Animals
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Fossils
Ancient ‘ManBearPig’ mammal lived fast — and died young
Developing in the womb for a while — but being born ready to take on the world — may have helped post-dinosaur mammals rise to dominance.
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Health & Medicine
Dogs and other animals could aid the spread of monkeypox
Now that monkeypox has spread to a dog, researchers fear other species could help the virus become widespread outside of Africa for the first time.
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Health & Medicine
Explainer: What is mpox (formerly monkeypox)?
Once rare, the viral disease monkeypox exploded onto the global scene for the first time in 2022.
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Animals
News stories about spiders are unfairly negative
Nearly half of news stories about people-spider encounters contain errors, according to a new study. And those falsehoods tend to have a negative spin.
By Betsy Mason -
Animals
Sea sponges spew slow-motion snot rockets to clear out their pores
Sea sponges rely on a sneezing technique to clear their pores. The mucus flushes out debris — and provides a snack for other marine life.
By Jude Coleman -
Animals
Whale sharks may be the world’s largest omnivores
Chemical clues in the sharks’ skin show that the animals eat and digest algae.
By Freda Kreier -
Animals
When bees are away, moths come out to pollinate
Camera footage reveals that moths make roughly a third of the visits to red clover, working under the cover of night.
By Jake Buehler -
Life
Your face is mighty mite-y. And that’s a good thing
Tiny face mites live in our pores, getting food and shelter in return for eating our skin waste. A new study shows they can’t live without us.
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Fossils
Warm feathers may have helped dinos survive mass Triassic die-off
Dinosaurs may have weathered freezing conditions about 202 million years ago, thanks to warm feathery coats.
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Animals
The top side of an elephant’s trunk is surprisingly stretchy
Research on elephant trunks could inspire new artificial skins for soft robots.
By Meghan Rosen -
Fossils
This big dino had tiny arms before T. rex made them cool
A predecessor to Tyrannosaurus rex, Meraxes gigas had a giant head. But the muscularity of its puny arms suggests those limbs served some purpose.
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Animals
Gophers might be farmers, a controversial study suggests
Pocket gophers air out and fertilize the soil in a way that amounts to simple farming, two researchers claim. But not everyone agrees.