Animals
- Animals
Platypuses are full of mystery
With duck bills, webbed feet and venomous spikes, platypuses are one of the weirdest animals you’ll ever be lucky enough to see.
- Neuroscience
Dogs’ brains may process speech similar to humans’
When it comes to interpreting human speech, dogs may have brain-hemisphere biases similar to people’s.
- Animals
10 bites of turkey trivia for your holiday meal
Will turkeys really drown if they look up in a rainstorm? Can they fly? Where did the domestic turkey come from? Learn answers to these questions and more.
- Animals
Vulture guts are filled with noxious bacteria
Vultures’ guts are chock-full of bacteria that sicken other creatures.
- Genetics
Genes linked to feather development predate dinosaurs
The genes for feather development may have existed more than 100 million years before dinosaurs sported hints of the fluffy plumage.
- Animals
Fully formed froglets emerge from dry bamboo nurseries
In remote India, a rare frog mates and lays eggs inside bamboo stalks. The eggs hatch into froglets, forgoing the tadpole stage.
- Animals
Scientists’ tags on fish may be leading seals to lunch
In an experiment, 10 young grey seals learned to associate the sound of a pinging tag with fish. The tags may make fish vulnerable to predators, scientists say.
- Animals
Virus implicated in sea star die-off
Sea stars on the west coast have been wasting away into puddles of slime. Now, scientists think they have pinpointed the virus that is causing the mass die-off of the dazzling marine creatures.
- Life
Springs bring gecko stickiness to human scale
Springs of a stretchy alloy let gecko-inspired adhesives work at human scales to climb glass walls or grab space junk.
- Life
Tasty animals end up on latest list of threatened species
Growing food market lands several species, including Pacific bluefin tuna and Chinese pufferfish, on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
- Environment
DDT lingers in Michigan town
Decades after a plant manufacturing DDT shut down in Michigan, the harmful insecticide is still found in neighboring birds and eggs.
- Life
Iguanas’ one-way airflow undermines usual view of lung evolution
Simple-looking structures create sophisticated one-way air flow in iguana lungs, undermining old scenarios of lung evolution.
