6,697 results
- Animals
Climate change may rob male dragonfly wings of their dark spots
Less colorful, cooler wings may be advantageous to dragonflies in a warmer world. But the change could mess with the insects’ mating.
- Animals
How metal-infused jaws give some ants an exceptionally sharp bite
Some small animals make cuts, tears and punctures that they couldn’t otherwise do using body parts reinforced with metals such as zinc and manganese.
- Animals
Some wasps’ nests glow green under ultraviolet light
Some Asian paper wasps’ nests fluoresce so brilliantly that the glow is visible from up to 20 meters away.
- Science & Society
Racism lurks in names given to plants and animals. That’s starting to change
Racist legacies linger in everyday lingo for birds, bugs and more. Some scientists see the chance to change that.
- Animals
This praying mantis inflates a strange pheromone gland to lure mates
Researchers stumbled across a first among mantises: an inflatable organ that spreads pheromones, helping mates find each other in the dark rainforest.
- Animals
Here are 7 incredible things we learned this year that animals can do
From wielding weapons to walking on the underside of water, these are the creature capabilities that most impressed us in 2021.
-
- Ecosystems
As ‘phantom rivers’ roar, birds and bats change their hunting habits
A massive experiment in the Idaho wilderness shows it’s not just human-made noises that impact ecosystems. Natural noises can too.
- Paleontology
The dinosaur-killing asteroid impact radically altered Earth’s tropical forests
The asteroid impact fundamentally reset the nature of Earth’s tropical rainforests, decreasing diversity at first and making them permanently darker.
- Science & Society
These are Science News’ favorite books of 2021
Our favorite books covered the Big Bang theory, human evolution, gene editing, how to define life, pseudoscience and more.
- Animals
Climate change may be shrinking tropical birds
Scientists had previously found that migratory birds are getting smaller as temperatures rise. Dozens of tropical, nonmigratory species are too.
- Science & Society
6 surprising records science set in 2021
Ancient mammoth DNA and a new source of gravitational waves set new records this year.
