Nature

A nearly 28,000-year-old cave lion cub, discovered frozen in the Siberian permafrost, is so well preserved, you can still make out each and every one of her whiskers. Researchers in Sweden suggest that the cub, nicknamed Sparta, is among the best preserved Ice Age animals ever uncovered. Her teeth, skin, and soft tissue have all

Scientists have engineered a species of roundworm (Caenorhabditis elegans) to absorb light to live a significantly longer life. By adding a light-sensitive trigger to power-converting organelles known as mitochondria, researchers from the US and Germany extended the time sufficient energy could be provided to the cells before aging processes took over. While the scientists emphasize

We can confidently say that birds are dinosaur descendants, though paleontologists are still puzzled as to how this incredible evolutionary event occurred. Now a complete fossilized skeleton of a bird that lived in what is today China around 120 million years ago might help clarify key steps in the transformation process, presenting with a more

Tails come in many shapes, strengths, and sizes. The long, thick tail of a kangaroo acts as a third leg. The rabbit’s fluff-butt is used to communicate with other rabbits. The rope-like tail of the hippopotamus flicks their poop far and wide. Many carnivores use their tail to make them more agile on the hunt.

A type of freshwater plankton has become the first organism seen thriving on a diet of viruses, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the US. Viruses are often consumed incidentally by a range wide of organisms, and may even season the diets of certain marine protists. But to

Storms and other extreme weather events aren’t divided equally between the two halves of our globe. The Southern Hemisphere is roughly 24 percent stormier than the Northern, in fact, for reasons that until now haven’t been all that clear. A new study looking in detail at global storm patterns identifies the heights of mountain ranges

Guessing the color of the coat of a gray wolf seems like a no-brainer. But the canines, whose habitats are spread across North America and Eurasia, aren’t always actually gray. On the North American continent, specifically, the farther south you go, the more wolves there are with dark, black-hued coats. The phenomenon was unexplained for

Cloaked by the shadows of enchanting Asian woodlands, strange growths can be seen peeking out from between leaf litter like the ghosts of long-dead flowers. The plant’s foliage lacks green pigment having forsaken photosynthesis in favor of an alternative source of nutrients on the forest floor, one stolen from fungi many other plants consider friends

Throughout the ages, artists have turned to nature for inspiration. Scientists often use such depictions of plants and animals to gain insights into ecosystems as they were in the past. This is, of course, assuming the artist’s intent is to capture the scenery faithfully. A new analysis of a series of 14th century BCE Egyptian

For humans to ever venture out among the stars, we will have to solve some hefty logistical problems. Not the least of these is the travel time involved. Space is so large, and human technology so limited, that the time it would take to travel to another star presents a significant barrier. The Voyager 1

Every once in a while, scientists embark on a study to test some weird and wacky hypothesis that makes you wonder why. But let’s indulge them; it can be fun. A new study from a team of paleontologists and aerospace engineers has simulated a dinosaur‘s tail as it lashes about, all to see whether long-necked

How life emerged on Earth from an assortment of non-living molecules is a stubbornly enduring mystery. Experiments can show us how key steps might have happened, but for every leap forward there are confounding dead ends. Water, for instance, seems like an essential component of life from the very start. Yet the process of growing

Holiday favorite mistletoe – the kissing plant – hides a secret behind its romantic persona. It’s actually a hemi-parasite that attacks living trees. Phoradendron, a genus of mistletoe often used to decorate doors, aptly translates to Greek for “thief of the tree”. Descended from sandalwood, mistletoe has diversified into over a thousand global species. While

Scientists have discovered markers of Alzheimer’s disease in the brains of three different species of dolphin found deceased, stranded onshore. Evidence of mass cetacean strandings exists from before our own recorded history, yet why dolphins and whales beach themselves in groups is an enduring mystery. While a direct link has been found between naval sonar

Many of us have seen rainbows in the sky once the sun starts shining again after a spell of rain. For us to see a rainbow, the conditions need to be just right. We need some water droplets in the air – like rain or even fog – and we need the Sun to be

It has taken over two decades and one pandemic for paleontologists to unite the fossilized remains of the earliest mammal ancestors and find that their evolution which gave rise to modern humans, may have begun in the Southern Hemisphere – and not in the north as scientists have long thought. The analysis of a small

Tiny, weirdly adorable creatures called tardigrades are one of the toughest organisms on Earth. Tardigrades, which are perhaps better known as water bears because of their plump bodies, belong to an extremely resilient group of microorganisms that can thrive in harsh environments ill-suited for life. In order to survive, they squeeze water from their bodies

Around 120 million years ago, four-winged dinosaurs roughly the size of crows called Microraptors stalked the ancient woodlands of what is now China. While researchers have studied several Microraptor specimens, there’s still a lot we don’t know about these feathered bird-like creatures – including what and how they ate. Now an incredibly rare fossil has

