Life
- Animals
Secrets of slime
Mucus—snot—can be so gross. It’s also critical for many animals, including hagfish, snails and people. Snot can rid our bodies of nasty bacteria and viruses. In other creatures, it can smooth the road or rough up predators.
- Animals
Mates or survival: Which explains a bird’s color?
When male birds are brightly colored, we assume that’s because their plumage attracts the gals. But a new study with thousands of museum specimens shows that sometimes survival is just as important a factor behind bird color.
- Chemistry
Cooking up life for the first time
The basic components for life could have emerged together nearly 4 billion years ago on the surface of Earth, chemists report.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Irruption
Sometimes populations of animals can suddenly increase. The word for that is irruption.
- Animals
Why you’ll never see a dirty gecko
By knowing how a gecko’s skin works, could self-cleaning, water-repelling, antibacterial clothes be far behind?
- Chemistry
Silencing genes — to understand them
Hijacking a cell process called RNA interference can let scientists turn off a selected gene. Its silencing can point to what genes do when they’re on — and may lead to new treatments for disease.
- Microbes
Life’s ultra-slow lane is deep beneath the sea
Biologists had suspected the deep seafloor would be little more than barren sediment. But they found a surprising amount of oxygen — and life.
- Animals
News Brief: Rabbit-hunting pythons are altering Everglades
Rabbits may breed rapidly, but not fast enough to compensate for the huge summer appetites of huge pythons roaming Florida’s Everglades.
- Health & Medicine
Stress for success
Stress and anxiety can lead to serious mental and behavioral problems. Identifying stressors can help people cope with anxiety. Even better, viewing stress as a strength can tone down anxious feelings and boost productivity.
- Animals
Finding out why birds are out of range
Sometimes people see large numbers of birds outside of their normal range. A student examined how to predict these excursions.
- Health & Medicine
Chickens spread latest deadly bird flu
A new bird flu virus threatens to spread outside of China. Experts traced the germ to markets where live chickens are sold.
- Brain
Scientists Say: Cortical homunculus
If you draw a representation of your body as seen by your brain, it’s called a homunculus. On it, parts sensitive to touch or used for fine movement are large, while others are small.
