As more and more plastic trash permeates the oceans, microplastics are making their way into fish and shellfish, and potentially into humans. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/hundreds-fish-species-consume-microplastics-including-human-food…
Tag: animal behavior
Do Animals Really Anticipate Earthquakes? Sensors Hint They Do
An anonymous reader quotes Scientific American:
For centuries, people have described unusual animal behavior just ahead of seismic events: dogs barking incessantly, cows halting their milk, toads leaping from ponds… Now researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the University of Konstanz, both in Germany, along with a multinational team of colleagues, say they have managed to precisely measure…
AI Distinguishes Birds That Even Experts Can’t
Slashdot reader sciencehabit quote Science magazine:
It’s a fact of life for birders that some species are fiendishly difficult to tell apart — in particular, the sparrows and drab songbirds dubbed “little brown jobs.” Distinguishing individuals is nearly impossible. Now, a computer program analyzing photos and videos has accomplished that feat. The advance promises to reveal new information on bird behaviors… The…
Eclipses make animals do strange things
How do solar and lunar eclipses influence animal behavior? While the human world gathers to see tonight’s lunar eclipse, what’s the rest of nature doing? Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/lunar-solar-eclipse-animals…
Q&A: How Dogs Find Their Way Home
Lost dogs rely on a fine sense of smell to map their location. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/science/dogs-smell-location.html?partner=rss&emc=rss…
The First Detailed Study of How Mice Behave in Space Reveals Strange, Coordinated Zooming
New research based on experiments done on the International Space Station shows that mice adapt quickly to microgravity conditions. Unexpectedly, however, some of the mice began to exhibit a rather curious circling behavior, zipping around the walls of their metal cage with reckless abandon. Read more… Source: https://gizmodo.com/the-first-detailed-study-of-how-mice-behave-in-space-re-1833950925