Richard Kemeny

All Stories by Richard Kemeny

  1. Anthropology

    Interlocking logs may be evidence of the oldest known wooden structure

    Roughly 480,000-year-old wooden find from Zambia suggests early hominids were more skilled at structuring their environments than scientists realized.

  2. Life

    Swarming locusts can deploy a chemical to avoid being cannibalized

    Releasing a “don’t-eat-me” pheromone signals a locust has become a toxic treat. The finding could lead to new ways to control destructive swarms.

  3. Climate

    ‘Flash droughts’ are growing increasingly common

    Droughts are forming faster more often in much of the world due to climate change, a new study finds.

  4. Anthropology

    In Maya society, cacao use was for everyone, not just royals

    Previously considered a preserve of Maya elites, cacao was consumed across all social strata, a new study finds.

  5. Anthropology

    Humans may have started tending animals almost 13,000 years ago

    Remnants from an ancient fire pit in Syria suggest that hunter-gatherers were burning dung as fuel by the end of the Old Stone Age.

  6. Life

    An award-winning photo captures a ‘zombie’ fungus erupting from a fly

    The winner of the 2022 BMC Ecology and Evolution photo competition captures a macabre cycle of life and death in the Peruvian Amazon.

  7. Animals

    Relocated beavers helped mitigate some effects of climate change

    Along a river in Washington state, the repositioned beavers built dams that lowered stream temperatures and boosted water storage.

  8. Life

    Lost genes may help explain how vampire bats survive on blood alone

    The 13 identified genes underpin a range of physiological and behavioral strategies that the bats have evolved.

  9. Animals

    Deep-sea Arctic sponges feed on fossilized organisms to survive

    Slow-moving sponges, living deep in the Arctic Ocean where no currents deliver food, scavenge a carpet of long-dead critters.

  10. Animals

    Urban animals may get some dangerous gut microbes from humans

    Fecal samples from urban wildlife suggest human gut microbes might be spilling over to the animals. The microbes could jeopardize the animals’ health.

  11. Life

    Albatrosses divorce more often when ocean waters warm

    In one part of the Falkland Islands, up to 8 percent of the famously faithful birds ditch partners in years when the ocean is warmer than average.