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Antarctica Melting Much Faster Than Expected, See Timelapse Imagery
For the first time, scientists have documented an acceleration in the melt rate of permafrost, or ground ice, in a section of Antarctica where the ice had been considered stable. The melt rates are comparable with the Arctic, where accelerated melting of permafrost has become a regularly recurring phenomenon, and the change could offer a preview of melting permafrost in other parts of a warming Antarctic continent. Research team member Jim O'Connor of the USGS inspects a block of ice calved off the Garwood Valley ice cliff. Photo by Joseph Levy, University of Texas Institute for Geophysics.
Sex With A Robot: Guess Who's Interested
With the help of a robotic frog, biologists at The University of Texas at Austin and Salisbury University have discovered that two wrong mating calls can make a right for female túngara frogs. Credit: University of Texas The “rather bizarre” result may be evidence not of a defect in the frog brain, but of how well frogs have evolved to extract meaning from noise, much the way humans have. The research, which was publishedlast month in Science, may also provide insight into how complex traits evolve by hooking together much simpler traits. When choosing a potential mate, female túngara frogs listen to the sounds of the male calls, which are based on a pattern of “whines” and “chucks.” If visible, the sight of the male frogs inflating their vocal sacs adds to the appeal of the calls.
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