6,745 results
- Animals
When Ants Squeak
In the past 20 years, researchers studying sound communication in ants have discovered a sort of ant-ernet, zinging with messages about lost relatives, great food, free rides for hitchhikers, caterpillars in search of ant partners, and impending doom.
- Ecosystems
Mistletoe, of all things, helps juniper trees
A mistletoe that grows on junipers may do the trees a favor by attracting birds that spread the junipers' seeds.
- Animals
Roach gals get less choosy as time goes by
As their first reproductive peak wanes, female cockroaches become more like male ones, willing to mate with any potential partner that moves.
- Paleontology
Rocks yield clues to flower origins
A distinctive organic chemical related to substances produced by modern flowering plants has been found in ancient fossil-bearing sediments, possibly helping to identify the ancestral plants that gave rise to flowers.
- Materials Science
Gems of War
While international bodies grapple with regulatory schemes to stem the diamond trade that funds ongoing civil conflicts in African countries, scientists are attempting to develop methods for identifying gems from conflict zones.
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From the October 10, 1931, issue
X-RAYS FIND NEW BEAUTIES FOR STUDENTS OF FLOWERS Searching the secrets of a flowers heart acquires new esthetic significance at least, and may become of importance in plant physiology and anatomy, too, through an X-ray technique developed by Mrs. Hazel Engelbrecht of Des Moines. It is not the first time that X rays have been […]
- Astronomy
Extrasolar planets: More like home
A trove of newly discovered planets orbiting other stars suggests that the solar system may not be the oddball it had begun to seem.
- Earth
Pharm Pollution
Antibiotics in sewage sludge and manure have the potential to poison plants or end up in food.
- Anthropology
Searching for the Tree of Babel
Researchers are using new methods of comparing languages to reveal information about the ancestry of different cultural groups and answer questions about human history.
- Paleontology
Fossils Indicate. . .Wow, What a Croc!
Newly discovered fossils of an ancient cousin of modern crocodiles suggest that adults of the species may have been dinosaur-munching behemoths that grew to the length of a school bus and weighed as much as 8 metric tons.
- Math
Election Selection
By ignoring how voters might rank all the candidates in an election, the plurality system opens the floodgates to unsettling, paradoxical results when there are three or more candidates.
- Anthropology
Humans in eastern Asia show ancient roots
Human ancestors lived in northeastern Asia about 1.36 million years ago, making it the oldest confirmed occupation site in eastern Asia.
