A new book unpacks the messy aftermath of a conservation success story Hoover is one of many characters populating the pages of Alix Morris’ new book, A Year with the Seals. Season by season, the science writer hits the road to various parts of the United States and Canada toContinue Reading
Pseudoscorpions may use the scorpion’s relationship with ants to their advantage In the middle of an April night in Israel’s Jordan Valley, Yoram Zvik sweeps a UV light over the dark ground near throngs of marching ants. The light passes over the brilliant blue-green fluorescence of a scorpion clambering alongsideContinue Reading
Parrots don’t just hang out for fun. To move along narrow branches, a parrot can hang from a branch with its beak, swing its body sideways and grab hold farther along with its feet. The newly described gait, dubbed beakiation, expands the birds’ locomotive repertoire and underscores how versatile theirContinue Reading
This parasitic worm crawls into the eyestalks of snails, takes over its brain then pulsates to make the mollusk look like a dancing caterpillar. Name: Green-banded broodsac (Leucochloridium paradoxum) Where it lives: Europe, North America and Japan What it eats: Waste in the digestive tracts of birds, before it isContinue Reading
The bees were preserved well enough for researchers to make out small features, like their legs and antennae. Thousands of years ago, a group of adolescent bees became trapped in cocoons inside their nest and left behind a remarkably preserved record of their “mummified” remains. Researchers in Portugal reported theContinue Reading
The ecosystem, found beneath hydrothermal vents in the East Pacific Rise, is particularly vulnerable to deep-sea mining. Beneath an undersea volcano, scientists have discovered a hidden world filled with bizarre creatures. The first-of-its-kind habitat is teeming with never-before-seen life-forms, including strange species of worms, snails and deep-dwelling octopuses. The ecosystem,Continue Reading
As Cold War tensions rose, Gregory Bateson was busy observing solitary octopuses learning to live together in a single tank — and it gave him an idea about managing geopolitical relations. In October 1962, the rules of engagement during the Cold War assumed particular urgency. Soviet nuclear warheads were inContinue Reading
Juvenile great white sharks are near to people in Southern California nearly every day but rarely bite them. Humans and juvenile great white sharks swim in the same waters nearly every single day along some beaches in southern California, a new study has found. Yet bites remain rare. “I thinkContinue Reading
The tiny marsupials have a penchant for peanut butter, which researchers have used to help them monitor and conduct health checks on the population. Adorable marsupials that look like “mini kangaroos on steroids” are bouncing back in southern Australia after disappearing from the region for more than 100 years. Brush-tailedContinue Reading
A pod of about 30 orcas attacked and “badly wounded” two adult gray whales off the coast of California, according to drone footage Stunning new video shows a pod of orcas attacking two adult gray whales in California’s Monterey Bay, in a rare case of predation. Monterey Bay Whale WatchContinue Reading