In 2012 scientists found yet another type of BAT called beige fat which is a subset of brown fat
but that demands a high-burning capacity that BAT probably doesn't have. Capsinoids appear to induce brown fat in the same way as cold by capturing the same cellular system that the body's nervous system uses to increase heat production Yoneshiro said.
#Cold war Nuclear Radiation Creates Anti-Poaching Tool (ISNS)--Radioactive carbon atoms created during 20th-century nuclear bomb tests could help save elephants
when an animal died to within about one year. We're not the first to try this but
and animals in the food chain absorb the carbon atoms explained study coauthor Thure Cerling a geochemist at the University of Utah.
And then an animal comes along and eats the plant and makes it into hair
In their new study Uno and his team tested the radiocarbon dating technique on the tusks of two elephants that died in 2006 and 2008 as well as elephant and hippo teeth monkey hair and oryx horn.
when an elephant died. Currently the radiocarbon test costs about $500 and takes about one month to complete.
and Uno are also using the radiocarbon dating technique to investigate the growth rate of animals. Now that we can determine growth rates in teeth we can use them as a tape recorder of sorts Uno said.
what the animal was eating by adding data from stable carbon isotopes. Potential uses Samuel Wasser a conservation biologist at the University of Washington who did not participate in the study said the new study is a very important development
and comes at a crucial time for elephants which are being slaughtered at a rate that could drive them to extinction this century.
For example if used in combination with other methods that use DNA to determine the geographical origin of an ivory sample the carbon-14 dating technique could help investigators determine how recently hotspots for elephant poaching have been active.
#Condors Drive Cougars to Kill More Cougar biologist Mark Elbroch spent more than a year in South america's Patagonia region tracking down pumas and recording
and eat riding on a horse for up to 21 hours at a time. In the course of his research Elbroch noticed something odd:
Patagonian pumas kill about 50 percent more animals than their North american counterparts and spend less time feeding on their hard-earned meals.
which was published earlier this month in the journal PLOS One the cougars abandon their kills due to harassment from Andean condors a near-threatened scavenging bird Elbroch told Ouramazingplanet.
however since the condors are physically much smaller than these mountain lions and don't directly threaten the big cats he said.
 Mountain lions under the pressure of condors act like squirrels do under the pressure of owls acting more skittish Elbroch said.
Skittish in the grasslands Elbroch said this unique behavior primarily occurs in the open grasslands where the animal's favorite prey the guanaco a large animal in the camel family are most plentiful.
When Patagonian pumas make a kill in the forest however they've been known to stay with it for up to a week gorging themselves
and only leaving after they're full (they typically get full before the meat runs out).
Condors cannot land in the forest however since they travel awkwardly on land and can't negotiate wooded areas.
To make up for the relatively brief amount of time spent with kills in the grassland the big cats must kill more prey to get the same amount of meat said Elbroch who works for Panthera a conservation group dedicated to preserving big cats.
 North american cougars (also known as pumas mountain lions panthers and catamounts) usually only leave their kills when chased away by larger animals like bears or wolves Elbroch said.
Although condors don't chase the cats away apparently their presence is irritating enough to drive away the cats.
Condors rarely land alone arriving with a coterie of sharp-beaked kin. Elbroch said the cats'skittishness may also owe something to the presence of humans primarily sheep herders in the Patagonian grasslands.
Humans have hunted extensively mountain lions in the past. But cougars have rebounded slightly in the past decade or so as demand for wool and hence sheep has declined Elbroch said.
A lot of meat Female cougars weigh about 85 pounds (39 kilograms) while males average about 150 pounds (68 kg) Elbroch said.
On average they eat about 5 to 7 pounds (2 to 4 kg) of meat per day only about a quarter of
what they catch he said. Full-grown guanacos weigh about 250 pounds (113 kg. I believe this is the first study to quantify how much meat is lost
and how much extra hunting pumas are forced to do at considerable risk to feed these'kleptoparasites'said Paul Beier a researcher at Northern Arizona University referring to the many animals that make a meal of the cougar's table scraps.
Beier wasn't involved in Elbroch's research. Up to 17 different animals depend upon cougar kills for food Elbroch said.
They are providing a lot of meat to their community they are truly a keystone species Elbroch said referring to a species that provides multiple irreplaceable services that keep an ecosystem productive.
