Sticking to the bodies of sharks and other larger marine life is a well-known specialty of remora fishes (Echeneidae) and their super-powered suction disks on their heads. But a new study has now fully documented the “suckerfish” in hitchhiking action below the ocean’s surface, uncovering a much more refined skillset that the fish uses for navigating intense hydrodynamics that come with trying to ride aboard a 100-foot blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus).
From discovering dinosaur-era ants with metal horns on their head, to swapping the
A fossil recently recovered from the age of the dinosaurs is giving scientists the most vivid picture yet of how one of the most enigmatic and fearsome groups of ants to exist once used their uncanny tusk-like mandibles and diverse horns to successfully hunt down victims for nearly 20 million years, before vanishing from the planet...
Despite being such a tiny earth dweller, the roundworm species Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) has become one of the biggest workhorses in the lab for biological researchers. Due in part to the organism’s transparent skin and compact size — just about the size of a comma at 1 mm in length — it’s the only animal to have successfully had a complete mapping of its connectome, or its neural circuitry comprised of 302 neurons and their 7,000 synaptic connections.
As a kid growing up in Omaha, Neb., Chloe Jelley ’20 had a major aversion to insects that many can relate with.
“I was one of the more careful kids and I was not into bugs at all when I was young … actually, I was really afraid of all bugs,” recalled Jelley.
“It’s a little bittersweet to have to leave without being able to say proper goodbyes to everyone,” lamented Sravya Vegunta, a senior Albert Dorman Honors College (ADHC) scholar, about graduating from NJIT during the coronavirus pandemic.
“But I’m definitely glad to be moving on to that next stage, because it’s something that I’ve been looking forward to for so long,” she added, speaking from her Monroe Township home where she is staying inside with her parents and younger brother.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues upending life for countless people around the world, threatening public health while disrupting everything from basic home and work routines, to air travel and financial markets. But what has the global slowdown meant for the environment and sustainable living, and what could it mean if some of the radical changes in our everyday lifestyles and consumption habits persisted long-term?
Plenty of fictional works like Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein have explored the idea of swapping out a brain from one individual and transferring it into a completely different body. However, a team of biologists and engineers has now used a variation of the sci-fi concept, via computer simulation, to explore a core brain-body question.
Remoras are among the most successful marine hitchhikers, thanks to powerful suction discs that allow them to stay tightly fastened to the bodies of sharks, whales and other hosts despite incredible drag forces while traveling through the ocean. But how do these suckerfish sense the exact moment when they must “stick their landing” and board their speedy hosts in the first place?
A team of biologists at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Friday Harbor Labs at University of Washington (FHL-UW) and The George Washington University (GWU) now offers an answer.
