A novel insect-inspired flying robot, developed by TU Delft researchers from the Micro Air Vehicle Laboratory (MAVLab), is presented in Science (14 September 2018). Experiments with this first autonomous, free-flying and agile flapping-wing robot — carried out in collaboration with Wageningen University & Research — improved our understanding of how ...
Read More »Blazes of light reveal how plants signal danger long distances
In one video, you can see a hungry caterpillar, first working around a leaf’s edges, approaching the base of the leaf and, with one last bite, severing it from the rest of the plant. Within seconds, a blaze of fluorescent light washes over the other leaves, a signal that they ...
Read More »Geologists reveal ancient connection between England and France
The British mainland was formed from the collision of not two, but three ancient continental land masses, according to new research. Scientists have for centuries believed that England, Wales and Scotland were created by the merger of Avalonia and Laurentia more than 400 million years ago. However, geologists based at ...
Read More »Famous theory of the living Earth upgraded to ‘Gaia 2.0’
A time-honoured theory into why conditions on Earth have remained stable enough for life to evolve over billions of years has been given a new, innovative twist. For around half a century, the ‘Gaia’ hypothesis has provided a unique way of understanding how life has persisted on Earth. It champions ...
Read More »Ancient bird bones redate human activity in Madagascar by 6,000 years
Analysis of bones, from what was once the world’s largest bird, has revealed that humans arrived on the tropical island of Madagascar more than 6,000 years earlier than previously thought — according to a study published today, 12 September 2018, in the journal Science Advances. A team of scientists led ...
Read More »Crispr’s Epic Patent Fight Changed the Course of Biology
After three bitter years and tens of millions of dollars in legal fees, the epic battle over who owns one of the most common methods for editing the DNA in any living thing is finally drawing to a close. On Monday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ...
Read More »Three new species of fish discovered in the extreme depths of the Pacific Ocean
An exploration to one of the deepest places on earth has captured rare footage of what is believed to be three new species of the elusive Snailfish. Involving a team of 40 scientists from 17 different nations, including Dr Alan Jamieson and Dr Thomas Linley from Newcastle University, UK, the ...
Read More »Global warming pushing alpine species higher and higher
For every one-degree-Celsius increase in temperature, mountaintop species shift upslope 100 metres, shrinking their inhabited area and resulting in dramatic population declines, new research by University of British Columbia zoologists has found. The study — the first broad review of its kind — analyzed shifts in elevation range in 975 ...
Read More »Pluto should be reclassified as a planet, experts say
The reason Pluto lost its planet status is not valid, according to new research from the University of Central Florida in Orlando. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union, a global group of astronomy experts, established a definition of a planet that required it to “clear” its orbit, or in other ...
Read More »A study of ants provides information on the evolution of social insects
One of the great puzzles of evolutional biology is what induced certain living creatures to abandon solitary existence in favor of living in collaborative societies, as seen in the case of ants and other social, colony-forming insects. A major characteristic of so-called eusocial species is the division of labor between ...
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