All Stories by Jake Buehler
- Animals
Octopus arms are adaptable but some are favored for particular jobs
Octopuses are ambidextrous, a new study finds, but they favor their front arms for investigating surroundings and their back arms for locomotion.
- Life
A sixth mass extinction? Not so fast, some scientists say
A new analysis suggests that recent extinctions have been rare, limited mostly to islands and slowing. But others argue this is all just semantics.
- Life
Horses may have become rideable with the help of a genetic mutation
To make horses rideable during domestication, people may have inadvertently targeted a mutation in horses to strengthen their backs and their balance.
- Animals
The mysterious, extinct ‘Fuegian dog’ was actually a semi-tame fox
Historic European accounts long described the canids as domesticated dogs. A new study suggests that’s probably not true.
- Animals
Around the world, birds sing longer in light-polluted areas
In light-polluted landscapes, birds' singing time is an average of 50 minutes longer per day. It's still unclear if this hurts bird health or helps.
- Humans
A child’s biological sex may not always be a random 50-50 chance
Some people’s biology may set them up to birth babies of a certain sex, explaining why a family with multiple children may have all girls or all boys.
- Animals
Greenland sled dog DNA is a window into the Arctic’s archaeological past
A genomic analysis of Greenland’s Qimmeq dogs suggest they and their human partners arrived on the island centuries earlier than previously thought.
- Animals
Preemptively cutting rhinos’ horns cuts poaching
Comparing various tactics for protecting rhinos suggests that dehorning them drastically reduces poaching.
- Animals
Aussie cockatoos use their beaks and claws to turn on water fountains
Parrots living in Sydney have learned how to turn on water fountains for a drink. It's the first such drinking strategy seen in the birds.
- Animals
Bedbugs may have been one of the first urban pests
Common bedbugs experienced a dramatic jump in population size about 13,000 years ago, around the time humans congregated in the first cities.
- Animals
Chimp chatter is a lot more like human language than previously thought
Chimpanzees combine hoots, calls and grunts to convey far more concepts than with single sounds alone. It may be a first among nonhuman animals.
- Paleontology
These crocodile-like beasts reached the Caribbean, outlasting mainland kin
Knife-toothed reptiles called sebecids went extinct on the mainland 10 million years ago. New fossil evidence puts them on an island 4 million years ago.
