The Pregnant Male: The seahorse is a strange fish. Many of the traits it possesses have evolved in a direction unlike any other family of animals underwater—its bent S-shape; its head at a 90-degree angle to its body; its prehensile tail; and, most curiously, the male’s brood pouch. A lab at Texas A&M University led by Adam Jones is currently studying these structures in the hope of understanding how it was that male pregnancy evolved in seahorses and how it affects the traditional sex roles in the fish. [Popsci]
Whales Evolved Separate Ways to Avoid the Bends: One of the largest studies ever of modern and fossil whales has determined that virtually all modern whales appear to have evolved safeguards against the bends, a sometimes fatal condition in which nitrogen bubbles form in blood and tissues after too rapid decompression. [Discovery]
Lots of Animals Learn, but Smarter Isn’t Better: Dr. Kawecki and like-minded scientists are trying to figure out why animals learn and why some have evolved to be better at learning than others. One reason for the difference, their research finds, is that being smart can be bad for an animal’s health. [NYT]
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