2,324 results
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How Ötzi the Iceman really got his tattoos
Modern tattooing experiments challenge a popular idea about how the roughly 5,200-year-old mummified man got marked with dark lines.
- Life
Crabs left the sea not once, but several times, in their evolution
A new study is the most comprehensive analysis yet of the evolution of “true crabs.”
- Plants
Ancient trees’ gnarled, twisted shapes provide irreplaceable habitats
Traits that help trees live for hundreds of years also foster forest life, one reason why old growth forest conservation is crucial.
- Animals
Some mysteries remain about why dogs wag their tails
Wagging is a form of communication, with different wags meaning different things, but scientists know little about the behavior’s evolution in dogs.
- Health & Medicine
Why sewage may hold the key to tracking diseases far beyond COVID-19
COVID-19, mpox and many other pathogens are detectable in wastewater, but public health officials are still figuring out how best to use those data.
- Animals
A ‘fire wolf’ fish could expand what we know about one unusual deep-sea ecosystem
Unlike other known methane seeps, Jacó Scar is slightly warmer than the surrounding water and is a home for both cold-loving and heat-loving organisms.
- Life
A parasite makes wolves more likely to become pack leaders
In Yellowstone National Park, gray wolves infected with Toxoplasma gondii make riskier decisions, making them more likely to split off from the pack.
- Paleontology
This ancient, Lovecraftian apex predator chased and pierced soft prey
Half a billion years ago, Anomalocaris canadensis probably used its bizarre headgear to reach out and snag soft prey with its spiky clutches.
- Tech
Scientists turned dead spiders into robots
In a new field dubbed “necrobotics,” researchers used a syringe and some superglue to control the dead bodies of wolf spiders.
- Humans
Lauren Schroeder looks beyond natural selection to rethink human evolution
Paleoanthropologists studying the fossil record have long focused on natural selection, but other processes play a big role too.
- Health & Medicine
Flint grapples with the mental health fallout from the water disaster
The water crisis started almost a decade ago. Residents of Flint, Mich., are still healing from the disaster — and caring for their own.
- Humans
Ancient human visitors complicate the Falkland Islands wolf’s origin story
Scientists have debated how the Falkland Islands’ only land mammal journeyed to the region: by a long-ago land bridge or with people.
