Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
- Plants
Electric shocks act like vaccines to protect plants from viruses
To protect crops against viruses in their home country of Taiwan, two teens invented a novel approach to fight blights.
- Chemistry
Let’s learn about cellulose
The world’s most abundant natural polymer is finding all kinds of new uses, in everything from ice cream to construction.
- Animals
Like bloodhounds, worms are sniffing out human cancers
Scents emitted by diseased cells may usher in a new era of safe, low-cost screening tests for cancer and other illnesses.
- Environment
Night lights make even the seas bright
Light from coastal cities and offshore development may shine deep enough to disrupt tiny critters living dozens of meters (yards) below the surface.
- Animals
Infected caterpillars become zombies that climb to their deaths
By tampering with genes involved in vision, a virus can send caterpillars on a doomed quest for sunlight.
- Chemistry
Ponds made to control floods can spew climate-warming gases, study finds
Younger stormwater ponds can release more carbon in gases than they absorb, a study finds. That could aggravate global warming.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Migration
Migration involves the movement of animals or people from one place to another.
- Life
Kitchen sponges are bacteria’s dream home
Sponges are favorite spots for bacteria, partly because of the mixed-housing environment that the cleaner-uppers offer microbes.
- Animals
Mosquitoes see red, which may be why they find us so appealing
Mosquitoes not only see colors, but also prefer certain ones, such as the hues of human skin.
- Animals
The end of the dinosaurs appears to have come in springtime
Fish fossils from North Dakota suggest when the Chicxulub asteroid devastated Earth, triggering the mass extinction of dinosaurs and other species.
- Animals
Analyze This: Birds may decorate nests to scare off rivals
Birds that nest in holes face stiff competition for nest sites. Some use feathers, also found where predators have made a kill, to keep rivals away.
- Animals
Orcas can take down the largest animal on the planet
For the first time, scientists observed that orcas can kill blue whales by using the same hunting techniques that have worked on other large whales.
