Animals
- Climate
As temperatures rise, so do insects’ appetites for corn, rice and wheat
Hotter, hungrier pests likely to do 10 percent to 25 percent more damage to grains for each warmer degree.
- Animals
Naked mole-rats eat the poop of their queen for parenting cues
Hormones in the naked mole-rat queen’s poop turn subordinate nest-mates into surrogate parents.
- Animals
There’s method in a firefly’s flashes
Fireflies use their flashing lights for mating and maybe even to ward away predators.
- Anthropology
A fossil mistaken for a bat may shake up lemurs’ evolutionary history
On Madagascar, a type of lemur called aye-ayes may have a singular evolutionary history.
- Life
How salamanders can regrow nearly complete tails but lizards can’t
Differences in stem cells in the spinal cord explain the amphibians’ ability.
- Tech
Here’s what robots could learn from fire ants
Fire ants’ secret to success is prioritizing efficiency over fairness. Robot teams could use that strategy to work more efficiently in tight, crowded quarters.
- Health & Medicine
A resurrected gene may protect elephants from cancer
Researchers have found another gene that may play a role in explaining elephants’ cancer resistance.
- Animals
In the animal kingdom, what does it mean to be promiscuous?
A review of hundreds of scientific studies finds that the label “promiscuous” is applied to a surprisingly wide range of mating behaviors in animals.
- Paleontology
What ‘The Meg’ gets wrong — and right — about megalodon sharks
A paleobiologist helps Science News separate shark fact from fiction in the new Jason Statham film The Meg.
- Animals
A ghost gene leaves ocean mammals vulnerable to some pesticides
Manatees, dolphins and other warm-blooded marine animals can't break down organophosphates due to genetic mutations that occurred long ago.
- Animals
This killifish can go from egg to sex in two weeks
The fastest known maturing vertebrate in the lab is even faster in the wild.
- Genetics
The first detailed map of red foxes’ DNA may reveal domestication secrets
Thanks to a newly deciphered genome of red foxes, researchers have pinpointed regions in the animals’ DNA linked to taming them.
