Animals
- Animals
Genetically modified mosquitoes have been OK’d for a first U.S. test flight
After a decade of heated debate, free-flying swarms aimed at shrinking dengue-carrying mosquito populations gets a nod for 2021 in the Florida Keys.
By Susan Milius - Archaeology
X-rays reveal what ancient animal mummies keep under wraps
A new method of 3-D scanning mummified animals reveals life and death details for a snake, a bird and a cat.
- Animals
Culling dingoes with poison may be making them bigger
Meat laced with toxic powder has been used for decades to kill dingoes. Now, dingoes in baited areas are changing: They’re getting bigger.
By Jake Buehler - Life
Climate change, not hunters, may have killed off woolly rhinos
Ancient DNA indicates that numbers of woolly rhinos held steady long after people arrived on the scene.
By Bruce Bower - Life
A single molecule may entice normally solitary locusts to form massive swarms
Scientists pinpoint a compound emitted by locusts that could inform new ways of controlling the pests.
- Health & Medicine
How two coronavirus drugs for cats might help humans fight COVID-19
Scientists are exploring if drugs for a disease caused by a coronavirus that infects only cats might help also people infected with the coronavirus.
- Animals
How tuatara live so long and can withstand cool weather
Tuatara may look like your average lizard, but they’re not. Now, researchers have deciphered the rare reptiles’ genome, or genetic instruction book.
By Jake Buehler - Animals
Penguin poop spotted from space ups the tally of emperor penguin colonies
High-res satellite images reveal eight new breeding sites for the world’s largest penguins on Antarctica, including the first reported ones offshore.
- Life
Wild bees add about $1.5 billion to yields for just six U.S. crops
Native bees help pollinate blueberries, cherries and other crops on commercial farms.
By Susan Milius - Life
Water beetles can live on after being eaten and excreted by a frog
After being eaten by a frog, some water beetles can scurry through the digestive tract and emerge on the other side, alive and well.
- Animals
Some spiders may spin poisonous webs laced with neurotoxins
The sticky silk threads of spider webs may be hiding a toxic secret: potent neurotoxins that paralyze a spider’s prey.
- Ecosystems
To save Appalachia’s endangered mussels, scientists hatched a bold plan
Biologists have just begun to learn whether their bold plan worked to save the golden riffleshell, a freshwater mussel teetering on the brink of extinction.