The giant eagle of Middle Earth
...masquerading as Mordor. The image of giant eagles flying around New Zealand, while fanciful, is not so far-fetched as it might appear. New genetic data published in the freely-available online journal PLoS Biology this week from researchers at Oxford and Canterbury Universities shed new light on the evo...ESA's Huygens begins its final journey into the unknown
...y had to conduct four gravity-assist manoeuvres by flying twice by Venus, once by the Earth and once by Jupi... Cassini orbiter, which, at the same time, will be flying over Titan at 60 000 km at closest approach. Earth-based radiotelescopes will also try to detect the...Hummingbirds lose power at high altitudes
... a two-year stretch in order to find out how their flying abilities are affected by the lower oxygen and thin air of higher elevations. The results, which appeared this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Online Early Edition, show a clear decline in hummingbirds' lifting abil...Researchers improve predictions of cloud formation for better global climate modeling
... two field tests. Data was collected from aircraft flying through from cumulus clouds off the coast of Key West, Fla., in 2002, and from stratocumulus clouds near Monterey, Calif., in 2003. Compared with this real-world data, predictions from Nenes' model were accurate within 10 to 20 percent. "We never ex...Study in Royal Society journal on first evidence for magnetic field detection in sharks
...g that are used to chase for very mobile prey like flying fishes associated with sub surface predators such as tunas. To spot prey patches at distance birds climb regularly to altitudes of 20-50m and when returning to the colony they climb to altitudes up to 500m to avoid attacks by frigatebirds along the c...Poisoning solved after millions of years
...en the tiny quantities of water drunk by bats when flying low over the water can be fatal. Many aspects of the fossil finds of Messel which were not previously understood can be explained by this theory of a seasonal growth of highly toxic cyanobacteria which was repeated year after year. The theory still a...International marine survey of coral death
...pared with 1,000 kilometers in diseases carried by flying birds -- they are focusing on dying organisms that can't move: the world's corals. The researchers are conducting the largest-ever international assessment of ocean disease, called the Coral Reef Targeted Research and Capacity Building project and s...Latest buzz in research: Intoxicated honey bees may clue scientists into drunken human behavior
... each bee spent walking, standing still, grooming, flying and upside down on its back. Blood ethanol concentrations increased with time and with the amount of ethanol each bee had consumed. Behavioral differences between the bees depended on the amount of ethanol ingested. The bees that had consumed the hig...UF scientist: 'Brain' in a dish acts as autopilot, living computer
...uter about flight conditions: whether the plane is flying straight and level or is tilted to the left or to the right. The neurons then analyze the data and respond by sending signals to the plane's controls. Those signals alter the flight path and new information is sent to the neurons, creating a feedback......e transferring to Peakadilly to give the company a flying start. This start-up team will then be enlarged further. In addition, the company maintains its good relationship with the VIB department at Ghent University, where the technology was first developed and where it is being further developed with a tea...