Animals
- Health & Medicine
Hibernation: Secrets of the big sleep
Mammals from bears to squirrels hibernate the winter away. Learning how they do it might one day help people mimic aspects of it to heal from brain injuries or voyage to Mars.
- Animals
Explainer: How brief can hibernation be?
Many animals frequently slow body functions and drop their temperatures — sometimes for just a day. Is that hibernation, or just torpor? Are the two even related? Scientists disagree.
- Animals
Wild hamsters raised on corn eat their young alive
European hamsters raised in the lab turn into crazy cannibals when fed a diet rich in corn, new data show. The problem may trace to a shortage of a key vitamin.
- Animals
Cool Jobs: Abuzz for bees
These scientists are keeping bees healthy, making medicines for people from honey and constructing bee-inspired robots.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Hibernation
Hibernation is more than a deep sleep. Animals that hibernate lower their body temperature and reduce their body activities for months.
- Animals
Under blanket of ice, lakes teem with life
Life under frozen lakes is vibrant, complex and surprisingly active, new research finds. In fact, some plants and animals can only live under the ice. But with climate change, will that continue?
- Plants
Warm petals may attract chilly bees
Dark-purple violet petals are warmer than a light-purple variant. And and that warmth might explain their attraction to potentially chilly bees.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Torpor
When an animal enters torpor, its body temperature goes down and so does the amount of energy it uses.
- Oceans
Deep-sea mining could imperil rare, ghostlike octopus
A newly discovered octopus lays its eggs in a dangerous spot: where companies are looking to mine valuable metals for use in cell phones and computers.
- Fossils
What killed the dinosaurs?
New evidence is emerging that a devastating combo of events — an asteroid impact and supervolcanoes — may be behind the dinosaurs’ demise.
- Animals
How birds know what not to tweet
How do birds perfect their pitches? The chemical dopamine spikes when they sing right, and dips when they drop a note, new data show.
- Fossils
Dinosaur tail preserved in amber — feathers and all
Scientists have found the tail of a dinosaur trapped in amber. It includes both feathers and identifiable bits of bone.
