Category: New Research

Eight Year Olds Under Peer Review

New Research
Source: Wikimedia Commons.

A group of elementary school children from the UK have achieved a world’s first by having the research they conducted for their school science project accepted into the peer reviewed journal Biology Letters. The group of 8-10 year olds was investigating the way bumblebees see colors and patterns.

The kids worked on their science project with Dr. Beau Lotto, a neuroscientists at University College London’s Institute of Opthamology. Under his supervision the kids discovered that bumblebees learn and remember based on color and pattern cues.

The kids’ paper successfully made it through peer review, and so was eligible for publication in Biology Letters. Unlike other papers featured in the journal, it doesn’t include citations to other relevant work because knowledge of the other scientific literature aren’t available to 8-10 year olds so they couldn’t have used them.

The kids’ work was published accompanied by a commentary by Laurence T. Maloney from New York University’s Center for Neural Science and Natalie Hempel de Ibarra from Exeter University’s Center for Research in Animal Behavior.

Solar Powered Surveillance

New Research

A solar airplane built in the UK recently set a new record for the longest unmanned autonomous vehicle (UAV) flight. The Zephyr, built by Qinetiq stayed aloft for 336 hours, 22 minutes, and eight seconds. The previous record was established in 2001 by the Global Hawk, built by Northrop Grumman. Zephyr bested the Hawk by eleven times, making it a big success.

The advantage that solar planes have is that they have the ability to hover over a location without having to orbit like a satellite or return to base for refueling like another plane. According to Qinetiq, solar airplanes are exciting because they have a variety of uses, including monitoring forrest fires, military communications, and tracking (locating pirates off the coast of Africa maybe?)

Even though this is unrelated to the concept of solar planes, I have to admit that what drew my attention to this article was the fact that the winning airplane was named Zephyr. I love that word, so for those who don’t know a Zephyr (noun) is 1 poetic/literary a soft gentle breeze. 2 historical a very light article of clothing. Its origin is late old english zefferus, denoting a personification of the west wind, via Latin from Greek zephuros (god of) the west wind.

It also happens to be in the title of one of my favorite songs. So here’s the Zephyr Song, by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Technology Takes A Look At A Pliosaur Skull

BioTechnology, New Research
Source: Flickr

The article “Colossal pliosaur fossil secrets revealed by CT scanner,” caught my attention because it describes an interesting new use for existing technology. Researchers took the skull of a pliosaur, a creature that lived in the oceans during the Jurassic period, and scanned it to learn more about the fossil remains – which may belong to the largest pliosaur yet to be discovered.

The creature is estimated between 10-16m, based on the skull which is 2.4m long. By comparison, a killer whale is 5-8m and a human is only 1.5m. Needless to say, these things were big. According to the BBC article, a pliosaur would have had the jaw strength to bite a car in half.

The CT scanner used for the research belongs to the University of Southampton in the UK. The machine is one of the largest of its kind, which was necessary to beam through the dense fossil to form a 3D image of what the inside of it looks like. The findings may be able to help researchers establish if their fossil is a different species, or just an abnormally big example of a pliosaur. 

Elephant Species

Genetics, New Research, Sequencing
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Photographer: Johnny Liunggren.

Researchers have put an end to debate about whether the African Elephant is one species, or two. New findings published in the journal Public Library of Science Biology show that the African Elephants that dwell in the savannah are a distinct species from those that dwell in the forests.

Loxodonta africana, the savannah dwellers, are much larger and in some cases twice as heavy as Loxodonta cyclotis, the forest dwellers. The debate about whether the elephants were separate species has been going on for at least a decade. The research shows that the two species diverged from their common ancestor around the same time that humans and chimpanzees evolved. How long ago the species split was a surprise for the researchers.

What Happened to Amelia Earhart?

New Research, Sequencing
Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Bones found on an island in the South Pacific are being tested against surviving members of Amelia Earhart’s family to see if the remains could belong to the famous aviator. Earhart disappeared in 1937 during an attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world. Her mysterious disappearance has been the topic of books, movies, and enough speculation to make her a household name – even today.

Along with other artifacts found on the island including makeup and glass bottles, a DNA confirmation that the bones belong to Earhart would finally put to rest the mystery of what happened to her. If the bones are Earhart it would be valid to conclude that her plane crashed, and that she survived as a castaway for some time before dying on the island.

If DNA can give an ending to the story of Amelia Earhart, it will definitely be a win for genetics, and scientific research in general. The question that would be left (at least for me) is what happened to her plane (or her navigator for that matter)?