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Dirt x Allergies
Nature lovers now have one extra reason to justify their passion for the outdoors: dirt. Apparently, dirt may be beneficial in the struggle against allergies, one of the modern world new epidemics.
In the past 20 years, severe allergy cases have doubled in developed countries. We live under de impression that all kids are allergic to [...]
Mosquitoes attraction
Researchers from Yale University have identified the proteins used by the malaria mosquito to sense their victims. Malaria affects hundreds of thousands f people around the world, occurs in areas that fits half the planet’s population and causes around a million deaths every year.
One of the substances found to have great impact on the insects [...]
Breathing in thin air
What a mountaineer, reaching Everest summit, at -40o C, enduring 100 km/h wind would see looking up? The sky and the summit? Yes! Rocks and snow? Absolutely. But there is a chance he would also see a flock of Asian geese (Anser indicus) flying just above his head, flapping its wings energetically while the mountaineer [...]
Butterflies fight?
Yes, they do happen. In the species of the gender Hamadryas (picture), the males attack who enters in their territories claping their wings. “The clapping noise is an advice to the invader to quit the fight”, says biologist André Freitas, from Campinas State University, SP, Brazil. And worse: it is not rare that some of [...]
Highly sexist damselflies
For natural selection, it is not enough to survive. It is also needed to leave descendents. “And among the dragonflies and damselflies, this idea is confirmed with great determination” says the biologist Cláudio Patto, graduate student at Campinas State University, SP, Brazil. Dragonflies’ females store the sperm until fecundation, what happens only when she lays [...]
Posted in Biology Tagged damselfly, dragonfly, National Geographic, natural selection, territory Leave a comment
Mammals Family Tree