animals

The Pregnant Male

By observing the seahorse's unusual sex roles, scientists hope to learn more about how they came to be

The seahorse is a strange fish. Many of the traits it possesses have evolved in a direction unlike any other family of animals underwater—its bent S-shape; its head at a 90-degree angle to its body; its prehensile tail; and, most curiously, the male's brood pouch. A lab at Texas A&M University led by Adam Jones is currently studying these structures in the hope of understanding how it was that male pregnancy evolved in seahorses and how it affects the traditional sex roles in the fish.

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The Score

The Doping of the Bulls

Humans aren't the only ones to be subjected to drug tests this sports season

Bull Fight: Photo by H E P
We give up. Even the animals are doping. A report this week in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo said that bulls fighting next month as a part of Madrid’s San Isidrop festival will be subject to drug tests if they’re behaving in a suspect way (like running at men holding red capes?). Unlike with humans, these drugs won't be helping the bulls. Corticosteroids or tranquillizers are intended to make it easier for the matador.

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Inspired By Nature

The Science of Swine

Pigs not only inspire scientists via delicious, brain-sustaining pork products. See the latest pig-influenced developments in medicine and tech, from diabetes treatments to pig-urine-flavored cigarettes

We've got pork on the brain here this week at PopSci. Earlier today we told you about how cells from a pig's bladder helped a man regenerate part of his severed finger, and if you're a PPX player, you know we just rolled out an IPO regarding PETA's recent offering of a million dollar prize for anyone who can grow meat sans-animal in a lab, hoping to negate the necessity for livestock. However, it will probably be a while before anything created in the lab will rival the one food that we can't ever manage to stop thinking about, even for dessert—bacon.

As it turns out, pigs have been the inspiration for several other recent medical and technological innovations in the last few months.

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Moth Migrations

The sophisticated navigation system of the moth keeps it on course despite powerful winds

We can only assume DARPA’s cyborg moths will be deployed relatively close to their targets, but we have no real word yet on their potential range. If the military does find the need to release the moths from the rear of operations under the cover of darkness, they would do well to pay attention to research coming out of the United Kingdom on how moths are able to migrate at night.

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