Animals

Health & Medicine

A fungus plus a spider toxin equals a weapon to kill mosquitoes

A new weapon could help fight mosquitoes that spread malaria. It’s an engineered fungus that infects the insects — then kills them with a spider poison.

Health & Medicine

Bats are now the primary source of U.S. rabies deaths

Although human rabies is not common in the United States, it still occurs. But here dogs are no longer the likely source of this oft-lethal infection: Bats are.

Animals

A million species could vanish, and people are to blame

Human activities are putting a million plant and animal species at risk of extinction, a new study finds. But it’s not too late to save many of them, scientists add.

Animals

Young aphids sacrifice themselves to make home repairs

Young aphids swollen with fatty substances save their colony by self-sacrifice. They use that goo to patch breaches in the wall of their tree home.

Ecosystems

Tiger sharks feast when migratory birds fall out of the sky

Migrating land-based birds that fall from the sky as they cross the Gulf of Mexico can end up in the belly of a young tiger shark.

Fossils

This tiny dinosaur is officially T. rex’s cousin

A newly identified dinosaur species fills a gap in the tyrannosaur family tree.

Microbes

Slimy fish could aid the search for new drugs

Fish slime could teach scientists about bacteria that live on fish and aid in the hunt for new kinds of antibiotics.

Animals

Analyze This: Amphibian populations are on the decline

The chytrid fungus has been wiping out amphibians around the world. Scientists have tallied up the declines and found that the fungus is responsible for dozens of extinctions.

Life

In a first, scientists keep cells alive in the brains of dead pigs

They’re not true zombies — but these pig brains showed signs of cellular life long after the animals had died.

Animals

Let’s turn a genie blue

Aladdin’s genie is very magical. He’s also blue. What might explain that? Nature has some tricks on offer.

Animals

Bats in the attic prompt boys to create a better bat detector

When a teen learned he had 700 bats in his attic, he decided to develop a better bat detector.

Health & Medicine

Geneticists get closer to knowing how mosquitoes sniff out our sweat

Scientists have found that a protein in the antennae of some mosquitoes detects a chemical in human sweat.