News
- Animals
It’s a snake! No, a fish. An octopus?
An as-yet-unnamed species of octopus seems to be protecting itself by impersonating venomous animals from sea snakes to flatfish.
By Susan Milius -
Human Brains May Take Unique Turn
Preliminary evidence indicates that the human brain may undergo a unique form of fetal development that facilitates the growth of brain areas involved in symbolic thought and language.
By Bruce Bower - Computing
Computer paints a charged bioportrait
By employing a novel computational strategy, researchers have mapped the electrical landscape of biological molecules made up of more than 1 million atoms.
- Paleontology
New fossil sheds light on dinosaurs’ diet
Vestiges of soft tissue preserved in a 70-million-year-old Mongolian fossil suggest that some dinosaurs could have strained small bits of food from the water and mud of streams and ponds, just like some modern aquatic birds do.
By Sid Perkins - Health & Medicine
Insulin lowers more than blood sugar
Insulin may reduce inflammation and protect the heart.
By John Travis - Health & Medicine
Healing the heart from within
An unusual mouse strain can regenerate heart tissue when the organ is damaged.
By John Travis - Health & Medicine
Stem cell research marches on
Cells from human embryos can be transformed into heart cells or insulin-secreting cells.
By John Travis - Paleontology
Completing a titan by getting a head
When paleontologists unearthed the skeleton of a 70-million-year-old titanosaur in Madagascar in the late 1990s, they also recovered something that had been missing from previous such finds: a skull that matched the body.
By Sid Perkins - Paleontology
That’s no footprint, it’s got no toes
The impressions near Isona, Spain, long thought to be fossilized dinosaur footprints may actually record the feeding behavior of stingrays.
By Sid Perkins - Animals
Big woodpeckers trash others’ homes
Pileated woodpeckers destroy in an afternoon the nesting cavities that take endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers 6 years to excavate.
By Susan Milius - Animals
When rare species eat endangered ones
To cut down on their salmon smolt catch, Caspian terns were encouraged to move from one island to another in the Columbia River.
By Susan Milius - Animals
Oops. New feathers turn out lousy
Going to the trouble of molting doesn't really get rid of a bird's lice after all.
By Susan Milius