India Narrative

Our perception of a volcano is reddish fire and destruction, which is conditioned by the images of molten lava wreaking havoc on human settlements and animal habitats. Yet, there is more to volcanoes than that, as pointed out by a report in sciencenews.org which states that a new study suggests how two billion years ago such volcanic eruptions on the moon led to water vapour becoming ice on its poles. The details of this study have been reported in the Planetary Science Journal of May month. The presence of ice on the moon was confirmed in 2009 and since then it has been argued as to how it came into being on the moon. The options discussed included comets, charged atoms carried by the solar wind, asteroids or that it originated on the moon itself because of eruptions in volcanoes between 4 to 2 billion years ago. Planetary scientists from University of Colorado, Boulder Andrew Wilcoski observed: “It’s a really interesting question how those volatiles [such as water] got there. We stil...

It is not just mammals and birds who can do simple addition and subtraction as studies have shown that bees and salamanders are capable of that. Now fresh research has added fishes – cichlids and stingrays – to that growing list as per a report in sciencealert.com. Both the zebra mbuna cichlids or Pseudotropheus zebra and freshwater stingrays or Potamotrygon motoro have exhibited this capability which goes beyond symbol memorisation. Sharing the essence of their study in a paper, Vera Schluessel and colleagues wrote: “Individuals did not just learn to pick the highest or lowest number presented based on the respective colour; instead, learning was specific to adding or subtracting 'one'.” Schluessel is a zoologist at Bonn University. Scientists showed the fish two gates which had cards with different number of shapes. On being shown a card that three blue squares, the correct door would have to be one with four blue squares, meaning that they have to add one and for this they w...

Sometimes an out of the box theory looks like a plausible explanation for something which seems bizarre. Take for example the small arms of the mighty and ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex which couldn’t be clarified despite many suggesting that they were used as slashing machines or helped in grasping the partner during mating, as per a report in sciencealert.com. Though it is really difficult to figure answers by looking at bones which are 66 million years old, a new study has come with a fresh hypothesis, which states that the short arms helped in bringing down the chances of accidental bites by other T. rex when these creatures indulged in eating frenzies. The smaller the size, the lesser were chances of it being bitten off! Elaborating on this new study, its author Kevin Padian, said: "What if several adult tyrannosaurs converged on a carcass? You have a bunch of massive skulls, with incredibly powerful jaws and teeth, ripping and chomping down flesh and bone right next to you. Wha...

A close look at monkeys from whom humankind has evolved suggests that the love of people for alcohol stems from the liking these primates have for fruits which are ripe, states sciencealert.com report. Scientists discovered during their study of Panama’s black-handed spider monkeys or Ateles geoffroyi that they eat on a regular basis palm fruits that have ethanol in little amounts. Further, the samples of urine from two monkeys showed metabolites that were ethanol specific, thus proving that it was being absorbed and used by the body. Talking about this, Christina Campbell from California State University, Northridge, who is a primatologist said: "For the first time, we have been able to show, without a shadow of a doubt, that wild primates, with no human interference, consume fruit containing ethanol. This is just one study, and more need to be done, but it looks like there may be some truth to that 'drunken monkey' hypothesis." Proposed for the first time in 2000 by...

It has been a long held belief that sharks don’t sleep and the reason given for this was that some of them needed to keep swimming in order to have a constant and steady supply of oxygen-rich water go through their gills. Now, a report in smithsonianmag.com mentions that Australian scientists have studied and recorded a species of these fishes which live in the bottom and have been observed to sleep. The details of this new study which has been published in Biology Letters, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, points out that sharks can sleep and many prefer keeping their eyes wide open while doing so. Talking to Newsweek, Michael Kelly, an author of this study said: "Until now, sleep in sharks was completely unstudied and unknown. Sharks are a particularly important group as they are the oldest living jawed vertebrates—a trait they share with us.” Kelly is an ecophysiologist at La Trobe University, Melbourne. The subject of this study was the draughtsboard sharks. This native to ...

It is generally believed that serious and fatal diseases of Europe like whooping cough, smallpox and the dreaded tuberculosis reached different parts of the world, including South America, due to colonisation. Yet, a report in sciencealert.com mentions that a recent study suggests that tuberculosis strain may have already reached South America coasts and mountains, much before this. Scientists in 2014 discovered in skeletons from 1,000 years ago in South America the DNA of a bacterium which was connected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis which leads to tuberculosis in human beings. It may be noted that this was much before the Spanish, French and Portuguese set foot in the continent as colonisers. Even though it has been known to science that TB moves from one species of mammal to another yet the detection of this ancient strain in South America points to the need for rethinking as to how the bacteria spread originally. The 2014 or the pre-contact strains had the closest resemblance to M...