Elbroch spent more than 1. 5 years in Patagonia conducting most of his work in the Chacabuco Valley in southern Chile near the border with Argentina.
Patagonia Expedition in Pictures His group tracked cougars using dogs often chasing the cougars for up to five hours.
Then they'd dart the cougars before attaching a collar with a GPS tracking device
Information gathered from the collars allowed Elbroch to know where the cougar had traveled and spent the night after
if he could find what the cougar had been eating. His group recorded 266 different carcasses the large majority
of which were guanacos. Reach Douglas Main at dmain@techmedianetwork. com. Follow him on Twitter@Douglas main. Follow Ouramazingplanet on Twitterâ@OAPLANET. We're also onâ Facebookâ and Google+c
#Coolest Science Stories of the Week<p></p><p>Science brought us walking sharks artistic chimps and even the first human mind-meld?</
and dorsal fins in a walklike gait said Fahmi (who only goes by one name) a shark researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Science who wasn't involved in the study describing the species. In the video of the newfound walking shark
however the animal is clearly touching the seafloor.</</p><p>Full Story & Video:<<a href=http://www. livescience. com/39331-new-walking-shark-species. html target=blank>New'Walking'Shark Species Caught on Video</a p></p
technique even among chimpanzees has won the popular vote; Brent a 37-year-old male chimpanzee paints only with his tongue.
His piece a cluster of smudges and speckles garnered the most votes in a chimpanzee art contest the Humane Society of the United states (HSUS) announced Thursday (Aug 29.</
</p><p>The judge's selection made by primatologist Jane Goodall went to Cheetah a former laboratory chimpanzee who used an autumnal palette dominated by yellow orange and red.</
</p><p>Full Story:<<a href=http://www. livescience. com/39336-tongue-painting-chimp-wins-art-contest. html target=blank>Tongue-Painting Chimp Takes 1st Place
in Art Contest</a p></p><p>Scientists have created a microscopic sphere and set it awhirl at a blistering 600 million rotations per minute.</
>If a snake eats a monkey in the forest and no one sees it does it make a difference?
</p><p>For the first time scientists have witnessed a boa constrictor attacking and eating a howler monkey. The finding and boa-eating-monkey video is noteworthy
since reports of primates being eaten by predators are relatively rare according to the study published this month in the journal Primates.</
</p><p>Full Story & Video:<<a href=http://www. livescience. com/39172-boa-constrictor-eats-howler-monkey. html target=blank>Boa constrictor Seen Eating Howler monkey in a First</a p></p><p
>One man has controlled the movements of another person by sending brain signals via the Internet.</</p><p>The demonstration is the first example of two human brains directly interacting.</
</p><p>Full Story:<<a href=http://www. livescience. com/39265-first-human-mind-meld-created. html target=blank>First Human Mind-Meld Created</a p></p><p>The concept of a time machine
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/39159-time-travel-with-wormhole. html target=blank>Wormhole Is Best Bet for Time machine Astrophysicist Says</a p></p><p>Crocodiles
and alligators are infamous carnivores but it turns out they do not live on meat alone scientists have discovered unexpectedly that these predators occasionally snack on fruit as well.</
</p><p>These surprising findings suggest crocodilians which include alligators crocodiles and their close relatives might via seeds they poop out
or regurgitate act a bit like Johnny Appleseed helping forests grow by planting seeds across their territories.</
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/39198-crocodiles-alligators-eat-fruit. html target=blank>Crikey!
Crocodiles and Alligators Snack on Fruit</a p></p><p>Ancient trash heaps in Bolivia used for millennia now suggest humans explored the western Amazon as early as 10000 years ago researchers say.</
A fly-sized robot? A killer cave in Spain? These stories and more made our top picks for the week.</
and severed leg bone of a 14-year-old girl they have dubbed Jane. The bones were scattered amongst butchered dog and animal bones.
Antimatter Might Just Fall Up</a p><p></p><p>Flies have tiny wings and even tinier brains yet they are capable of flying swiftly and agilely through even turbulent air.
