As I promised a fortnight ago, the series is continuing at loftier heights. Today, we’re going to tackle flight. Flight is an especially interesting characteristic because it hasn’t evolved just once; there isn’t any common ancestor that we can point to as the one who ties all flying animals together. If we exclude gliding over short distances, true flight is something that has e... »
For those who don’t pay much attention to furry things in British rivers (and really, why would you?) you might be interested to hear that the otter population in my homeland is on the way up and recovering from their rapid decline in the 1970s. Now, what seems to have been the cause of their population crash was runoff of certain pesticides into rivers, but despite the fact that these pesti... »
As promised, here is the post about locomotion in the animal kingdom. For the purpose of not making this into a never-ending wall of text, I’m limiting the concept of locomotion to movement along the ground. Now, moving along the ground might seem a bit boring. I mean, we do it all the time, no fuss. However, moving along the ground in an efficient way is quite a sophisticated task. The envi... »
Continuing from last week’s Science Sunday, we’re going to keep looking at some of the ways that species differ in interesting, and sometimes baffling ways. Today’s subject will be a bit less sexy, however, as we’re going to talk about eyes. For us humans, the vision usually represents 80 percent of the sensory information that we perceive. As far as eyes go, ours aren̵... »
As many of you are aware of, sex is kind of a big deal for humans. To the surprise of absolutely no one it’s a big deal for other species too, if not for the same reasons. Sex is for many animals the only way to get offspring. So the different members of species will participate in sexual reproduction, trying to ensure the existence of their kind. Some will even die for it. I have narrowed ... »
Now, most of Teen Skepchick’s readers and contributors love science- but how many of us actually do science in our own homes? This would also be a great way to introduce little Skepchicks and Skepdudes to science- so if you’re looking for some easy home experiments to do (think: Mentos in Coke) then this is your resource! »
Let’s battle the depressing news that America is still neglecting climate change subjects and project into a future where none of that matters. I’ve recently finished reading H.G. Wells’ classic ‘The Time Machine’, where humankind has evolved into two distinct races, if not species. But is this likely to happen? Are we still under evolutionary pressures? And are we mo... »
Much in the way that humans might carry pepper spray or learn martial arts, plants and animals also have their own unique and interesting defence mechanisms. You might not catch a fig trying to karate chop you- but the flora and fauna of the natural world have found varied and surprisingly interesting ways of keeping predators at bay. »
