All posts tagged: males

‘Less desirable’ males confuse female treefrogs looking for a mate

‘Less desirable’ males confuse female treefrogs looking for a mate

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Too many choices is not always a good thing. Even if you are a female Cope’s gray treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis) searching for a mate. When too many desirable mates croak and screech their availability, the female frogs struggle to make the right choice. This phenomenon called “choice overload” is detailed in a study published today in the journal Cell Press, and may impact how species evolve.  Cope’s gray treefrogs have a wide range. They are found in Virginia west towards Texas and north into Canada. These petite frogs only measure about two-inches long, and have bumpy green or gray skin that can look like tree bark.  Treefrogs mating in the mud. Image: Jessie Tanner “You may encounter them coming up to your window …

The Democratic male’s midlife crisis

The Democratic male’s midlife crisis

Published by Sam Flores

When Graham Platner ran for Senate, he came with an irresistible, dream candidate profile: a plainspoken veteran and man of the people who was ready to change careers from oyster farmer to politician. Platner, who turned 40 during the campaign, found immense support from other male Democrats close to his age who saw his campaign as the breath of fresh air the party needed to stay relevant. Even when his many skeletons came tumbling out of the closet — the Nazi tattoo, the Reddit posts, retweeting far-right podcaster Stew Peters and others — they only doubled down in their support. Each scandal was followed by another high-profile endorsement from a senator or influencer. Only when women accused him of rape and sexual assault did they finally drop their support, leading to his exit from the race in July. The Platner fiasco revealed how a subset of male Democrats show symptoms of a midlife crisis. Typically, a man’s mid-life crisis occurs between his 40s and 50s when, having achieved a stable economic and sociopolitical status, a …

Trump steps all over World Cup winner’s moment as Infantino tries to usher him away from Spain team photo

Trump steps all over World Cup winner’s moment as Infantino tries to usher him away from Spain team photo

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Donald Trump refused to leave the stage after presenting Spain with the World Cup as the president forced his way into the team’s winning photo. FIFA president Gianni Infantino tried to usher Trump away from the team after the pair handed the trophy to Spanish captain Rodri. However, after Infantino left the stage and Rodri asked him to move away after Spain’s World Cup victory against Argentina on Sunday, Trump walked to the other side of the stage to stand alongside the Spanish players. Infantino then ran over to the president, but Trump declined to leave and stood applauding while the Spanish team lifted the trophy beside him. It’s not the first time Trump has crashed a winning team’s celebration. Last year, he remained on stage while Chelsea lifted the Club World Cup trophy. Fifa president Gianni Infantino attempts to usher …

Christopher Nolan borrowed one key lesson from Guillermo del Toro for The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan borrowed one key lesson from Guillermo del Toro for The Odyssey

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Christopher Nolan credited Guillermo del Toro for changing how he thought about filming monsters, revealing that the Oscar-winning Mexican director’s approach “inspired” the mythological creatures featured in The Odyssey. The film adaptation of Homer’s Greek epic follows Odysseus’s long journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War as he battles monsters, gods and mythical foes while his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) fends off suitors and son Telemachus (Tom Holland) searches for him. Matt Damon plays the hero Odysseus and the ensemble cast includes Robert Pattinson as the suitor Antinous, Zendaya as Athena, Samantha Morton as Circe, Charlize Theron as Calypso, Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy. Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Elliot Page, Bill Irwin and Mia Goth also feature. Christopher Nolan said Guillermo del Toro’s approach ‘inspired’ how he filmed The Odyssey ’s mythological creatures (Getty) In …

A single gene may explain why some males live fast and die young

A single gene may explain why some males live fast and die young

Published by Jenni Sidey

A small fish that lives fast and dies young has given biologists a rare look at one of evolution’s oldest bargains. In the African turquoise killifish, researchers traced that bargain to a single gene called vgll3, which helped push males toward faster growth and earlier sexual maturity. But the same shift also came with a darker side: shorter lives, more age-related tumors, and a higher risk of melanoma-like cancers in old age. The finding offers unusually direct evidence for antagonistic pleiotropy, a long-debated theory of aging that holds that some genes are favored because they improve early-life success, even if they cause damage later on. “We have effectively caught evolution in the act of making a trade-off,” said Dr. Itamar Harel of Hebrew University. “For years, we’ve asked why our bodies can’t just maintain themselves indefinitely. This gene gives us a direct answer: nature doesn’t prioritize longevity; it prioritizes continuity. We are built to sprint, not to marathon.” The killifish is an emerging model for investigating the genetic architecture of aging and age-related pathologies, which …

Bull sharks make ‘friends’—and prefer females to males

Bull sharks make ‘friends’—and prefer females to males

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) have a really bad reputation. The ocean’s bad boys are responsible for at least 100 unprovoked attacks on humans, 27 of which have been fatal. However, the species may be responsible for more attacks. A bull shark was likely behind the real encounters that inspired the award-winning novel and film Jaws.  However, these 12-foot-long, solitary sharks appear to form important social bonds. A study published today in the journal Animal Behaviour finds that they create these relationships with only a few specific “friends.” Instead of mixing at random, they appear to actively choose who they spend time with and have preferences. “As humans we cultivate a range of social relationships—from casual acquaintances to our best friends, but we also actively avoid certain people—and these bull sharks are doing similar things,” Natasha D. Marosi, a study co-author and founder of Fiji Shark Lab, said in a statement.  Over six years, a team from the University of …

Neanderthal males preferred human females, genetic study finds

Neanderthal males preferred human females, genetic study finds

Published by Jenni Sidey

Thin stretches of the human X chromosome look oddly empty when you scan for Neanderthal DNA. Geneticists even have a name for the gaps: “Neanderthal deserts.” They sit there like blank tape in an otherwise crowded recording. For years, the standard story went like this: Neanderthal DNA landed in our ancestors’ genomes. However, some of it was harmful, especially on the X chromosome. Natural selection, the thinking said, gradually stripped those “toxic” variants away. A new analysis from Sarah Tishkoff’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania argues that the emptiness may say more about who paired with whom than which genes were dangerous. In Science, the team reports a mirror-image pattern inside Neanderthal genomes. Neanderthals carried unusually high levels of modern human DNA on their X chromosomes compared with the rest of their genome. That reversal, they say, makes simple “toxicity” a much harder explanation to defend. The deserts and the old assumption “Along our X chromosomes, we have these missing swaths of Neanderthal DNA we call ‘Neanderthal deserts,’” says Alexander Platt, a senior research …

Everyone’s a queen: The ant species with no males or workers

Everyone’s a queen: The ant species with no males or workers

Published by skeptic

Temnothorax makora ants are parasitised by the related species Temnothorax kinomurai clurarit/iNaturalist A parasitic species of ant from Japan is the first ever found to have done away with both males and female workers – instead, every individual is a queen that tries to take over the nests of other species. Typically, ant colonies consist of a queen, female workers and short-lived males that die after mating. For more than 40 years, researchers have suspected that the rare parasitic ant Temnothorax kinomurai only produces queens, but until now there has been no definitive proof. Young queens of this parasitic species take over the nests of a related species, Temnothorax makora, killing the host queen and some workers by stinging them. They then reproduce asexually, producing cloned offspring in a process called parthenogenesis, which is rare in ants but common among some other insects. The T. makora workers are duped into helping raise the young T. kinomurai queens. Jürgen Heinze at the University of Regensburg, Germany, and his colleagues collected six colonies with T. kinomurai queens …