Sebuah teori kontroversial tentang evolusi manusia mendapat dukungan baru-baru ini. David Attenborough, pendukung teori kontroversial ini menunjukkan bahwa manusia berasal dari kera yang muncul dari air. Kera tersebut kehilangan bulu mereka, mulai berjalan tegak dan kemudian otak besarnya dapat berkembang.

Teori ini telah muncul 50 tahun yang lalu dan mendapat cemoohan beberapa ilmuwan sejak pertama kali muncul. Kelompok ilmuwan yang meyakini teori ini akan mengadakan konferensi London pada pekan depan.

Teori kera air (aquatic apes) mengatakan bahwa mereka muncul karena nenek moyang kita memutuskan untuk tinggal di dalam atau dekat dengan air selama jutaan tahun. Ahli biologi Inggris, Sir Alister Hardy adalah ilmuwan pertama yang berteori bahwa manusia berasal dari keturunan kera air. Dia menulis bahwa kera turun dari pohon untuk hidup di sungai yang kaya makanan maupun di laut.

Kera-kera ini berevolusi menjadi tegak ketika mereka mencoba untuk menjaga kepala mereka supaya tetap diatas air. Akibatnya, mereka juga akan kehilangan rambut. Mereka menimbun lemak untuk tetap hangat di dalam air.

Rhys Evans, seorang ahli fisiologi kepala dan leher di Royal Marsden hospital, London mengatakan bahwa manusia memiliki sinus yang besar. Ia berpendapat bahwa ruang antara pipi, hidung dan dahi ini bertindak sebagai alat bantu apung yang membantu menjaga kepala di atas air.

Pendukung teori ini juga berpendapat bahwa biokimia otak manusia bisa membantu membuktikan adanya hubungan ini. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) atau asam lemak omega-3 yang ditemukan dalam makanan laut dapat meningkatkan pertumbuhan otak pada mamalia.

VIENNA - Until now, the earthquake was the most natural kind of events can not be predicted when it will happen. New quake known as vibration was felt. However, recent studies in Germany will get the earthquake could be felt red forest ants (red wood ant).

Gabriele berberich research conducted at the University Duisburg-Essen, Germany, found the ant behavior changes when an earthquake will occur. Signs of the earthquake would be known from the "anxiety" of the ants, it is seen from the violation of diurnal lifestyle.

Ants are animals with normal diurnal pattern of life, which is active during the day to gather food and move, then rest at night. However, when an earthquake will happen, it will be red ant colonies kept awake all night outside their nest though this situation makes them vulnerable to attacks from predators.

When the earthquake was over, normal behavior would be back though not necessarily. In that study, the red ant behavior normal activities the day after the earthquake passed.

Recording three years

Berberich Gabriele and his team of researchers studied the behavior of red ants in their natural habitat in the forests. The study was conducted over three years in 2009-2012. During the study period, the red ant behavior was recorded on video, 24 hours a day.

In the study period, there were 10 quakes with power ranging from 2 to 3.2 on the Richter scale (SR). Of these events, the researchers found changes in behavior every time an earthquake will occur, that it was just going to an earthquake exceeding 2 SR. 2 magnitude earthquake is also the smallest vibration force can be felt human.

When explaining the study results in the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday (04/11/2013), berberich explains ant behavior changes before earthquakes presumably related to their receptors. These behavioral changes were also associated with changes in gas emissions or the Earth's magnetic field that occur in the ant habitat when the earthquake struck.

Berberich said red forest ant has two receptors. Both receptors are kimi (chemoreceptor) to detect the levels of carbon dioxide and magnetic receptors (magnetoreceptor) to "monitor" electromagnetic fields.

"(But) we're not sure why or how they react to stimuli or stimulus that appeared," I berberich as quoted by OurAmazingPlanet, Thursday (04/11/2013). Because of that, he and his team of researchers plans to deepen the study seismic activity in the region with higher to see the reaction of red ants on a larger quake.

This study also obtain other findings, is still associated with forest fire ants. This ant nest location was also raises unique facts. The researchers got around 15 thousand ants nest in the object position of research and they call it as a stack nest candy on the conveyor belt to describe the nest row along faults Germany.

In the winter, their metabolism slows bears more than can be predicted by their body temperature.

Do not judge a bear of body temperature, such as indicated by the first data on the physiology of hibernation.

There's something that happens to a black bear hibernation that slows metabolic ratio was more than could be explained by a low body temperature, according to the report Øivind Tøien ecological physiologists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

In the winter of Alaska, the black bear closely monitored, lowering their body temperature an average of only 5.5 degrees Celsius, as reported by Tøien and his colleagues in the February 18 issue of the journal Science. Calculations predict that the physiological standard cold as it will slow down the metabolism of about 65 percent ratio nonhibernasi break. However, your metabolism slows down even the bears is to zone the energy savings on average only 25 percent of the basic ratios summer.