Solved: the mystery of where feathers, fur and scales come from and other top stories.

• Solved: the mystery of where feathers, fur and scales come from

  

  Michel Milinkovitch only bought the naked bearded dragon because he was curious. He had stumbled upon the unfortunate, odd-looking creature while visiting a reptile breeder. It was utterly scale-less, covered only in leathery, wrinkled skin, and it lacked the spiked neck frill characteristic of its species. Wondering what kind of genetic fluke might have created it, Milinkovitch took the mutant back to his lab at the University of Geneva, where he studies evolutionary developmental biology, an..

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• Overacheiving Hubble mission gets five more years

  

  STS-82 Crew, STScI, NASA The Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990 and was originally expected to have a lifespan of just 15 years. It's far exceeded all expectations, and remains operational today, although it's most recent servicing mission, in 2009, was expected to be its last, with the James Webb Space Telescope slated for a launch in 2018.Now the Hubble Space Telescope has been officially granted a reprie..

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• Much like older humans, older monkeys have fewer friends

  

  Monkeys' social circles tend to grow smaller as they grow older, according to a recent study that researchers say could also shed some light on human behavior. The study, published in Current Biology, studied the social behavior of more than 100 Barbary macaque monkeys living in an enclosed 50-acre park in southern France. The monkeys ranged in age from 4 to 29, the latter age being the equivalent of about 105 in human years. Researchers found that monkeys of different ages reacted in different..

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• Shark Week 2016: Best Hotels And Experiences For Shark Fans

  

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• Salmon fishing reopens in Puget Sound, including Sekiu and east Strait of Juan de Fuca

  

  Salmon fishing reopens in Puget Sound, including Sekiu and east Strait of Juan de Fuca The Associated Press SEATTLE — The state has opened Puget Sound marine area rivers and lakes that were closed because of protracted negotiations between tribal and state officials.The state Department of Fish and Wildlife said Friday it received federal approval to open Puget Sound areas that had been closed May 1.If the closure had continued, it would have had an impact on salmon seasons off the Strait of..

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• Arctic Snow Is Turning Red And We Should Be Alarmed, Warn Scientists

  

  Algae is putting the heat on our ice caps. It makes for some pretty pink snow, but the impact of the algae does more damage with each spring and summer season.  ( Nature ) Blood snow, or watermelon snow, has been recognized since the days of Aristotle, but the problem is that climate change continues to accelerate that process and earth's ice caps are starting to look like a blood bath. The plantlike cells that give the snow its pink pigment is snow algae, and it's drawing heat t..

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• Pluto's Subsurface Ocean Likely Exists Today

  

  Ongoing geological activity on Pluto seen by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft could be caused by the partial freezing of a subsurface ocean that likely still exists today, a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters says. Noah P. Hammond, Brown University, is lead author on the paper, "Recent Tectonic Activity on Pluto Driven by Phase Changes in the Ice Shell." Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Amy C. Barr is Hammond's academic graduate advisor and co-author on the paper. "Ou..

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