Life

Animals

Some fish wear an invisibility cloak

Some fish can hide in open water. How? Tiny crystals in their scales and skin help them reflect and blend in with polarized light.

Animals

Picture This: Rare tiger becomes mom

Zolushka is the first Amur tiger to be reintroduced to the wild and have cubs. She are her two young were caught on a camera trap.

Brain

Meditation may boost teen memory

Teens who trained in a practice called mindfulness meditation saw improvements in their ability to remember things.

Brain

Bubbles may underlie trauma’s brain injury

Many soldiers and accident victims sustain traumatic brain injury that can affect memory, thinking and body movements. New research now studies whether tiny bubbles caused by pressure waves may trigger that damage.

Agriculture

New gene resists our last-ditch drug

Antibiotic resistance continues to grow. Now, scientists have found a tiny loop of DNA that resists a drug doctors use as a last line of defense.

Animals

As big animals poop out

Whales move nutrients from deep ocean to surface waters. From there, nutrients move to land and fertilize continents. But the system is in trouble.

Animals

Cool Jobs: Getting in your head

Experimental psychologists study animals and people to understand the roots of behavior.

Animals

Scientists Say: Quoll

This small marsupial is about the size of a housecat. It lives in Australia and New Guinea, where it is under threat from toxic toads.

Animals

Elephants’ trunks: These leaf-blowers snag food

Researchers at a Japanese zoo filmed two elephants using their trunks as leaf-blowers, pulling food toward them with puffs of air.

Genetics

Expert panel approves human gene editing

Scientists have recently been reporting big advances in the ability to tweak the genes of living organisms, including people. But some question the ethics of doing that. A panel of experts now says such research can go ahead — with one major exception.

Agriculture

Banana threat: Attack of the clones

Researchers find that disease-causing fungi — all clones of one another — will continue to infect banana plants unless new steps are taken to stop their spread.

Animals

Scientists identify plankton from space

Plankton are often too tiny for our eyes to see. But when huge numbers bloom at once, they now can be ID’d from space, a new study shows.