ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

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• Being lower in pecking order improves female tit birds' memory: Rare case in nature in which female has better cognitive ability
• Toxic fruits hold the key to reproductive success, for fruit flies
• Turning biological cells to stone improves cancer, stem cell research
• What quails can teach us about the gait of dinosaurs
• Ancient balloon-shaped animal fossil sheds light on Earth's ancient seas

Being lower in pecking order improves female tit birds' memory: Rare case in nature in which female has better cognitive ability Posted: 09 Dec 2014 09:00 AM PST Scientists have found a rare case in nature in which the female of a species has the better cognitive ability. When it comes to remembering where a tasty titbit was left, female great tit birds are miles ahead of their male counterparts. This ability might have evolved because the females come second when there's food to be shared.

Toxic fruits hold the key to reproductive success, for fruit flies Posted: 09 Dec 2014 07:12 AM PST Scientists have now discovered why the fruit fly Drosophila sechellia is adapted to the toxic fruits of the morinda tree. Drosophila sechellia females carry a mutation in a gene that inhibits egg production. The flies have very low levels of L-DOPA, a precursor of the hormone dopamine, which controls fertility; interestingly, large amounts of L-DOPA are contained in morinda fruits.

Turning biological cells to stone improves cancer, stem cell research Posted: 09 Dec 2014 06:19 AM PST Near-perfect replications of human and animal cells enables improved study of certain cancers and stem cells, as well as the creation of complex durable objects without machinery, scientists report. A new technique to transmute living cells into more permanent materials that defy decay and can endure high-powered probes is widening research opportunities for biologists who are developing cancer treatments, tracking stem cell evolution or even trying to understand how spiders vary the quality of the silk they spin.

What quails can teach us about the gait of dinosaurs Posted: 09 Dec 2014 05:17 AM PST Motion scientists and zoologists have completed the first detailed analysis of the bipedal gait of quails. The scientists analyzed the effect the birds posture has on the movement of their legs and on their stability when they walk.

Ancient balloon-shaped animal fossil sheds light on Earth's ancient seas Posted: 09 Dec 2014 05:16 AM PST A rare 520-million-year-old fossil shaped like a 'squashed bird's nest' that will help to shed new light on life within Earth's ancient seas has been discovered in China by an international research team. The fossil is of a probable 'chancelloriid', a group of bizarre, balloon-shaped animals with an outer skeleton of defensive spines.

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