Animals

  1. Life

    Bloodthirsty bedbugs have feasted on prey for 100 million years

    Research sheds light on the evolutionary history of the bloodsucking bedbugs. The first species evolved at least as early as the Cretaceous, scientists say.

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  2. Animals

    Peacock spiders’ superblack spots reflect just 0.5 percent of light

    By manipulating light with tiny structures, patches on peacock spiders appear superblack, helping accentuate the arachnids’ bright colors.

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  3. Genetics

    Tweaking one gene with CRISPR switched the way a snail shell spirals

    The first gene-edited snails confirm which gene is responsible for the direction of the shell’s spiral.

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  4. Animals

    Deep-sea fishes’ eye chemistry might let them see colors in near darkness

    An unexpected abundance of proteins for catching dim light evolved independently in three groups of weird deep-sea fishes.

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  5. Earth

    A belly full of wriggling worms makes wood beetles better recyclers

    Common beetles that eat rotten logs chew up more wood when filled with a roundworm larvae, releasing nutrients more quickly back to the forest floor.

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  6. Ecosystems

    War wrecked an African ecosystem. Ecologists are trying to restore it

    Bringing back big predators to Gorongosa, once a wildlife paradise in Mozambique, is just one piece of the puzzle in undoing the damage there.

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  7. Animals

    These award-winning photographs capture rarely seen wildlife and landscapes

    Winners of the California Academy of Sciences’ annual photo contest dove deep underwater and hiked to great heights to create these striking images.

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  8. Animals

    Pandas’ share of protein calories from bamboo rivals wolves’ from meat

    The panda gut digests protein in bamboo so well that the animal’s nutritional profile for calories resembles a wolf’s.

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  9. Paleontology

    A dinosaur’s running gait may reveal insights into the history of bird flight

    In what may have been a precursor to avian flight, a flightless winged dinosaur may have flapped its wings as it jogged.

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  10. Agriculture

    Can Silicon Valley entrepreneurs make crickets the next chicken?

    Entrepreneurs are bringing automation and data analysis to insect agriculture to build a profitable business that helps feed the planet.

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  11. Animals

    Hippo poop cycles silicon through the East African environment

    By chowing down on grass and then excreting into rivers and lakes, hippos play a big role in transporting a nutrient crucial to the food web.

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  12. Animals

    How aphids sacrifice themselves to fix their homes with fatty goo

    Young aphids swollen with fatty substances save their colony by self-sacrifice, using that goo to patch breaches in the wall of their tree home.

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