Animals
- Animals
When bees are away, moths come out to pollinate
Camera footage reveals that moths make roughly a third of the visits to red clover, working under the cover of night.
- Life
Your face is mighty mite-y. And that’s a good thing
Tiny face mites live in our pores, getting food and shelter in return for eating our skin waste. A new study shows they can’t live without us.
- Fossils
Warm feathers may have helped dinos survive mass Triassic die-off
Dinosaurs may have weathered freezing conditions about 202 million years ago, thanks to warm feathery coats.
- Animals
The top side of an elephant’s trunk is surprisingly stretchy
Research on elephant trunks could inspire new artificial skins for soft robots.
- Fossils
This big dino had tiny arms before T. rex made them cool
A predecessor to Tyrannosaurus rex, Meraxes gigas had a giant head. But the muscularity of its puny arms suggests those limbs served some purpose.
- Animals
Gophers might be farmers, a controversial study suggests
Pocket gophers air out and fertilize the soil in a way that amounts to simple farming, two researchers claim. But not everyone agrees.
- Fossils
Great white sharks may be partly to blame for the end of megalodons
Zinc levels in shark teeth hint that megalodons and great whites competed for food — and great whites won.
- Tech
Like an octopus, this glove lets fingers grip slippery objects
The octopus-inspired suckers on each fingertip grab and release objects on demand.
- Animals
Why these jumping toadlets get confused mid-flight
The tiny pumpkin toadlet tumbles when it jumps. Its ear canals may be too tiny to help the animal track its motion through the air.
- Plants
Catnip’s insect-repelling powers grow as Puss chews on it
Damaging the leaves boosts the plant’s chemical defenses — and their appeal to cats.
- Animals
Sleepy mosquitoes prefer dozing over dining
Mosquitoes repeatedly shaken to prevent slumber lagged behind well-rested ones when offered a leg to feed on.
- Animals
Butterfly ‘tails’ might be part of an escape tactic
Slender, tail-like extensions on their wings may help some butterflies survive attacks by hungry predators.
