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Does Nature Always Sound Natural?

The pentail tree shrew is a mouselike mammal that lives in the Malaysian rainforest. Shrews are nocturnal and spend most nights drinking nectar, their favorite being from bertam palm flowers. These flowers contain a yeast that ferments the nectar into 3.8% alcohol - as in beer. Although shrews consume a human equivalent of nine glasses a night, they never get intoxicated. Researchers surmise that's because shrews have a metabolism that detoxifies alcohol quickly - making them the perfect party animal.

Although mosquitoes are unwelcome animals at any party, only 50% bite. Female mosquitoes bite to get a rich source of protein - blood - needed to make embryonic tissue for their babies. In their lifetime female mosquitoes lay approximately 10 batches of eggs, with approximately 200 eggs per batch. Maybe the next time we're about to swat a mosquito we should express our empathy by turning the other cheek - or some other part of our body.

When most people look at the body of an octopus, they see 8 tentacles. What marine biologists at Sea Life Aquariums saw - with the help of 2,000 visitor observations - was six arms and two legs. In the study the octopuses were seen to favor their first three pairs of tentacles for grabbing and using objects, leaving the back pair to be used as legs. Obviously, when it comes to defending themselves, octopuses are well armed.

Researchers from the Paris Museum of Natural History weren't well armed to study climate change in Antarctica. Because their study was repeatedly interrupted by winter cold and floating ice, the researchers recruited help from area residents - seals. The researchers glued electronic, data-collecting equipment to dozens of elephant seals. Because the seals swim under ice, they can radio back information about temperature, pressure and salinity. Using this information scientists can calculate how fast sea ice forms in winter, which is an indicator of global warming that comes signed, sealed and delivered.

In August 2008 an evolutionary biologist from Penn State University delivered news that he'd discovered the world's smallest snake - 4 inches - on the island of Barbados. Although Barbadians have long known this snake as the thread snake, established scientific practice allows the first person to do a full description of a species to say he discovered it and to give it a scientific name. The biologist named the snake Leptotyphlogscartae after his wife Carla, but Barbadians have called the biologist other names.

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