Oct

10

Researcher said too much sand leads to dead corals

Filed Under Animals | Posted By Jennifer Sullivan | Leave a Comment

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As per new research show that when fishes get a mouthful of sand, the days of coral reefs are numbered.

Prof. David Bellwood said, “We’ve known for a while that having a lot of sediment in the water is bad for corals and can smother them,”

The killer blow for a degraded coral reef is a thick mat of sand and weeds that shrouds the rocky surfaces on which the corals would normally grow, preventing them from re-establishing. This gritty algal ‘turf’ has shown itself to be remarkably hardy and, once in place, makes it almost impossible for the corals to return.

Bellwood said. “We know this from geological history, at the time of previous sea level rises. The reason we are doing the work is to see whether or not coral reefs will be able to keep up with rising sea levels under climate change.”

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Oct

8

Diego Rubolini said: Climate change may push birds to extinction

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According to latest study showed that directly links population declines in birds to climate change, has determined that birds that haven’t adjusted to the realities of a warming world are worse off than their more flexible counterparts, and could become extinct within a number of years.

In a Scientist report, the findings, by Diego Rubolini of the University of Milan, Italy, and colleagues, are based on more than four decades of migration observations and population estimates of 98 European migratory bird species.

Rubolini said, “Those species that are unable to keep pace with climate change could go extinct within a number of years,”

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Aug

23

Experts: Study on sparrows urgently required

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Voicing alarm over the lessening population of sparrows, experts have recommended that a poll of the bird to stop its chirping from being vanished forever. “We have sent a project to the Ministry of Environment and Forest to estimate a poll of sparrows for its sanction,” Bombay National History Society (BNHS) Envis Centre scientist-in-charge Girish Jethar said.

“There has barely been any study done on sparrows. A study is important to assure the current situation of the bird’s population,” claimed the ornithologist.

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Aug

7

Great White Shark bites hardest

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According to a new study, the white shark has the most deadly and frightening bite of any existing species. Researchers assessed that the bite force of its extinct cousin between 10.8 to 18.2 tones, the gigantic fossil species Carcharodon megalodon (Big Tooth) is the biggest of all time, creating it the most dangerous carnivore yet on earth.

The deadly shark may grow up to 16 meters in length and weighed up to 100 tones.

Fossil proof said that Big Tooth was a powerful killer of large whales and stopped its big prey by biting off their tail and flippers. A comparison of Tyrannosaurus rex with Big Tooth reveals that the great lizard has no similarity with the giant shark.

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Aug

4

Blari Hedges discovered world’s Smallest Snake

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An evolutionary biologist, who has a knack for spotting tiny creatures, has discovered the world’s smallest snake.

Blair Hedges of the Pennsylvania State University in the United States discovered Leptotyphlops carlae on the island of Barbados.

Hedges said, “I turned a small rock and found it hiding underneath,”

Sources said that Barely the girth of a strand of spaghetti, it is the world’s smallest snake. The snake belongs to a family of thread snakes which look like earthworms and have lower jaws that operate like rakes to drag ant and termite larvae into their mouths.

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Jul

18

Birds have a good sense of Smell

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By analyzing birds DNA, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, have recently given genetic proof that the various bird species have an amazing sense of smell besides their wonderful vision and hearing capabilities.

The good smelling may be essential to birds as it is to fish or even mammals which are the prime conclusion of a study by Silke Steiger (Max Planck Institute for Ornithology) and her colleagues. The studies have disclosed that some bird species use their sense of smell to search for their food and distinguish the human beings.

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Jul

11

Acidifying oceans pose danger to coral reefs

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Like a tooth put into a glass of Coca-Cola, coral reefs, lobsters and other marine creatures that develop calcified shells around themselves could soon mix as climate change moves the oceans enhancing acidic.

The carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere by factories, cars and power plants is not just increasing temperatures. It is also causing what scientists have called “ocean acidification” as approximately 25 percent of the excess CO2 is dissolved by the seas.

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Jun

25

Shark antibodies could soon ’save lives’

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Australian Scientists have created first library of shark antibodies that have been modified to target diseases, like malaria, and could lead to new treatments.

They said, we are taking genes from sharks and modifying them in a laboratory just by adding proteins that cause random mutations — essentially mimicking the way the human immune system works — to develop antibodies capable of a repertoire of defensive responses.

La Trobe University team developed the technology in Melbourne, also offers prospects for new and better therapies against human diseases like malaria, cancers and rheumatoid arthritis.

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Jun

18

Chimps can feel Love and Sympathy

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We know that love and sympathy can help in difficult situation for maximum people, as well as chimpanzees understand these feelings of love and kisses. At Liverpool John Moores University in England, researchers who were studying people closest genetic relatives found loss in stress in chimps that were suffered of aggression.

Orlaith Fraser of the Research Center in Evolutionary Anthropology and Paleoecology said that consolation normally found in the form of a kiss or sympathy, and this behavior is hardly seen other than after a contradiction .If anyone kisses to anyone, he would press his or her open mouth against the other` s body, at the top of the head and hold someone tightly with both arms to express love.

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May

29

Oldest vertebrate fish mother discovered

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Australian scientists unveiled on Thursday the fossilized remains of the oldest vertebrate mother ever discovered, 375 million years old placoderm fish with embryo and umbilical cord attached.

Scientists found in Gogo area of morthwest Australia. It means ancient species had advanced reproductive biology said John Long, head of sciences at the Museum of Victoria in Melbourne.

Actually, it is not the first time when fossil embryo has been found with an umbilical cord. The placoderms, often referred to as “the dinosaurs of the seas”, were the rulers of the world`s lakes and seas for almost 70 million years. Maximum species of the armored fish were small but some of them reached over 20 feet in length.

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