Fish in the News. Each week the Bailey Brothers start the Pet Fish Talk Show with some fun and interesting stories about fish in the news.       Hermit Crab in a Glass Shell. Click here to read more.       From  the University of California, Santa Barbara, A Difficult Youth Is A Good Thing For A Fish.  They discovered that fish larvae that survive a long, rough, offshore journey eventually arrive at a near shore reef in good condition, and that they thrive afterwards. In contrast, locally produced young have a relatively easy life and they arrive on the reef (near the area where they were spawned) in a variety of conditions –– from poor to good. Only the young that are in good condition survive after a month on the reef. "This research delves into one of the major questions of how populations are connected through dispersal," said Scott Hamilton, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology (EEMB) at UC Santa Barbara. "We want to know where the young of many marine organisms are coming from and going to, and what factors determine whether they survive." Click here to read more.       From McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Female Cichlids Decide  which Males Dominate. Aggression, testosterone and nepotism don't necessarily help one climb the social ladder, but the support of a good female can, according to new research on the social habits of an unusual African species of fish. "We found that changes in social status were regulated by the most dominant female in a social group", says John Fitzpatrick, shown just above, lead researcher and a graduate student in the department of Biology at McMaster University. "In fact, dominant females seemed to act as gatekeepers, allowing only males larger than themselves to move up in status and become dominant." Working underwater off the Zambian shores of Lake Tanganyika in Africa, the researchers examined how males respond to changes in social position in the cichlid fish, Neolamprologus pulcher, which is sometimes called the Daffodil. This species lives in permanent social groups made up of a dominant male and female breeding pair and subordinate males and females that help this pair look after young and defend territory. By removing the male breeders, researchers created vacancies and provided an opportunity for subordinate males to rise through the ranks. Click here to read more.       At the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, England, The Fish who Knows when it's Time to Eat. It's one of the facts that everyone knows and accepts: fish have little or no memory. But one particular fish is busy dispelling this myth after a scientist has managed to train him to eat on command. The giant humphead wrasse called Bentley, shown just above, knows that when a "dinner gong" is sounded in his tank it's time to go for food. Experts say Bentley, who is a tropical fish, has learned to associate the noise with feeding time in an experiment that mirrors the famous test carried out on dogs by Russian scientist, Pavlov. Click here to read more.       In Moscow Russians Plan for Huge Aquariums. For those who feel a bit cut off from the sea here in Moscow, you may be pleased to hear that the Moscow zoo at Krasnopresnenskaya will soon be introducing a huge aquarium with glass underwater passages. You can escape the slush and pollution of the city streets and, for the duration of your visit, experience an almost underwater existence as you make your way through the transparent corridors and marvel at the different species of fish. Click here to read more.         From Virginia Tech University in Virginia, U.S., "Avalon Explosion" Shaped Early Multicellular Life. Scientists have known for some time that most major groups of complex animals appeared in the fossils record during the Cambrian Explosion, a seemingly rapid evolutionary event that occurred 542 million years ago. Now Virginia Tech paleontologists, using rigorous analytical methods, have identified another explosive evolutionary event that occurred about 33 million years earlier among macroscopic life forms unrelated to the Cambrian animals. They dubbed this earlier event the "Avalon Explosion." Click here to read more.       Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy, Swimmers' Sunscreen Killing Coral. Normal coral, shown above on the left, exposed to ultraviolet filters found in sunscreen "bleaches" white, shown above on the right, when the algae living inside it die. Up to 10-percent of coral reefs are threatened by sunscreen-induced bleaching, a new study found. Click here to see the original article in National Geographic.       U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service in Honolulu, Hawaii, The Ocean's Biological Deserts Are Expanding. The Sahara, the Gobi, the Chihuahuan - all are great deserts. But what about the South Pacific's subtropical gyre? This "biological desert" within a swirling expanse of nutrient-starved saltwater is the largest, and least productive, ecosystem of the South Pacific. Together with the subtropical gyres in other oceans, biological deserts cover 40% of Earth's surface. But their relative obscurity may be about to change. Researchers are reporting that the ocean's biological deserts have been expanding, and they are growing much faster than global warming models predict. Click here to read more.   Callers during this Show George from Colorado calls and talks about his 120-gallon aquarium, ultraviolet sterilization, and his plans for his next big aquarium. Jay from Indiana calls and talks about what Tom wants to talk about, and we never actually find out why Jay called !! The Bailey Brothers encourage YOU to call Pet Fish Talk during the show and talk about your pet fish.     Download of this Entire Show Here's how: Right-Click here, then click on "Save Target (or Link) As ...".  Navigate to the folder you prefer, and click on the button labeled "Save". Later you can copy the MP3-file to your iPod or other MP3-player. You can also burn files to CDs, then play them in a CD-player.  Click here to download the PodCast for this show. 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