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/29292-robotic-insects-controlled-flight. html target=blank>Fly-sized Robot Takes First Flight</a p><p
></p><p>A cavern in Spain may have lured ancient carnivores to their deaths by offering the promise of food
</p><p>The new study published today (May 1) in the journal PLOS ONE may explain how the carcasses of several carnivore species including saber-toothed cats and bear dogs wound up in an underground cavern
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/29241-killer-cave-lured-carnivores. html target=blank>Killer Cave Lured Ancient Carnivores to Their Death</a p><p></p><p
</a p><p></p><p>Not all of New york city's predators are found on Wall street.</</p><p>Officials with New york's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) are planning to survey a lake in Central park for signs of the dreaded northern snakehead fish aka Frankenfish NBCNEWS. com reports.</
</p><p></p><p>Scientists have discovered neurons in mice that fire in response to gentle stroking touch.</
</p><p>The neurons described in the Jan 31 issue of the journal Nature may explain why animals from rats to cats to humans enjoy grooming each other
or Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event often known as K-T. The only survivors among the dinosaurs are the birds.</
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/26914-why-we-are-all-above-average. html target=blank>Why We're All Above Average</a p><p></p><p>Beware of robots driven by small insects.
A group of researchers has put a silkmoth in the driver's seat of a small two-wheeled robot to study how the insect tracks down smells.</
</p><p>Understanding the scent-tracking behavior of a silkmoth(<i>Bombyx mori </i>)could help scientists develop robots that are able to sense environmental spills and leaks by smell according to the new study.</
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/26892-moth-drives-robot. html target=blank>Insect Drives Tiny Robot Toward Seductive Smells</a p><p
></p><p>The oldest known wild bird in the United states has hatched a chick for the sixth year in a row.</
</p><p>The Laysan albatross named Wisdom thought to be at least 62 years old hatched a healthy-looking chick on Sunday (Feb 3) according to a statement from the U s. Department of the interior.
which is famous for its Laysan albatross population.</</p><p>Full Story:<<a href=http://www. livescience. com/26868-oldest-bird-hatches-chick. html target=blank>Oldest Known Wild Bird Hatches Healthy Chick
</a p i
#Coolest Science Stories of the Week<p></p><p>Answers to old questions a clue to ancient Viking lore and the upside of being a psychopath all made our top stories this week.</
</a p><p></p><p>Honeybees like tired office employees like their caffeine suggests a new study finding that bees are more likely to remember plants containing the java ingredient.</
The findings detailed today (March 7) in the journal Science show how plants can manipulate animals'memories to improve their odds of pollination.</
></p><p>Big dogs apparently die younger mainly because they age quickly researchers say.</</p><p>These new findings could help unravel the biological links between growth and mortality the scientists added.</
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/27676-why-small-pups-outlive-large-dogs. html target=blank>Why Small Pups Outlive Large Dog Breeds</a p><p
insects you've ever heard of it's the size of a quarter and its painful bite has been compared to being knifed is set to invade Florida this summer.</
</p><p>The Sunshine state already home to man-eating sinkholes invading Burmese pythons swarming sharks tropical storms
and other disasters can expect to see an explosion of shaggy-haired gallinippers(<i>Psorophora ciliata</i>)a type of giant mosquito according to entomologist Phil Kaufman of the University of Florida.</
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/27772-gallinipper-giant-mosquito. html target=blank>Gallinippers! Monster Mosquitoes Poised to Strike Florida</a p
#Coolest Science Stories of the Week<p></p><p>Mini black holes images of early birds and talking plants topped our favorite stories this week.</
</p><p>Check these out.</</p><p></p><p>It's official: Primitive life could have lived on ancient Mars NASA says.</
><p>More than 100 million years ago birds living in what is sported now China wings on their legs a new study of fossils suggests.</
</p><p>Researchers found evidence of large leg feathers in 11 bird specimens from China's Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature.
The feathers suggest that early birds had four wings which may have played a role in the evolution of flight scientists report in a study published today (March 14) in the journal Science.</
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/27898-early-birds-sported-4-wings. html target=blank>Early Birds Sported 4 Wings</a p><p></p
</p><p>Though often too low or too high for human ears to detect insects
and animals signal each other with vibrations. Even trees and plants fizz with the sound of tiny air bubbles bursting in their plumbing.</
Anderson is developing tiny foam drone airplanes that fly using a $170 autopilot essentially a brain for the plane that works in any kind of automated vehicle.
Since the 1950s when researchers cloned a frog scientists have cloned dozens of animal species including mice cats sheep pigs and cows.
and has cloned animals. With mice researchers were able to use thousands of eggs and conduct many experiments to work out these problems Lanza said.
