Southern pine beetles carry bacteria in special structures under their chins. The bacteria help the beetles maintain a healthy food supply. Full story.
Credit: M. Cetin Yuceer

This image depicts the average extent of Arctic sea ice this September. At 4.67 million square kilometers, the area was nearly a record low. The pink outline indicates the long-term average since 1979 for September coverage. Full story and video.
Credit: NSIDC, NASA/GSFC

Atlantic bluefin tuna can grow to nearly 10 feet and weigh in at 1,400 pounds. Numbers of adult spawning bluefins have dropped to less than 20 percent of 1960s figures. Read more.
Credit: Gilbert

CAMPAIGN HISTORY. During the 1908 presidential race, William Howard Taft and William Jennings Bryan sounded off in a new way as use of the phonograph got serious. In this 1908 French cartoon, mannequins of Taft and Bryan stand before cylinder phonographs blaring recordings of their voices. One New York City entrepreneur actually had such a setup, it was reported. Full story and early phonograph recordings.

Neighboring groups of cichlid fish in Africa’s Lake Victoria appear to be splitting into two species. Females whose vision has adapted to red-lit areas prefer red-colored males, while females in blue-lit areas prefer blue-colored males. This could be the first example of speciation due to changes in sense organs.
Credit: Inke van der Sluijs; Ole Seehausen

A new analysis of human remains buried at Machu Picchu reinforces the idea that royal retainers from all over the Inca empire were the permanent inhabitants of the famous Peruvian site. Full story.
Credit: Dhuss / iStockphoto

The new dinosaur species Aerosteon riocoloradensis had lungs (red) and air sacs (other colors) similar to those of modern birds. Full Story
Credit: Todd Marshall, Project Exploration

Each night a handful of Forelius pusillus ants step up to the task of closing the colony’s nest door from the outside. It’s likely the behavior benefits the colony, but the door-closers probably die after securing the nest.
Credit: Tom Wenseleers

This image shows a type of pulsating star, a Cepheid variable (circled), in the galaxy M100. A new study suggests how other intelligent life-forms could manipulate the pulsations as a way to communicate. Full Story
Credit: W. Freedman/Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, NASA, ESA

LARGEST KNOWN PRIME NUMBER. Printing out all 13 million digits in 12-point type would create a number 30 miles long. But here are a few of the digits, from the beginning and the end of the full number. Full story.
Credit: Avik Nandy/Science News

The meteorite that fell in eastern Peru on September 15, 2007, struck with the energy of two tons of TNT and blasted a 13.5-meter–wide crater (seen here about a week after the event). Inset shows the estimated size of the object at impact.
Credit: L.E. Jackson Jr./Geological Survey of Canada

These banded rocks found along the eastern shore of Canada’s Hudson Bay are estimated to be 4.28 billion years old, making them Earth’s oldest intact rocks. (Hammer shown for scale.)
Credit: AAAS/Science

These superconducting mirrors make photons bounce back and forth up to a billion times before being lost. The device helped researchers "watch" a microwave pulse lose its quantum state.Full story.
Credit: Michel Brune/Laboratoire Kastler Brossel

This illustration depicts the heliosphere, the magnetic bubble that is "blown by the solar wind and outlines the edge of the solar system. Like a deflated tire, the heliosphere is currently shriveled, as the solar wind is at its lowest in 50 years. Full story.
Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

Look out! A carnivorous fungus (main photo) found in 100-million-year-old amber captured dinner with lasso-like traps (inset). Full Story
Credit: Schmidt, A. R. et al. 2008. Am J Bot.