Life
- Animals
The Cyclops may be an ancient myth, but one-eyed creatures are real
The iconic Cyclops of The Odyssey might look like a massive, one-eyed person, but it might have more in common with creatures other than humans.
- Animals
Frozen poop reveals Ice Age squirrels’ ecosystem
Ancient ground squirrels were anything but picky eaters. Genetic material from grasses to woolly mammoths popped up in frozen squirrel poop.
- Humans
Scientists Say: Midden
One ancient person’s, or animal’s, trash may become an archeologist’s treasure.
- Animals
How to lessen your pet’s impacts on the planet
Climate-friendly food choices, new poop solutions and avoiding animals collected from the wild can all help make pet ownership more sustainable.
- Animals
Surprise! Wax seems key in turning honeybee larvae into queens
Worker bees build some ‘cribs’ with a special wax. It seems to turn larvae into royals — and challenges the idea that royal jelly was all it took.
- Life
Scientists Say: Phenology
This field of science identifies the environmental cues behind life cycle patterns.
- Fossils
A new dino may be the culprit in an ancient murder mystery
The new microraptor, Jian changmaensis, may have snacked on birds when not gliding through northwestern China some 120 million years ago.
- Microbes
This microbe turns into a ‘Hulk’ that eats its own kind
The shape-shifting transformation of Euplotes gigatrox may reveal how early life learned to act in complex ways.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Amphisbaenian
Little is known about these elusive soil-dwellers that resemble both worms and snakes.
- Animals
Songs prep unhatched finches’ brains for a hot world
Adult finches make “heat calls” to their eggs when temps rise. Exposure to those songs trigger chicks' developing brains to change in ways that better handle heat.
- Life
Fog — it’s alive!
Low-lying fog clouds host living microbes. That may be good news, because some of them can remove toxic air pollutants, such as formaldehyde.
- Animals
Analyze This: How sea slugs get their flashy colors
Crystals beneath the skin of nudibranchs, also called sea slugs, allow the creatures to make an array of intense hues with just one material.
