How a Venus flytrap snaps up its victims
A sharp rise in global temperatures about 50 million years ago may have been responsible for the evolution of bats, Science magazine reports. This warming is linked to an explosion in the diversity of other mammals, but little was known about bat evolution. New DNA data traces the origin of four major bat lineages to a brief period in the Eocene Epoch when the average global temperature rose by about 7[°]C.
A venus flytrap snaps shut faster than you can blink. And now we know why. Whereas our sluggish movements are the result of muscles contracting, the plant snaps shut in the way that a torn tennis ball flips inside out.