Animals

More Stories in Animals

  1. A photo of a Caribbean box jellyfish on a dark background.
    Animals

    These brainless jellyfish use their eyes and bundles of nerves to learn

    No brain? No problem for Caribbean box jellyfish. Their seemingly simple nervous systems can learn to avoid obstacles on sight, a study suggests.

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  2. A photo from 1930 of a Tasmanian tiger.
    Animals

    For the first time, researchers decoded the RNA of an extinct animal

    The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, was hunted nearly to extinction. Now RNA extracted from a museum specimen reveals how its cells functioned.

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  3. An image of red blood cells and blue lymphocytes.
    Health & Medicine

    A catalog of all human cells reveals a mathematical pattern

    Smaller cells occur in larger numbers in the human body, and cells of different size classes contribute equally to our overall mass.

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  4. A photo of a Gelanor siquirres spider on a black background.
    Animals

    Some cannibal pirate spiders trick their cousins into ‘walking the plank’

    A pirate spider in Costa Rica uses a never-before-seen hunting strategy that exploits the way other spiders build webs.

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  5. A beige snake has an egg inside its throat.
    Animals

    A little snake’s big gulp may put all other snakes to shame

    The humble Gans’ egg-eater can wrap its mouth around bigger prey than any other snake of its size.

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  6. A photo of a black male palm cockatoo sitting on a branch.
    Animals

    Wild male palm cockatoos rock out with custom drumsticks

    Along with flashy dances and distinctive drumbeats, these birds craft their own signature drumsticks to win over mates.

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  7. mouse at high altitude
    Animals

    The world’s highest-dwelling mammal isn’t the only rodent at extreme elevation

    After discovering a mouse living nearly 7,000 meters above sea level, scientists scoured other extreme environments to make sure the find wasn’t a fluke.

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  8. Photo of a wildlife crossing in Israel
    Ecosystems

    ‘Crossings’ explores the science of road ecology

    Ben Goldfarb talks about his new book, which looks at the science that’s helping to prevent animals from becoming roadkill.

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  9. An image of a pig embryo seen from the side with a large patch of red visible in its stomach.
    Health & Medicine

    Scientists grow humanized kidneys in pig embryos

    The work represents an important advance in the methods needed to grow humanized kidneys, hearts, and pancreases in animals.

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