6,684 results
- Health & Medicine
Honeybees can “smell” lung cancer
Bees can detect the scent of lung cancer in lab-grown cells and synthetic breath. One day, bees may be used to screen people’s breath for cancer.
- Animals
Tiger beetles may weaponize ultrasound against bats
In response to recordings of echolocating bats, tiger beetles emit noises that mimic toxic moths that bats avoid.
- Agriculture
50 years ago, scientists ID’d a threat to California wine country
Fifty years after scientists identified the cause of Pierce's disease, which damages vineyards, there still isn't a cure.
- Life
Insects flocking to artificial lights may not know which way is up
Insects may use light to figure out where the ground is. Artificial lights send them veering off course, data from high-speed infrared cameras suggests.
- Animals
This newfound longhorn beetle species is unusually fluffy
Discovered in Australia, the beetle is covered in whitish hairs and has distinctive eye lobes, antennae and leg shapes.
- Paleontology
Early ants may have had complex social lives, fossil data suggests
The earliest ants may have been primed for a highly social life — 100 million years ago, the insects had antennae tuned to key communication functions.
- Animals
Getting wild mosquitoes back to the lab alive takes a custom backpack
The new low-tech transportation method could help scientists in Africa assess if malaria-carrying mosquitoes are resistant to a common insecticide.
- Life
It’s a big year for cicadas. Here’s what to know about this year’s emergence
Periodical cicadas are an odd marvel of nature. This year, the biggest brood of all is coming out in the U.S. South while another emerges in the Midwest.
- Life
Ants may be the first known insects ensnared in plastic pollution
At this point, it’s unclear whether this type of trash harms insects, but the discovery highlights the ubiquity of plastic pollution in the wild.
- Animals
Hibernating bumblebee queens have a superpower: Surviving for days underwater
After some bumblebee queens were accidentally submerged in water and survived, researchers found them to be surprisingly tolerant of flooding.
- Animals
Male dragonflies’ wax coats might protect them against a warming climate
The reflective wax, which cools males on sunny courtship flights, may also armor them against the effects of climate change.
- Animals
One mountain in Brazil is home to a surprising number of these parasitic wasps
Darwin wasps were thought to prefer temperate areas. But researchers scoured a mountain in the Brazilian tropics and found nearly a hundred species.
