Life
- Plants
A well-known wildflower turns out to be a secret carnivore
A species of false asphodel wildflower snags prey with gluey, enzyme-secreting hairs, leaving a trail of insect corpses on its flowering stem.
- Animals
Sunbirds’ dazzling feathers are hot, in both senses of the word
Iridescent feathers reflect vivid colors. But they also become scorching hot in the sunlight, a study finds.
- Life
Probiotics help lab corals survive deadly heat stress
In a lab experiment, probiotics prevented the death of corals under heat stress, suggesting beneficial microbes could help save ailing reefs.
- Genetics
An Indigenous people in the Philippines have the most Denisovan DNA
Genetic comparisons crown the Indigenous Ayta Magbukon people as having the most DNA, 5 percent, from the mysterious ancient hominids.
- Life
Scientists have a new word for birds stealing animal hair
Dozens of YouTube videos show birds stealing hair from dogs, cats, humans, raccoons and even a porcupine — a behavior rarely documented by scientists.
- Health & Medicine
Ripples in rats’ brains tied to memory may also reduce sugar levels
Brain signals called sharp-wave ripples have an unexpected job: influencing the body’s sugar levels, a study in rats suggests.
- Animals
Squirrels use parkour tricks when leaping from branch to branch
Squirrels navigate through trees by making rapid calculations to balance trade-offs between branch flexibility and the distance between tree limbs.
- Animals
Snake-eating spiders are surprisingly common
Spiders from at least 11 families feed on serpents many times their size, employing a host of tactics to turn even venomous snakes into soup.
- Earth
A new book reveals stories of ancient life written in North America’s rocks
In ‘How the Mountains Grew,’ John Dvorak probes the interlinked geology and biology buried within the rocks of North America.
- Animals
A hammerhead shark baby boom near Florida hints at a historic nursery
Finding an endangered shark nursery in a vast ocean is like finding a needle in a haystack. But that’s just what scientists did near Miami.
- Animals
Viruses can kill wasp larvae that grow inside infected caterpillars
Proteins found in viruses and some moths can protect caterpillars from parasitoid wasps seeking a living nursery for their eggs.
- Animals
Polar bears sometimes bludgeon walruses to death with stones or ice
Inuit reports of polar bears using tools to kill walruses were historically dismissed as stories, but new research suggests the behavior does occur.
