Researchers gave stray dogs a choice of three bowls of different colours Anamitra Roy et al. 2025 Street dogs in India appear to love yellow. In an experiment, the free-ranging canines approached an empty yellow bowl around three times more than a nearby blue or grey bowl, even when those other bowls held food. The…
African elephants have extra copies of genes that help resist cancer Neil Aldridge/Nature Picture Library/Alamy Bigger animals live longer and have more cells that could go awry, so we would expect them to have a greater risk of developing cancer. A comprehensive analysis of 263 species suggests this is indeed the case, but also finds…
Black squirrels have advantages and disadvantages, depending on where they are Doug Wechsler / naturepl.com Road accidents seem to be behind the natural selection of black squirrels in US cities, as they may be easier than grey ones for motorists to spot and swerve to avoid. Grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis), known as eastern gray squirrels…
The frozen remains of animals like mammoths, wolves and cave lions offer the most detailed picture yet of the last glacial period Source link
Dinosaurs have been stars in Hollywood since the earliest days of cinema, captivating audiences throughout. But just how accurate are these portrayals, especially given what we now understand about dinosaur physiology and behaviour? Palaeontologist Dave Hone at Queen Mary University of London is a big fan of dinosaur films, particularly those created using stop-motion animation…
Damselflies can’t smile – but their wide-open mandibles make them appear to be grinning broadly or even sticking out their tongue, says Benjamin Salb, who photographed one of the insects, pictured above, at a pond in his local park in Gaithersburg, Maryland, last year. It is among Salb’s winning and commended entries in the Royal…
An artist’s impression of an environment where prehistoric plants thrived Christian Jegou/Science Photo Library When the Earth Was GreenRiley Black (St Martin’s Press (US, available now; UK, later this month)) The behaviour of plants is invisible to the naked human eye. They operate on timescales our imaginations can’t entertain, and they run roughshod over familiar categories…
Jeff Goldblum has made many contributions to this world, but perhaps the best is his delivery of an iconic line in the 1993 film Jurassic Park. During a scene in which his character, Ian Malcolm, berates the dinosaur park’s creator, John Hammond, Goldblum utters the words that have become a long-enduring meme: “Your scientists were…
Kevin Keane BBC Scotland’s environment correspondent BBC Landfill sites can be used for biodegradable municipal waste in Scotland until 31st December Up to 100 truckloads of Scotland’s waste each day will be moved to England once a landfill ban comes in at the end of the year, the BBC’s Disclosure has been told. The Scottish…
A chemical that scientists worry might have an impact on human reproduction has been found in rivers across the UK. Researchers from York University analysed samples from 32 rivers in all the UK’s 4 nations and found traces of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) at 98% of the test locations. TFA is what’s known as a “forever…
