Tag: biology
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Self-navigation…
Human eyes are insensitive to polarized light and ultraviolet radiation, but that is not the case for ants, who use it to locate themselves in space. AntBot, a robot designed by CNRS and Aix-Marseille University (AMU) researchers at ISM, copies the desert ants' exceptional navigation capacities to navigate without the use of GPS. (1) Navigating…
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Tools: God. Humans. Apes.
Flexible tool use is closely associated to higher mental processes such as the ability to plan actions. Now a group of cognitive biologists and comparative psychologists found out that the apes carefully weighed their options. To do so the apes considered the details such as differences in quality between the two food rewards and the…
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Imperfect evolution… Life without life…
The pinnacle of beauty to most people is a symmetrical face, one without any major left-right differences. But for blind Mexican cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus), asymmetry may be a lifesaver. That’s because their lopsided skulls may help them feel their way along dark cave walls – similar to a person navigating by touch in the dark.…
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Smelling the forest… A tree born…
Animals are much better at smelling a complex "soup" of odorants rather than a single pure ingredient, a study by the University of Sussex has revealed. Prof Nowotny, Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange in the University of Sussex's School of Engineering and Informatics, said: "Our study was looking at how olfactory receptors and brain…
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Re-writing biology history…
The DNA translational system receives messages from DNA delivered to it by RNA and translates the messages into proteins. The system centers on a cellular machine called the ribosome, which is made of multiple large molecules of RNA and protein and is ubiquitous in life as we know it. In today's ribosome, and in the…
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