Oldest Viruses Infected Insects 300 Million Years Ago

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  572 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Viruses were already infecting organisms some 300 million years ago, suggests a new study on what may be the oldest date yet for the emergence of an insect-infecting virus. "This is the oldest date ever proposed for a virus," said study researcher Elisabeth Herniou, of the University of Tours in France. "Knowing about ancient viruses can help us distinguish evolutionary processes resulting from historical interaction as opposed to adaptive processes happening in the present day," [Read More]

Pearls Cultured from Conchs

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  579 words  |  Fernande Dalal

The queen conch, a marine snail, lures shell collectors with its unique, spire-shaped shell, but the mollusk also produces lustrous, deep-pink pearls. For years, people have attempted, with little success, to farm such pearls. Now, scientists say they have developed the first reliable technique for culturing conch pearls. The scientists say the cultured pearls wouldn't reach the market for at least 18 months to two years. In nature, pearls form when a sand grain or other irritant gets into the shell of a mollusk, and the sea creature covers the bit with layers of fibrous crystal. [Read More]

Photos: Ancient Human Remains from Beneath the North Sea

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  2 minutes  |  393 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Trawling FindNew research from the Netherlands has revealed 13,000-year-old human remains and hand-made bone artifacts dredged up by Dutch fishing boats trawling in the North Sea. Radiocarbon dating has determined that the objects date from the end of the last Ice Age, when much of the North Sea was dry land. [Read more about the North Sea findings] Ancient LandscapeFrom the end of the last Ice Age about 13,000 years ago, until about 7,000 years ago, the region between the Netherlands and the UK now covered by the North Sea was up to 260 feet (80m) above sea level. [Read More]

Plants Use Quantum Physics to Survive

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  836 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

Humans can't teleport or reside in multiple places at once — but the tiniest particles of matter can. These eerie quantum effects have traditionally been studied and observed only under the strictly controlled conditions of a physics lab. That is, until some scientists suggested that such weirdness also exists in wet and soggy biological systems. In recent years, this hypothesis has gained more and more support, with a new study detailed in the journal Science suggesting plants may rely on such physics to survive. [Read More]

Shallow Animals OK With Deep-Sea Pressures

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  525 words  |  Trudie Dory

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Tiny sea animals can survive more than 3,000 feet (1,000 meters) from their home — 3,000 feet down that is. Researchers placed tiny shallow-water shrimp in artificial pressure containers, pressurized to 100 times that felt on the surface of the Earth, for a month and watched as they performed their normal feeding and molting routines. "Shallow-water shrimp are capable of sustaining hydrostatic pressures in reach of vents in the deep sea," [Read More]

Should 12-year-olds get the COVID-19 vaccine?

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  7 minutes  |  1354 words  |  Mittie Cheatwood

Kids as young as 12 can now receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, yet some parents are hesitant to get their children vaccinated. Parents might worry about giving a 12-year-old a vaccine that has not yet been approved for even younger kids. So we asked doctors who specialize in infectious diseases in children a question many parents have been wondering about: Should 12-year-olds get the COVID-19 vaccine?  The answer from experts is a resounding yes. [Read More]

Super-Predators: Humans Force Rapid Evolution of Animals

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  745 words  |  Patria Henriques

Acting as super-predators, humans are forcing changes to body size and reproductive abilities in some species 300 percent faster than would occur naturally, a new study finds. Hunting and fishing by individual sportsmen as well as large-scale commercial fishing are also outpacing other human influences, such as pollution, in effects on the animal kingdom. The changes are dramatic and may put the survival of some species in question. In a review of 34 studies that tracked 29 species across 40 different geographic systems, harvested and hunted populations are on average 20 percent smaller in body size than previous generations, and the age at which they first reproduce is on average 25 percent earlier. [Read More]

Surfin' Birds Just Wanna Have Fun (Video)

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  2 minutes  |  399 words  |  Patria Henriques

A group of "surfing" black swans were caught catching some waves at a beach on Australia's Gold Coast, in a video posted on YouTube. The swans appear to be having a good time riding the waves, and they're not alone — plenty of animals do things just to have fun, experts say. "There're good biological reasons to think that animals have fun," said Marc Bekoff, a professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. [Read More]

The 7 Weirdest Moms in the Animal Kingdom

 Posted on November 19, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  796 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

Weird momsMoms — we've all got them, and we all need them. But some animals have a slightly different idea of what it means to be a good mother. From moms who turn their bodies into food to others who encourage their young to become cannibals, here are the weirdest mothering techniques in nature. ChickensChicken moms take their duties very seriously. Creating an endless amount of calcium carbonate for eggshells is a difficult task, so if chickens don't get enough calcium in their diets, they'll actually dissolve their own bones to make baby-housing shells. [Read More]

17 Developing Countries That Love Social Media More than the US

 Posted on November 18, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  511 words  |  Arica Deslauriers

The U.S. may be the birthplace of Facebook, but Americans are far from the most social-network obsessed people on the planet. Egypt, Russia, the Philippines and 14 other developing countries outpace the U.S. in the proportion of internet users who log on to social sites. The data comes from a new Pew Research Center report that examines technology adoption in developing nations. The report finds that a majority of Internet users in the 24 countries surveyed use social media, but smartphone users are still a minority. [Read More]