New pig species

A Dutch scientist thinks he has discovered a new species of wild pig nearly twice the size of other pigs in Brazil’s Amazon region.

At four feet long ad 90 pounds, the pig is the latest in a string of new species that Marc van Roosmalen reported to have found since 1996. His findings were published in the Oct. 29 edition of the Germen scientific journal Bonner Zoologische Beitrage.

Van Roosmalen, said his discovery of the peccary – a kind of wild pig he dubbed Pecari maximus – points out the need to protect the region as a habitat for wild species.

‘Supermouse’ is reality

Scientists have been astounded by the creation of a genetically modified “supermouse” with extraordinary physical abilities – comparable to the performance of the very best athletes – raising the prospect that the discovery may one day be used to transform people’s capacities.
The mouse can run up to six kilometers (3.7 miles) at a speed of 20 meters per minute for five hours or more without stopping. Scientists said that this was equivalent of a man cycling at speed up an Alpine mountain without a break. Although it eats up to 60 percent more food than an ordinary mouse, the modified mouse does not put on weight, It also lives longer and enjoys an active sex life well into old age – being capable of breeding as three times the normal maximum age.
Professor Hanson, who led the 15-strong team of researchers, said that the first supermouse was created about four years ago by injecting a highly active form of a gene for an enzyme called phosphonenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK_C) into a mouse embryo. The results of studies on the mice are published for the first time in the Journal of Biological Chemistry earlier this month.

World’s oldest animal found

British scientists have found a 400-yr old clam, the world’s longest-living animal, off the coast of Iceland, which may reveal the secret of longevity.

The scientists say the discovery of the quahog clam, a bivalve millusc, aged between 405 and 410 years old, might allow them to get a better understanding of the ageing process, as well as revealing the secrets of a long life.

The creature was nicknamed Ming, after the dynasty which ruled China at the beginning of the life.

“When the animal was a juvenile, King James 1 replaced Queen Elizabeth 1 as English monarch. Shakespeare was writing his plays – Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth – and Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for espousing the view that the sun rather then the earth was the centre of the universe,” Bangor University said in a release.

The scientists calculated the age of the animal by counting the annual growth rings on the shell, a technology similar to that of estimating a tree’s age.

Giant of dino world

Argentine and Brazilian paleontologists claim to have found a giant plant-eating dinosaur, Futalognkosaurus dukei, that roamed the earth some 80 million years ago. The dinosaur measured at least 32 m (105 ft), making it one of the tallest dinosaurs ever found, said Jorge Calvo, director of the paleontology centre at the National University of Comahue, Argentina.

“This is one of the biggest (dinosaurs) in the world and one of the most complete of these that exist,” he said.

Its name (pronounced foo-ta-long-koh-sohr-us) is derived from the Mapuche Indian words for “giant chief of the lizards” and from Duke Energy Argentina, a company which helped fund the excavation.

Scientists believe the skeleton discovered in Patagonia represents a previously unknown species because of the unique structure of its neck.

Calvo said the dinosaur’s remains possibly washed into river, creating a barrier that collected remains of other nowfossillised animals, fish and even leaves found at the site.

Since the first bones were found on the banks of Lake Barreales in Neuquen, Argentina in 2000, paleontologists have dug up the dinosaur’s neck, back, hips and the first vertebra of its tail.

Calvo said the skeleton also showed signs of its owner having being eaten by predators.

Alexander Kellner, a researcher with the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, said the fossilized ecosystem pointed to a warm and humid climate in Patagonia, which had forests during the late Cretaceous period. The area is steppe-like now and almost bare of vegetation.

“It’s among the biggest dinosaur finds and the most complete for a giant dinosaur finds and the most complete for a giant dinosaur. The accumulation of fish and leaf fossils, as well as other dinosaurs around the find, is just something fantastic. Leaves and dinosaurs together is a great rarity. Its like a whole lost world for us,” said Kellner.

The study appears in the journal Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, reports the BBC.

Driving You Up The Wall

English researchers has developed a super sticky tape that mimics the mechanism used by lizards to climb nearly any surface.
One square centimeter of the new adhesive contains millions of plastic fibres, similar to those clingy hairs that cover the soles of gecko's feet. In addition to potentially allowing folks to scale walls spider-man-style, this new technology scientists say, will have many applications, providing the necessary residue-free stickum for everything from computer chips in vacuum environments to tissues in need of rejoining during surgery.

Crocodiles Actually Weep

A new study has authenticated the phrase “crocodile tears” by discovering that crocodiles really do weep while eating but it is purely physiological reasons that makes them bawl.

A researcher of university of Florida observed and videotaped four confined caimans and three alligators, both close relatives of the crocodile, while eating on a spit of dry land at Florida’s St Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park.

Zoologist Kent Vliet found that five of the seven animals bawled as they tore into their food, with some of their eyes even frothing and bubbling.

However, Vilet said that the causes of the tears remain a bit of mystery.

He believes they may occur as a result of the animals hissing and huffing, a behaviour that often accompanies feeding.

Air forced through the sinuses may mix with tears in the crocodiles’lacrimal, or tear, glands emptying into the eye. The study is published in the latest edition of the journal BioScience.