The remora benefits package is very attractive. First, as long as a remora is attached to a shark, whos going to give it any trouble? Next, sharks are very sloppy eaters, often leaving plenty of delectable morsels floating around. While the shark is...
In the immortal words of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part II,My father always taught me: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Perhaps no creature has taken this advice more literally then the remora, also known as the sucker fish....
Prostate cancer typically affects men over the age of sixty-five. The cancer develops slowly and usually shows no early symptoms. When it does begin to show, symptoms can include frequent and painful urination, and sometimes blood in the urine. When...
What most people know about the prostate gland is that it tends to develop infections and cancer in men over the age of sixty-five. But unlike another organ prone to infection called the appendix, the prostate does important work. In fact, the human...
However, when birds migrate, they cant afford to spend all that energy on digestion. And so their digestive system partially shuts down and stops renewing itself, so all that energy can be diverted into fueling flight. In other words, migrating birds...
Everyone knows that its relatively easy to lose weight but nearly impossible to keep it off. I have a simple question:Why? Good question and I wish we had a simple answer. One possibility is that losing weight and keeping it off depends not only on h...
The four species of piranha that are carnivorous, however, certainly earn their reputation as fierce fish. These meat-eaters have powerful jaws and razor sharp teeth that fit together like cutting shears when they bite. Piranha travel and hunt in sch...
The movie Jaws was so frightening that many people who saw the film swore off swimming in the ocean. Consequently, when most people think of fearsome sea creatures, sharks come immediately to mind. Less well remembered is the movie Piranha , a Jaws k...
Theres one of the surprises. The Beaker Culture had its Bronze-age heyday in the Alps, not in England. Researchers did chemical analysis of the remains and found that the archer most likely came from what is now Switzerland. Next surprise? Another gr...
Wizards and aliens aside, actual scientists dont have much to say about Stonehenge-the ancient ring of rocks that hasnt been said. That is, until now. Just recently, a four-thousand-year old gravesite was found within three miles of Stonehenge contai...
With its long ears, twitching nose, and adorable hopping ability, the individual rabbit is fairly cute. Multiply that bunny by millions, however, and they begin to seem entirely sinister. The great Australian rabbit infestation was ecologically devas...
In 1859, an unassuming Australian landowner named Thomas Austin got the hunting bug. Eager for something to shoot, he released twenty-four wild rabbits onto his property and had a jolly time tracking them down. Unfortunately, some of the rabbits mana...
Would a thousand rads kill Conan the Bacterium? No. D. radiodurans shrugs it off. Two thousand rads? Ten thousand rads? Researches have found that D. radiodurans even survives a blistering assault of one point five million radsradiation so intense it...
Conan the Bacterium. Thats the playful name given by biologists to an organism whose official moniker is Deinococcus radiodurans. D. radiodurans is microscopic, but that doesnt mean its a pushover. It can take heat, cold, long periods of desiccation....
The sample didnt have any visible animal or plant remains in it, but researchers found loads of DNA anyway. They have already identified such animals as lemmings, bison, and going way back woolly mammoths. But if there were no carcasses, how did the...
