The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, just cannot catch a break. First, a coolant leak destroyed some of the magnets that guide the energy beam. Then LHC officials postponed the restart of the machine to add additional safety features. Now, a bird dropping a piece of bread on a section of [...]

A harmless digestive enzyme can be turned into a toxin in two unrelated species — a shrew (pictured) and a lizard — thereby giving each a venomous bite.
Biologists have shown that independent but similar molecular changes turned a harmless digestive enzyme into a toxin in two unrelated species — a shrew and a lizard — [...]

Featured Invention at the Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
Centuries ago in another land far away, a war was fought between two rulers of a tiger-like race.  Their names are long forgotten, but their memory lives on in this game of strategy and cunning!  Tora (TM) is a classical style board game done in the same vein [...]

Baby Tesla’s favorite holiday was always Halloween
The only difference between daytime and night time is sunshine. Well, that and vampires and other creatures of the night that never come out during the daytime because the sunshine will cause their face to melt. Some people would actually look better if they let their face melt, but [...]

his image of an ancient fly in amber shows the strange horn on its head, topped by three eyes.
Just in time for Halloween, researchers have announced the discovery of a new, real-world “monster” — what they are calling a “unicorn” fly that lived about 100 million years ago and is being described as a new [...]

Naked mole rats.
Despite a 30-year lifespan that gives ample time for cells to grow cancerous, a small rodent species called a naked mole rat has never been found with tumors of any kind — and now biologists at the University of Rochester think they know why.

A pet shop worker has set a new world record after stuffing 16 Madagascar hissing cockroaches – each more than 6cm long – into his mouth.
Sean Murphy, of Lansing, Michigan, US, shattered the old Guinness World Records score of 11 to secure the new mark.

How much do you actually know about crows? Other than they are loud and sit on the tops of trees and make a bunch of noise? They always seem to lurk around and stare you in the eye a little too long for comfort, right? Well, turns out they are much smarter than you might [...]

Brain signals can drive arm movement in a monkey with a paralyzed arm.
A monkey with a paralyzed arm can still grasp a ball, thanks to a novel system designed to translate brain signals into complex muscle movements in real time. The research, presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago this week, could one [...]

Cows are both the cause and the victims of today’s obesity problem
Last week we started down a different path, but somehow we ended up on the path we were meant to be on anyway. So we’ve concluded that there are no different paths. Every “new” path is merely our destiny wrapped in new clothing, secretly [...]

Dolphins have been filmed playing an impromptu game of football… using a jellyfish as an improvised ball.  A team of marine biologists were astonished to see a dolphin swim under a jellyfish and with a quick flick of its tail shoot it out of the water. (Pics and video)
 

Tool transfer upon recipient’s request.
The evolution of altruism has long puzzled researchers and has mainly been explained previously from ultimate perspectives—”I will help you now because I expect there to be some long-term benefit to me”. However, a new study by researchers at the Primate Research Institute (PRI) and the Wildlife Research Center (WRC) of [...]

Adult female Bagheera kiplingi eats Beltian body harvested from ant-acacia.
There are approximately 40,000 species of spiders in the world, all of which have been thought to be strict predators that feed on insects or other animals. Now, scientists have found that a small Central American jumping spider has a uniquely different diet: the species Bagheera [...]

This is a drawing of Darwinopterus hunting a small feathered dinosaur
An international group of researchers from the University of Leicester (UK), and the Geological Institute, Beijing (China) has identified a new type of flying reptile, providing the first clear evidence of an unusual and controversial type of evolution.

NASA is planning to drop a spent rocket motor into the Cabeus crater on the moon Friday morning as part of the search to find lunar water. The motor is a leftover piece of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite that includes a “shepherding spacecraft” that will follow behind the rocket motor before it [...]

These micro piglets may be tiny enough to fit in a teacup, but at $1100 their price tag is anything but small. The pets, which grow to be just 14in tall, have become so popular that they are now almost impossible to get hold of in Britain.
“Demand for micro pigs is soaring and we are [...]

A South African information technology company on Wednesday proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom , the country’s leading internet service provider.
Internet speed and connectivity in Africa’s largest economy are poor because of a bandwidth shortage. It is also expensive.
Local news agency SAPA [...]

Behold this graphic but compelling footage of the first ever elephant birth filmed in Bali, Indonesia.

A powerful fish-killing toxin that has caused major losses in commercial ponds of catfish, striped bass and tilapia may also have cancer-killing properties.
A powerful fish-killing toxin could have cancer-killing properties as well, according to collaborative research led by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) microbiologist Paul V. Zimba and chemist Peter Moeller of the U.S. National Oceanic [...]

American mega megacorp Cargill, which brought in $116.6 billion in revenue last year, is in the spotlight this week around the story of Stephanie Smith: the 22 year old children’s dance instructor was paralyzed from the waist down after eating E. coli-tainted hamburger traced back to the meat supplier.
She was in a coma for nine [...]

Beware of crazy little men carrying vacuum cleaners,
for they represent an entirely new breed of suckers

Some photos cause headaches and others cause scandals. However, this particular combination of photos has been selected to cause a jock rash in people without a sense of humor. (Pics)

Researchers from Kitasato University in Tokyo have been awarded this year’s Ig Nobel Biology Prize for demonstrating a method to reduce kitchen waste by more than 90% by using bacteria derived from Giant Panda excrement.  Professor Fumiaki Taguchi, who shares the prize with fellow researchers Song Guofu and Zhang Guanglei (both from the Kitasato University [...]

It’s been a busy, stressful week, with Iran’s nuclear plans, tragic natural disasters in Samoa, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and a new climate bill in the Senate packing the headlines with nail-biting tension. So what do I have to say to all that? Why, it’s nothing an adorable picture of a polar bear cub taking [...]

Grooming monkeys. A study of female monkeys’ grooming habits provides new clues about the way we humans socialize.
A study of female monkeys’ grooming habits provides new clues about the way we humans socialise. New research, published September 30 in Proceedings of the Royal Society, reveals there is a link between the size of the brain, [...]