Animals
- Life
These fungi drug cicadas with psilocybin or amphetamine to make them mate nonstop
Massospora fungi use a compound found in magic mushrooms or an amphetamine to drive infected cicadas to mate and mate and mate.
- Archaeology
Capuchin monkeys’ stone-tool use has evolved over 3,000 years
A Brazilian archaeological site reveals capuchins’ long history of practical alterations to pounding implements, researchers say.
- Animals
Parasites ruin some finches’ songs by chewing through the birds’ beaks
Parasitic fly larvae damage the beaks of Galápagos finches, changing their mating songs and possibly causing females to pick males of a different species.
- Animals
U.S. honeybees had the worst winter die-off in more than a decade
Colonies suffered from parasitic, disease-spreading Varroa mites. Floods and fire didn’t help.
- Genetics
DNA confirms a weird Greenland whale was a narwhal-beluga hybrid
DNA analysis of a skull indicates that the animal had a narwhal mother and beluga father.
- Paleontology
Hyenas roamed the Arctic during the last ice age
Two teeth confirm the idea that hyenas crossed the Bering land bridge into North America, a study finds.
- Astronomy
Readers boggled by black hole behemoth
Readers had questions about the first image of a black hole and a chytrid fungus.
- Animals
Bats are the main cause of rare rabies deaths in the U.S.
In the United States, bats are mostly to blame for rabies deaths, while rabies transmitted by overseas dogs comes in second.
- Animals
Worms lure two new species of hopping rats out of obscurity
In the Philippines, scientists have identified two new species of shrew-rat, an animal whose limited habitat plays host to remarkable biodiversity.
- Oceans
Tiny plastic debris is accumulating far beneath the ocean surface
Floating trash patches scratch only the surface of the ocean microplastic pollution problem.
- Animals
Tiny structures in dragonfish teeth turn them into invisible daggers
The teeth of deep-sea dragonfish are transparent because of nanoscale crystals and rods that let light pass through without being scattered.
- Paleontology
Fossils reveal saber-toothed cats may have pierced rivals’ skulls
Two Smilodon fossil skulls from Argentina have puncture holes likely left by the teeth of rival cats.
