All Stories by Jake Buehler
- Animals
Shrews’ noses grow in winter as their brains shrink
Long-clawed shrews’ snouts temporarily grow larger in the winter. This skull reshaping may be an extreme survival strategy in cold conditions.
- Animals
Snail slime does many jobs thanks to calcium
Snails have five distinct types of mucus, each with its own job. The mollusks tweak calcium secretions to get the chemical mixture just right.
- Anthropology
Sugar may have been a key ingredient in human evolution
A sweet tooth for sugars from fruits and honey may have helped fuel brain growth in our primate cousins and early human ancestors, a new study suggests.
- Paleontology
Spines of saber-toothed cats tell a tale of the doomed species
Remains pulled from the La Brea Tar Pits revealed deformed vertebrae and rare tumors, possible signs of inbreeding among now-extinct saber-toothed cats.
- Anthropology
‘Hobbits’ likely scavenged dragons’ kills
Homo floresiensis may have scavenged Komodo dragon leftovers instead of hunting small elephant relatives.
- Animals
Giant, deep-sea roly-polies steal a gene to endure starvation
The enormous deep-sea cousins of your garden’s pill bugs can go five years without food. A gene they pilfered from bacteria may be part of the secret.
- Paleontology
Ancient flowering plants may have used dinosaurs to spread their seeds
Scientists thought angiosperms didn’t use animals to spread seeds until after the Age of Dinosaurs. Fossilized fruits from these plants challenge this idea.
- Animals
Songs prep the brains of finches yet to hatch for a hot world
Adult finches make "heat calls" as the temperature rises. Exposure to the song prepares their unhatched young's brains for the heat.
- Animals
These birds clack their wing bones together to woo mates at night
During courtship, male scissor-tailed nightjars crack their wings together to make a sharp snapping sound. It's the result of colliding arm bones.
- Animals
Even careful scuba divers can damage coral reefs
Hours of diving videos and hundreds of survey responses reveal the common diver mistakes that can cause irreversible reef damage.
- Animals
Meet ‘Snuffleupagus,’ a newfound fish sporting shaggy camouflage
Found near Australia, Solenostomus snuffleupagus is a shaggy swimmer that closely resembles Mr. Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street.
- Animals
Territorial conflict may explain male primates’ large size
Male primates may be larger than females partly because of pressure from rival groups, not just competition with males inside their own group.
