News Ticker

Living things and their habitats

Playing crocodiles

A male crocodile gives a piggyback ride to his lifelong female partner. Credit: Vladimir Dinets
Next time you’re enjoying a splashabout in water, think of crocodiles. Not to keep safe – there’s little danger you’ll see any in the UK – but [...]

Sea slug: plant or animal?

The rich green colour of the photosynthesizing sea slug, Elysia chlorotica, helps to camouflage it on the ocean floor. Credit: Patrick Krug.
Researchers have discovered that the sea slug Elysia chlorotica uses genes from algae to gather energy from sunlight. Genes are instructions for how to build and maintain a [...]

A frog that gives birth

The L. larvaepartus frog (male, left, and female) from the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. It is the only frog known that gives birth to tadpoles rather than laying spawn. Credit: Jim McGuire photos.
Most frogs lay eggs (frogspawn) in water that grow into tadpoles, froglets and then grown-up frogs. Now scientists have found a frog in the rainforests of Sulawesi Island, [...]

Electric eels hunt by remote control

An electric eel (Electrophorus electricus). Credit: Doug Letterman (flickr). Image may have been cropped.
Researchers have discovered that electric eels use electricity as a sort of remote control on the fishes’ muscles. Kenneth Catania of Vanderbilt University in the USA [...]

Life began underground

A quartz dyke at Hall's Creek, Australia, known as the China Wall. Credit: Graeme Churchard
Researchers in Germany have suggested that life on Earth may have begun underground. Ulrich Schreiber and Christian Mayer at the University of Duisburg-Essen say that their [...]

Copyright Junior Science Reporter 2014-15