7,471 results
- Plants
Here’s why blueberries are blue
Nanostructures in a blueberry’s waxy coating make it look blue, despite having dark red pigments — and no blue ones — in its skin, a new study reports.
- Paleontology
A bird with a T. rex head may help reveal how dinosaurs became birds
The 120-million-year-old Cratonavis zhui, newly discovered in China, had a head like a theropod and body like a modern bird.
- Animals
Migratory fish species are in drastic decline, a new UN report details
The most comprehensive tally of how migrating animals are faring looks at more than 1,000 land and aquatic species and aims to find ways to protect them.
- Ecosystems
A new road map shows how to prevent pandemics
Past viral spillover events underscore the importance of protecting wildlife habitats.
- Life
Birds that dive may be at greater risk of extinction
For birds, a diving lifestyle seems irreversible, evolutionarily speaking. The inflexibility possibly increases diving birds’ chances of going extinct.
- Health & Medicine
Bird flu can jump to mammals. Should we worry?
Reports of bears and sea lions infected with H5N1 have sparked fears about the pandemic potential of bird flu. Experts are keeping a close eye on its spread.
- 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.
- Animals
In noisy environs, pied tamarins are using smell more often to communicate
Groups of the primate, native to Brazil, complement vocalizations with scent-marking behavior to alert other tamarins to dangers in their urban home.
- Animals
The first known scorpion to live with ants carries mini hitchhikers
Small arachnids hitch a ride on the scorpion, possibly to get inside food-rich ant nests.
- Animals
A 2,200-year-old poop time capsule reveals secrets of the Andean condor
Guano that has accumulated in a cliffside Andean condor nest for 2,200 years reveals how the now-vulnerable birds responded to a changing environment.
- Animals
Big monarch caterpillars don’t avoid toxic milkweed goo. They binge on it
Instead of nipping milkweed to drain the plants’ defensive sap, older monarch caterpillars may seek the toxic sap. Lab larvae guzzled it from a pipette.
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