Animals

Life

Evolutionary genetic relationships coming into focus

Researchers have filled in about 40 percent of the tree of life for mammals and birds, but other vertebrates lag behind.

Earth

Green-ish pesticides bee-devil honey makers

Pesticides are agents designed to rid targeted portions of the human environment of undesirable critters – such as boll weevils, roaches or carpenter ants. They’re not supposed to harm beneficials. Like bees. Yet a new study from China finds that two widely used pyrethroid pesticides – chemicals that are rather “green” as bug killers go – can significantly impair the pollinators’ reproduction.

Earth

Fowl surprise! Methylmercury improves hatching rate

A pinch of methylmercury is just ducky for mallard reproduction, according to a new federal study. The findings are counterintuitive, since methylmercury is ordinarily a potent neurotoxic pollutant.

Animals

Whale hunts: Discussions on lifting the ‘ban’

The International Whaling Commission will formally address its future, next week, at a meeting in St. Petersburg, Fla. Once comprised of whaling nations, the IWC now includes member states just as likely to condemn any hunting of cetaceans. That internal tension is guiding the meeting’s agenda. On it’s plate: whether to overturn the organization’s long-standing moratorium on commercial whaling.

Earth

Florida’s big chill may have hammered corals near shore

January cold snap caused rare wintertime coral bleaching and die-offs for Florida’s coral reefs.

Humans

Pet tarantulas can pose a hairy threat

A new medical case report reaffirms why even largely non-venomous tarantulas can make questionable pets. Some respond to stress by expelling a cloud of barbed hairs that can lodge in especially vulnerable tissues. Like your eyeball.

Earth

For coots, hatching order is crucial ID

When birds sneak eggs into others' nest, mom and dad can learn to find their own.

Life

Bird feeding, migration could be splitting a species

German birds that spend the off-season at U.K. birdfeeders now look slightly different from neighbors that migrate to Spain

Animals

Little push turns snail lefties to righties

Bumping an early embryo’s cells can switch the direction of its spiral.

Life

Fecal architecture is beetle armor

Predators have a hard time getting through the layers of excrement some beetle moms give their young.

Animals

Classic view of leaf-cutter ants overlooked nitrogen-fixing partner

A fresh look at a fungus-insect partnership that biologists have studied for more than a century uncovers a role for bacteria.

Life

Killer bees aren’t so smart

Brains are probably not what powers the invasive bee’s takeover from European honeybees