All Stories by Richard Kemeny
- Animals
Bird nests made with a toxic fungus seem to fend off attacking ants
Two species of birds in Costa Rica build nests in trees defended by ants. Ants that encounter the horsehair fungus in the nests develop odd behaviors.
- Animals
Ants changed the architecture of their nests when exposed to a pathogen
Black garden ants made tweaks to entrances, tunnels and chambers that may help prevent diseases from spreading.
- Animals
This snake goes to extremes to play dead — and it appears to pay off
When dice snakes fake their death to avoid predators, those that use a combination of blood, poop and musk spend less time pretending to be dead.
- Anthropology
Interlocking logs may be evidence of the oldest known wooden structure
Roughly 480,000-year-old wooden find from Zambia suggests early hominids were more skilled at structuring their environments than scientists realized.
- Life
Swarming locusts can deploy a chemical to avoid being cannibalized
Releasing a “don’t-eat-me” pheromone signals a locust has become a toxic treat. The finding could lead to new ways to control destructive swarms.
- Climate
‘Flash droughts’ are growing increasingly common
Droughts are forming faster more often in much of the world due to climate change, a new study finds.
- Anthropology
In Maya society, cacao use was for everyone, not just royals
Previously considered a preserve of Maya elites, cacao was consumed across all social strata, a new study finds.
- Anthropology
Humans may have started tending animals almost 13,000 years ago
Remnants from an ancient fire pit in Syria suggest that hunter-gatherers were burning dung as fuel by the end of the Old Stone Age.
- Life
An award-winning photo captures a ‘zombie’ fungus erupting from a fly
The winner of the 2022 BMC Ecology and Evolution photo competition captures a macabre cycle of life and death in the Peruvian Amazon.
- Animals
Relocated beavers helped mitigate some effects of climate change
Along a river in Washington state, the repositioned beavers built dams that lowered stream temperatures and boosted water storage.
- Life
Lost genes may help explain how vampire bats survive on blood alone
The 13 identified genes underpin a range of physiological and behavioral strategies that the bats have evolved.
- Animals
Deep-sea Arctic sponges feed on fossilized organisms to survive
Slow-moving sponges, living deep in the Arctic Ocean where no currents deliver food, scavenge a carpet of long-dead critters.
