engineers have designed an artificial tree that uses wind energy to produce electricity. The electricity producing, Wind Tree will be available in the market by 2015. Founder of start-up Parisian, Jerome Michaud-Lariviere says that he came up with the idea of wind tree when he saw leaves quivering in the absence of air currents, which means energy is coming from somewhere and it possible can be morphed into watts. 

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Toxin Genes jumped from Bacteria into Animals: Defense Mechanism via Gene Transfer

Bacteria are the first organisms known to exist in the history of life on the planet Earth. Taken the time period into consideration, these micro-organisms have had surplus at their disposal hence, we can say that they have the ‘edge’ of thriving even on the bare minimum life supporting elements. This unique ability of bacteria has made one of the major reasons for researchers to study more about them. Harsh environment signifies very less or no availability of nutrients, consequent upon which the microorganisms require fighting for their survival. So what…

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Recycling Wood, Crop Waste into Valuable Chemicals: Renewable Biomass Material

Everyone realizes the importance of recycling potential wastes into useful products. This recycling process helps in reducing the requirement for raw materials, minimizing energy usage, curb water and air pollution, thus reducing greenhouse gas emission. Experts around the world are trying ceaselessly to look for new and innovative techniques to recycle wastes. In one such attempt, researchers have found an innovative method to recycle lignin, which is a biomass waste, into certain chemicals that can be put to use in other applications. Recycling Lignin Lignin is the complex material responsible…

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LEDs Attract more Flying Invertebrates: Light Pollution

Invention of blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) by three scientists won them the Nobel Prize for physics. This innovative LED technology comes with many advantages such as they are energy efficient, bright enough to be used for regular lighting and last longer. But the increasing use of LEDs has certain drawbacks too, as found in a new study led by a pair of experts from Scion, a New Zealand research Institute. According to them LEDs serve light pollution and can cause ecological problems because flying invertebrates are more drawn to LED…

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Fruit Fly can sniff out Drugs and Bombs: Electronic Noses Technology

When it comes to detecting bomb or drugs, generally dog is the first animal that comes in our mind. But would you believe when I say that very soon fruit-fly might be taking over the job of detecting bombs and illicit drugs? Surprised! According to a research conducted by the University of Sussex, fruit fly’s sense of odor can be employed in an innovative technology to expose bombs and drugs. 

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Coordination and Collaboration discovered in Hunting Crocodilians: A Club of Hunters

We have already read Vladimir Dinets’ research work about certain species of crocodiles and alligators that very intelligently made use of twigs to lure its prey, to climbing tree’s crown to keep an eye on its potential prey or an approaching enemy. Apart from these, advanced parental care, complex communication are other behavior noticed in reptiles. 

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