Latest Tail Stories

WATCH VIDEO: [Seahorse Armor Offers Insight Into Robotic Design] Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online According to materials science professor Joanna McKittrick of the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California-San Diego (UCSD), “The study of natural materials can lead to the creation of new and unique materials and structures inspired by nature that are stronger, tougher, lighter and more flexible.” In November of last year, redOrbit reported...

STOCKHOLM, April 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Tail-f Systems, a leading provider of network service programmability solutions for traditional and software-defined networks (SDN), today announced that Deutsche Telekom has chosen Tail-f Systems to deliver the key software components of its software-defined network in its TeraStream project. As the face of networking is changing, TeraStream's goal is to create an all-IP transformation to cope with exponential traffic growth while...

Rising importance of applications and services driving interest in SDN STOCKHOLM, April 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Tail-f Systems today announced the findings of its 2013 Software Defined Networking Survey, which shows nearly nine of ten organizations are at least discussing SDN. In fact, SDN was judged by more than 200 large companies in North America to be the single most important technology initiative, eclipsing cloud, virtualization and mobility. Despite the high interest,...

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Some lizards have the innate ability to re-grow their tails when their original one gets severed. However, this natural regenerative ability does not occur in a perfect way. In other words, the new tail, based on studies by a team of scientists from two Arizona schools, is quite different from the original appendage it replaces. Scientists from Arizona State University and University of Arizona examined the anatomical and...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online It is so much easier to know how your cat feels than your boyfriend or girlfriend, right? The position of the ears, the movement of the tail; they give you more clues to go by. Well, maybe you can play pin the tail on the boyfriend, now. Neuro Ware, the makers of this year's hit gizmo, Necomimi – the kitty ears that read your brain waves and move to display them – has started working on a robotic tail that moves according to...

A new study says that a species of dinosaur may have acted like a Las Vegas showgirl in order to attract males. Oviraptor dinosaurs had a fan of feathers similar to a flamenco dancer in Las Vegas, along with a flexible tail. The scientists said this dinosaur species may have flashed these feathers to attract attention in a way similar to the modern-day peacock. Scott Persons, a doctoral student at the University of Alberta, presented the research at the Society for Vertebrate...

Male peacock tail plumage and courtship antics likely influence their success at attracting and mating with females, according to recent Queen's University research.Roz Dakin and Robert Montgomerie have found that natural variation in the number of eyespots on a peacock's tail does not impact a male's mating success. However, peacocks whose tails are clipped to considerably reduce the number of eyespots are less successful at mating.Female rejection of males with substantially fewer eyespots...

A 2-year-old boy who climbed a retaining wall at an Albuquerque, N.M., zoo ended up in the clutches of monkey tails, zoo officials said. The monkeys at Rio Grande Zoo thrust their tails through a mesh fence and took hold of the boy's feet Wednesday, KOAT-TV, Albuquerque, reported. The child suffered only a few scratches from nearby rocks. The monkeys wrapped their tail around the child's feet, and he got a little bit excited, and the monkeys may have gotten excited also, said Rick Janser,...

New members enhance the OpenSAF eco-system by providing support and integration for open source, high availability middleware projects.DANVILLE, Calif., July 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The OpenSAF Foundation, the umbrella organization for the OpenSAF open source high availability middleware project, announced today that its membership has expanded with the addition of Tail-f Systems and IP Infusion(TM) Inc., two leading software vendors to the communications industry. Membership in the...

If you've ever tried capturing a lizard, you'll know how difficult it is. But if you do manage to corner one, many have the ultimate emergency quick release system for escape. They simply drop their tails, leaving the twitching body part to distract the predator as they scamper to safety. According to Gary Gillis from Mount Holyoke College, USA, up to 50% of some lizard populations seem to have traded some part of their tails in exchange for escape. This made Gillis wonder how this loss may...