It s a numbers game he said. But with primates eggs are a very precious resource
and it is not easy to acquire them to conduct experiments Lanza said. In addition researchers can't simply apply what they've learned from cloning mice
or cows to cloning people. For instance cloning an animal requires that researchers first remove the nucleus of an egg cell.
When researchers do this they also remove proteins that are essential to help cells divide Lanza said.
In mice this isn't a problem because the embryo that is ultimately created is able to make these proteins again.
But primates aren't able to do this and researchers think it may be one reason that attempts to clone monkeys have failed Lanza said.
See How Stem Cell Cloning Works (Infographic) What's more cloned animals often have different kinds of genetic abnormalities that can prevent embryo implantation in a uterus
or cause the fetus to spontaneously abort or the animal to die shortly after birth Lanza said.
These abnormities are cloned common because embryos have just one parent rather than two which means that a molecular process known as imprinting does not occur properly in cloned embryos Lanza said.
But one scientist believes the animals could actually be used to heal some of the world's most degraded landscapes.
And in Africa where he was working to set up national parks in the 1950s Savory thought elephants were also to blame for the land's deterioration.
Savory said his research led to the shooting of 40000 elephants but the damage only got worse.
Loving elephants as I do that was the saddest and greatest blunder of life and
and moving as a proxy for former herds and predators and mimic nature. He argues that Earth's soil
and vegetation developed alongside very large numbers of grazing animals which traveled in packs were constantly moving sometimes quite frantically
when being chased by predators and left a natural layer of fertilizer in the form of droppings.
Proteus is this really aggressive swarmer commented Tufenkji which makes it particularly virulent in the urinary tract especially in catheterized patients who already have a high risk of infection.
When the Proteus bacteria were exposed to high concentrations of cranberry powder the researchers saw two interesting effects.
and Proteus were higher than what would typically be found in a human body even if a person were intentionally drinking several glasses of cranberry juice daily to prevent
Facts About Animals, Plants & Climate The Cretaceous period was the last and longest segment of the Mesozoic era.
It used to be thought that the pollinating insects such as bees and wasps evolved at about the same time as the angiosperms.
It was cited frequently as an example of co-evolution. New research however indicates that insect pollination was established probably well before the first flowers.
While the oldest bee fossil was trapped in its amber prison only about 80 million years ago evidence has been found that bee
-or wasp-like insects built hive-like nests in what is called now the Petrified Forest.
These nests found by Stephen T. Hasiotis and his team from the University of Colorado are at least 207 million years old.
It is thought now that competition for insect attention probably facilitated the relatively rapid success and diversification of the flowering plants.
As diverse flower forms lured insects to pollinate them insects adapted to differing ways of gathering nectar
Cretaceous period animals During the Cretaceous period birds replaced the Pterosaurs in the air. The origin of flight is debated by many experts.
In the oetrees down theory it is thought that small reptiles may have evolved flight from gliding behaviors.
Feathers probably evolved from early body coverings whose primary function at least at first was thermoregulation. At any rate it is clear that Avians were highly successful
Confuciusornis (125 to 140 million years) was sized a crow bird with a modern beak but enormous claws at the tips of the wings.
Iberomesornis a contemporary only the size of a sparrow was capable of flight and was probably an insectivore.
Image Gallery: Avian Ancestors: Dinosaurs That Learned To fly By the end of the Jurassic the giant Sauropods such as Apatosaurus were becoming extinct.
Evidence suggests that by the early Cretaceous they were being replaced by large herds of herbivorous Ornithischians such as Stegosaurus Iguanodon and the Ceratopsians.
Theropods including Tyrannosaurus rex continued as apex predators until the end of the Cretaceous. K-Pg extinction event About 65 million years ago nearly all large vertebrates and many tropical invertebrates became extinct in
what was clearly a geological climatic and biological event with worldwide consequences. Geologists call it the K-Pg extinction event
because it marks the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods. The event was formally known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) event but the International Commission on Stratigraphy
As a result of suddenly lowered temperatures there may have been a global disruption in the numbers of both land plants and plankton in the oceans evidence
This hypothesis accounts for the extinction of the largest animals of the time the dinosaurs and giant marine reptiles.
It also explains how smaller animals such as the mammals and other animalsâ with more modest energy requirements managed to survive
Crocodiles and Alligators Snack on Fruit Crocodiles and alligators are infamous carnivores but it turns out they do not live on meat alone scientists have discovered unexpectedly that these predators occasionally snack on fruit as well.
