Animals
- Earth
Oh, rats — there go the snails
A food fad among introduced rats has apparently crashed a once-thriving population of Hawaii’s famed endemic tree snails.
- Animals
Oops, missed that fossil iridescence
Nanostructures on a preserved feather offer the first fossil evidence of bird colors not from pigments, a new study says.
- Animals
Fruity whiff may inspire new mosquito repellents
Odors from ripening bananas can jam fruit flies’ and mosquitoes’ power to detect carbon dioxide, a new study finds.
- Animals
Back off, extinct moa
A New Zealand tree’s peculiar leaves may have served as defenses against long-gone giant birds.
- Animals
Vocal abilities lost, found and drowned out
Reports from the meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union
- Earth
Rapid evolution may be reshaping forest birds’ wings
Logging during the last century might have driven birds in mature boreal forests toward pointier wings while reforestation in New England led to rounder wings.
- Animals
SOS: Call the ants
Emergency ant workers bite at snares, dig and tug to free trapped sisters
- Animals
Tool use to crow about
A pair of new studies indicates that crows can employ tools in advanced ways, including using stones to displace water in a container and manipulating three sticks in sequence to reach food.
- Life
Death-grip fungus made me do it
Infection may be driving ants to set their jaws in low-hanging leaves before they die.
- Animals
Of mice and men
Rapid anatomical changes in rodents linked to increases in human population density, precipitation.
- Animals
New HIV-1 group
Scientists have identified another variant of the virus that can cause AIDS.
- Life
Bent innards give orchid its kick
Violent pollen delivery in Catasetum flowers gets its power from temporarily deformed inner strip
