Mum sperm whales have babysitters when they go food shopping!

September 23rd, 2009 LONDON - A new research by scientists has determined that blue whales have had to increase their 'singing' to cope with noise pollution from ships. Man-made noise such as ships' engines has caused hearing loss in whales.

September 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new research has determined that killer whales have to raise their voices to be heard over ship noise, and the effort may be wearing the whales out as they try to find food amid dwindling numbers of salmon. According to a report in National Geographic News, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) carried out the research.

September 2nd, 2009 SYDNEY - Secret Soviet whaling between 1947 and 1973 wiped out some humpback whale population in the Pacific, according to a new study. Wally Franklin, doctoral student at the Sydney based Southern Cross University's Whale Research Centre and co-director of The Oceania Project, co-authored the paper.

August 3rd, 2009 LONDON - Hydrophones have revealed that bowhead whales can sing in different voices to attract a mate and thereby ensure the species' survival. This is probably because global warming has opened up the Northwest Passage in 125,000 years, enabling the 100 tonne bowhead whales of the northern Pacific to reach Disko Bay in Greenland to mate with other whales.

July 10th, 2009 LONDON - Attractive males release fewer sperm per mating to maximise their chances of producing offspring across a range of females, according to a new study. The findings by researchers at UCL (University College London) and the University of Oxford suggest that, paradoxically, mating with attractive males may be less fertile than those with unattractive ones.

July 10th, 2009 MELBOURNE - A new piece of research on red junglefowl, an ancestor of chickens, has shown that males can adjust the speed and effectiveness of their sperm, based on whether they find their mate attractive. Published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the study adds to the growing body of evidence that males from promiscuous species, including humans, increase the chances of fertilisation when the female is deemed to be attractive.

July 9th, 2009 LONDON - Scientists are calling for more tests to ensure that artificial sperm created by some British researchers are identical to their natural counterpart, saying that further proof may make them a valuable tool to understand male infertility. Karim Nayernia and his colleagues at the University of Newcastle recently treated male embryonic stem cells (ESCs) with a range of substances, which converted them first into germline stem cells, and finally into spermatogonial stem cells.

July 7th, 2009 LONDON - a report published by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has suggested that watching whales is far more profitable than eating them. According to New Scientist, the report found that revenues from whale watching in 2008 reached 2.1 billion dollars, which is double the amount earned a decade ago.

July 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Having sex every day improves men's sperm quality, an Australian study has revealed. In a study of men with fertility problems, researchers found that daily ejaculation for a week cut the amount of DNA damage seen in sperm samples.

June 18th, 2009 Australia, NZ to study Antarctic whalesWELLINGTON, New Zealand — Australia and New Zealand announced Thursday a non-lethal whale research expedition to the Antarctic, a direct challenge to Japan's research program that kills up to 1,000 whales a year. The six-week expedition, to set sail in a New Zealand ship early next year, will prove that whales can be studied without killing them, the two governments said in a joint statement.

June 18th, 2009 Tiny crustacean big on reproductionWASHINGTON — When it comes to sexual reproduction, it turns out that size does matter, at least for a group of ancient crustaceans called ostracods. Modern versions of these tiny animals also have extra large sperm, but not to the extent of their relatives 100 million years ago, researchers report in Thursday's edition of the journal Science.

June 1st, 2009 LONDON - In a new research, scientists have discovered that there are babysitters in whale populations as well, which look after the young ones of mother whales while they go hunt for food. According to a report in New Scientist, Shane Gero of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, and colleagues tracked two populations of sperm whales in the Caribbean and Sargasso seas to see what happened when mother whales dived for food.

May 30th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Acoustic experts confirmed tracking a singing blue whale 112 km off the Long Island and New York City early this year, even as the second one was heard singing in the far distance. These endangered blue whales are the largest animals ever to have lived on this planet, and their voices can travel across an ocean.

May 23rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Sperm whales have been caught on camera stealing cod off fishing gear. The unique video shot on CCTV cameras shows sperm whales' ability to steal black cod off longlines of deep-sea fishing gear that features a main fishing line draped across the ocean and fastened with shorter lines bearing baited hooks.

January 24th, 2009 LONDON - A novel method, developed by scientists for testing the health of a sperm before it is used in IVF, boosts chances of conception. University of Edinburgh researchers have created a way of tagging individual sperm quality, so that only healthy ones are used in fertilising an egg as part of IVF treatment.