Washington, March 18 : A new research has found that families of animals grouped together by a similar body plan, with the greatest diversity of species, were also those with the largest range of body sizes.

The research was carried out by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) researchers in the US, as part of an analysis of body sizes across all orders of animal life.

Researchers Craig McClain and Alison Boyer created a giant database on body sizes across all orders of animal life and found that phyla - families of animals grouped together by a similar body plan - with the greatest diversity of species were also those with the largest range of body sizes.

Sydney, March 18 : An ecologist has said that large herbivores like elephants need to be introduced in regions such as Australia and South America, which would help save threatened native plants.

According to a report by ABC News, Professor Chris Johnson, of James Cook University, Far North Queensland, Australia, ecologist has called for the introduction of elephants into South America and the creation of Pleistocene parks across the world.

"The re-introduction of large herbivores to the Americas would help restore ecosystems and save threatened native species," he said.

Washington, March 18 : A team of scientists has made a new type of glass from opaque titanium and zirconium, which is harder, tougher and weighs less than stainless steel.

According to a report in Discovery News, the glass has been developed by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, US.

The scientists who developed and tested the opaque glass hope it could one day replace steel and aluminum in a wide variety of products, from golf clubs to airplanes.

"The problem with most (types of) glass is that they have very bad fatigue resistance," meaning they break easily, said Maximilien Launey, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

London, March 18: Four Spanish students have managed to take stunning pictures of space from 20-miles above Earth, using only a 56 pounds camera and latex balloon.

According to a report in the Telegraph, taking atmospheric readings and photographs 20 miles above the ground, the Meteotek team of IES La Bisbal School in Catalonia, Spain, completed their incredible experiment at the end of February this year.

Building the electronic sensor components from scratch, Gerard Marull Paretas, Sergi Saballs Vila, Marta Gasull Morcillo and Jaume Puigmiquel Casamort managed to send their heavy duty 43 pounds latex balloon to the edge of space and take readings of its ascent.

Washington, March 18 : Scientists have found five specimens of 95 million year old fossils of Cretaceous octopuses, which reveals a much earlier origin for the modern octopus.

The five specimens have been found by palaeontologists in Cretaceous rocks in Lebanon, which have astonishingly preserved the octopuses' eight arms with traces of muscles and those characteristic rows of suckers.

The chances of an octopus corpse surviving long enough to be fossilized are so small that prior to this discovery only a single fossil species was known, and from fewer specimens than octopuses have legs.

Even traces of the ink and internal gills are present in some specimens.

Washington, March 18: A new research by Michigan State University (MSU) scientists has indicated that tiny creatures at the bottom of the food chain called diatoms could become less able to "sequester" greenhouse gas as the climate warms.

Diatoms, microscopic algae that are a major component of plankton living in puddles, lakes and oceans, suck up nearly a quarter of the atmosphere''s carbon dioxide (CO2).

For the research, Zoology professor Elena Litchman, with MSU colleague Christopher Klausmeier and Kohei Yoshiyama of the University of Tokyo, explored how nutrient limitation affects the evolution of the size of diatoms in different environments.