Animals
- Life
Cool Jobs: Puzzling over proteins to study life and death
Scientists are using proteins to understand dinosaur family trees, to fight malnutrition with a peanut-butter mix in Africa and to make “Google maps” of human cells.
- Environment
Light pollution can foil plant-insect hookups
An experiment in remote European meadows shows that light pollution at night can affect the pollination of flowers — even into sunlight hours.
- Animals
Poop-eating gulls can be pain in the butt for seal pups
The birds can harm baby fur seals as they try to dine on fresh parasites in the pups’ feces.
- Animals
Three simple rules guide fire ants in building towers
Fire ants build towers of ants to protect themselves during a flood. New research reveals the simple rules that guide how they do this, no foreman needed.
- Ecosystems
As trees come down, some hidden homes are disappearing
Animals such as frogs, toucans and possums live in tree hollows. But as people have cut down trees, a wildlife housing shortage has developed in some places.
- Fossils
Camo might have helped this armored dinosaur avoid becoming lunch
An armored dinosaur the size of a Japanese sedan also wore camouflage, a new analysis of its skin suggests.
- Animals
Whales feast when hatcheries release salmon
Humpback whales are visiting sites where hatcheries release juvenile salmon in Alaska. It’s a dining bonanza for the huge whales.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Dire wolf
Dire wolves are an extinct species of wolf that roamed North America from about 300,000 to 12,000 years ago.
- Animals
These sharks get help swallowing from their shoulders
Some sharks suck in food by snapping open their jaws. But to gulp it all the way down, they’ve got to give their shoulders a workout.
- Animals
What do animals do during a solar eclipse?
A citizen-science experiment used the Great American Eclipse of 2017 to gather the largest dataset ever of animal responses to a sun-block.
- Animals
Giant Antarctic sea spiders breathe really strangely
Sea spiders have many bizarre body systems. Scientists have now discovered that they breathe and circulate oxygen in a way never seen before.
- Animals
This tiny animal is apocalypse-proof
Microscopic animals called water bears can survive nearly any kind of apocalypse, from asteroids and nuclear war to exploding stars.