  A low-lying continent 40 million years ago, that was once boasted of some striking animals could have played a vital role in helping Asian mammals to move to Europe’s southern part, suggests a new study states a report in sciencealert.com. The research published in Earth-Science Reviews refers to this place as “Balkanatolia” – placed between Asia, Europe and Africa -- which scientists say with the drop in the sea levels, around 34 million years ago, became a land bridge. In their study, palaeogeologist Alexis Licht and his colleagues from French National Centre for Scientific Research, mentioned that "When and how the first wave of Asian mammals made it to south-eastern Europe remains poorly understood.” Also read:  200 Million Years From Now, India, Somalia, Kenya and Madagascar may merge into a super-Continent The appearance of the bridge catalytic as 34 million years ago with the Eocene epoch coming to an end, a vast number of mammals native to Western Europe vanished wit...

The mention of dinosaurs usually brings up the image of big and/or fearsome creatures walking around on their four limbs but now scientists have come across an unusual type which has hardly any forearms as reported in sciencealert.com. This new species has been discovered by palaeontologists in Argentina and has been christened as Guemesia ochoai and determined with the help of a single skull. This has been suggested to belong to the family of abelisaurids – carnivores that had tiny arms and were found in India, Africa, Europe and South America. This group disappeared nearly 66 million years ago. Also read:  Austrian dinosaur Ankylosaurs was both deaf and slow moving G. ochoai’s skull discovered in Argentina’s northwest region is dated to be about 70 million years old and is one of its kind and what distinguishes it from other abelisaurids is its “remarkably small” braincase. This creature whose brain was 70 per cent of Carnotaurus genus which roamed South America’s southern tip wa...

Antarctica was a place that was thought to be far removed from the effects of warming of the earth is now showing signs to the contrary. An article in smithsonianmag.com mentions that with the temperatures rising in the region, two native plant species are proliferating. The green cover on the continent from 2009 to 2019 has accelerated more than what it had in the last 50 years. This is complimented with the rise in air temperatures rising and decrease in seal population. Published recently in peer-reviewed scientific review Current Biology, the study highlights how warming of climate is increasingly impacting polar ecosystems. Talking to Gizmodo, the study’s lead author and an ecologist at the University of Insubria, Nicoletta Cannone, remarked: "Antarctica is acting as a canary in a coal mine.” Also read:  Climate change enables Gentoo Penguins to expand their habitat in the Antarctica The continent has two native flowering plant species. These are Antarctic hair grass (Descham...

  Anybody will tell you that if a repertoire of songs is played in the same order more than once it becomes tedious. Hence, the sequence needs to be shuffled to break the monotony and that is what male sparrows do – remix and rearrange their songs to keep intact the love interest of the female, a report in smithsonianmag.com stated. As per the details of the study published in Proceedings of The Royal Society B, the songbirds keeping track of every new song they sing, change the order every half an hour to keep the females wondering. Also read:  Arctic’s amazing sponges feed on the remains of ancient extinct creatures Singing and songs are vital for the male sparrow as that is the way to win over a potential mate and battle for breeding territories. In order to know more about their songs, scientists went to the northwest Pennsylvania woods to record several hours of trilling and chirping. Following recording of more than 30 individual birds, they proceeded to their laboratory...

  New York’s Stony Brook University (SBU) team of researchers were in for a surprise when they spotted gentoo penguin colonies on Andersson Island of Antarctica and also on an archipelago which has remained unexplored and is located off the Antarctica Peninsula’s northern point. According to a report in smithsonianmag.com, these places are some of the southern-most for gentoo breeding. Interestingly, gentoo penguins favour places that are warmer to raise their offspring and till recently found these regions too icy for their choice. That doesn’t seem so now as change in climate is helping them to expand their habitat – “gentoofication” as some scientists refer to it as. Talking to Mongabay, Heather Lynch, said: “It’s may be a cliché at this point, but they’re the canary in the coal mine for climate change because they’re so closely tied to those sea ice conditions.” Read More