These surprising findings suggest crocodilians which include alligators crocodiles and their close relatives might via seeds they poop out
or regurgitate act a bit like Johnny Appleseed helping forests grow by planting seeds across their territories.
Scientists investigated 18 species of crocodilian ranging from the American alligator to the fearsome Nile crocodile and found evidence that 13 of those speciesâ devoured fruit of some kind including a variety of berries legumes nuts and grains.
Crocodilians consume fruits and such behavior seems very common contrary to what people have thought for many years said researcher Steven Platt a herpetologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Alligators vs. Crocodiles: Photos Reveal Who's Who Although at times the reptiles ate the fruit accidentally for instance
if the fruit was in the guts of prey they captured the researchers found evidence that the fruit was consumed also deliberately and in large quantities.
For instance scientists have seen crocodilians eating wild grapes elderberries and citrus fruit directly from trees. I had found seeds in crocodiles before but
I had assumed just they were not important and when I talked with other crocodilian biologists everyone had the same experience Platt told Livescience.
Everyone just rejected the notion that crocodilians eat fruit because everyone supposed they only ate meat.
Although early research suggested crocodilians were unable to digest sugars and other plant-based nutrients subsequent work with the American alligator has demonstrated otherwise.
Crocodilians do not chew any fruit would likely get swallowed whole to digest in the strong acids of their guts.
Crocodilians always surprise us Platt said. I've been doing research on them for 25 years and
I'm still learning something new all the time they're fascinating animals. Crocodilians might potentially spread plants far and wide researchers suggested.
Some crocodilians make transoceanic journeys some crocodilians such as the saltwater crocodile have been found to wander 1000 miles (1600 kilometers) swimming from island to island Platt said.
There are all sorts of interesting implications there for the movement of plants across islands. The researchers would now like to feed fruit to crocodilians to see what happens to the seeds Do they regurgitate them out their mouths
or do they come out in their feces? Platt asked. What effects do their guts have on the seeds?
The scientists detailed their findings in the July issue of the Journal of Zoology. Followâ Livescienceâ@livescience Facebookâ & Google+.
+Original article on Livescience i
#Critically Endangered Pygmy Hogs Slowly Reintroduced to Wild Researchers are breeding and releasing critically endangered pygmy hogs into the wilds of northeast India.
However these small pigs require a bit of hoof-holding so to speak and are being released into the wild bit-by-bit gradually nudged toward self-sufficiency.
The animals are incredibly shy and live only in the foothills of the Brahmaputra valley where their home is covered in 6. 5-foot-tall (2 meter) elephant grass.
There are thought to be fewer than 250 adults left in the wild according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
After being bred hundreds of miles away the animals are taken to the Brahmaputra valley each spring
and placed in large pens that approximate natural conditions. The breeders then act a bit like hog school marms for the species Porcula salvania.
and forage to defend themselves from predators and acquire general survival skills while socializing with other members of the group.
In 1966 a farmer said he saw a flying saucer rise up from a swampy area and fly away;
One explanation in vogue in the early 1980s was that the mysterious circle patterns were produced accidentally by the especially vigorous sexual activity of horny hedgehogs.
The U s. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken the unprecedented step of pulverizing nearly six tons of elephant ivory stored at the National Wildlife Property Repository in Colorado.
and operating on the ground through organized rebel groups has been responsible for the loss of some three-quarters of all African forest elephants in the past decade.
Across Central africa elephant range-states are calling for a moratorium on the sale and purchase of ivory.
The Heavy Cost of Elephant Poaching (Op-Ed) African elephants alone are being lost at an unprecedented rate
Approximately 35000 elephants were killed by poachers last year some 96 elephants each day. On September 26 WCS joined with 15 other conservation non-governmental organizations the leaders of seven African nations
and the Clinton Global Initiative in announcing an $80 million three-year commitment to halt the killing of elephants
WCS simultaneously launched its 96 Elephants campaign to raise awareness on this critical issue. In the fight to end the elephant poaching crisis nations must take a three-pronged approach:
stop the killing stop the trafficking and stop the demand. Those efforts took a giant step forward with the U s. Fish
in order to stop the slaughter of the planet's elephant population. I encourage all to visit 96elephants. org to help end the elephant crisis. The views expressed are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was published originally on Livescience
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