Researchers have discovered something strange about female southern pied babblers, a small black-and-white bird found in Africa’s dry savannah: the more chicks that they have over the years, the less smart they seem to get. As these birds age, they typically produce more offspring each year. Meanwhile, according to a series of controlled tests conducted

When you’re just a wee squishy frog trying to make your way in the wild jungles of Central and South America, you need to have some survival tricks up your clammy little sleeve. Some frogs go on the offensive, striking out with powerful toxins. Others rely on quieter tactics – camouflage that helps them stay

An expedition to a deep-sea ridge, just north of the Hawaiian Islands, has revealed an ancient dried-out lake bed paved with what looks like a yellow brick road. The eerie scene was chanced upon by the exploration vessel Nautilus earlier this year, while surveying the Liliʻuokalani ridge within Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM). PMNM is

In the summer of 1997, scientists recorded a strange, loud noise originating from an area west of Chile’s southern coast. They dubbed it “the bloop“. While searching for underwater volcanoes, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded the infamous loud, ultra-low frequency sound on hydrophones. These underwater microphones the US Navy originally developed

The common bottlenose dolphin is one of the most well-studied marine mammals in the world. Yet in the last few decades, genetic research has revealed scientists aren’t looking at a single species after all, but various lineages still very much in the process of evolving. Researchers at the University of Miami have split what was

Countries reached a historic deal on Monday to reverse decades of environmental destruction threatening the world’s species and ecosystems in what the UN chief hailed as “a peace pact with nature.” After the marathon COP 15 biodiversity summit in Montreal ran into the small hours, chair Chinese Environment Minister Huang Runqiu declared the deal adopted

A species of wasp that lives in Japan seems to have developed a rather unconventional method for warding off attacks. Researchers observed the male of the mason wasp species Anterhynchium gibbifrons using spikes that flank the penis as a weapon – with varying effectiveness – against hungry frogs that think the insect might make a

Bipedalism – walking upright on two legs – is a defining feature of humans, thought to have developed in our ancient relatives as they crept away from the woodlands to take advantage of open spaces. A new study exploring the behavior of wild chimpanzees suggests the evolution of bipedalism may in fact have been a

It’s been a big year for the clitoris. In January, scientists discovered bottlenose dolphins have a large S-shaped clitoris that might be better placed for pleasure than our own species’ version. And just last month, researchers realized they had once again underestimated the female sex organ, when a study showed more than ten thousand nerve

At least a trillion insects are killed annually for food and animal feed. Routine slaughter methods include extreme heat and cold, often preceded by starvation. By comparison, ‘only’ around 79 billion mammals and bird livestock are slaughtered every year. Scholars have long recognized that the survival value of pain means many animals experience it, supposedly

The history of cat domestication stretches back nearly 10,000 years, evidence from a new genetic study shows, and the bond between humans and felines was most likely sparked by a shift in the lifestyles of our ancestors. An international team of researchers looked at the genotypes of more than 1,000 random-bred cats from Europe, Asia

The preservation of ancient bones is a marvelous phenomenon. So exceptionally can these remains be preserved that their internal structure remains intact, especially in a type of sedimentary fossil bed called a Lagerstätte. But one particular Lagerstätte has left scientists puzzled for decades. The Jarrow Assemblage in Ireland features a coal seam full of bones

Kneading is when cats massage an object with the front paws, which extend and retract, one paw at a time. This massaging action, named for its resemblance to kneading dough, is repeated rhythmically. You may have spotted your cat kneading and wondered how on Earth they developed such a behavior. So, why do cats knead?

After discovering a host of bizarre creatures of the deep near Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Australia’s national science agency CSIRO has found something quite surprising in the depths of the watery abyss: a shark graveyard, full of fossilized teeth, some millions of years old Initially, researchers thought they’d pulled up a net full of disappointing sediment

Demodex are a family of eight-legged mites that live in the hair follicles and associated sebaceous or oil glands of many mammals. Two species are known in humans – Demodex folliculorum, which lives mainly in hair follicles on our faces (especially eyelashes and eyebrows), and Demodex brevis, which sets up home in the oil glands

Scientists have made a significant breakthrough in reconstructing the history of our planet. Sedimentary deposits from the permafrost of Greenland contained recoverable environmental DNA dating back to around 2 million years ago. That’s 1 million years older than the previous record – DNA from a wooly mammoth that roamed the Siberian tundra 1 million years

Charles Darwin believed evolution created “endless forms most beautiful“. It’s a nice sentiment but it doesn’t explain why evolution keeps making crabs. Scientists have long wondered whether there are limits to what evolution can do or if Darwin had the right idea. The truth may lie somewhere between the two. While there doesn’t seem to

The body of the last known living Tasmanian tiger was thought to be lost forever, but researchers have rediscovered the animal’s preserved pelt and skeleton in a museum cupboard in Tasmania. Striped like a tiger, with a somewhat dog-like body, the Tasmanian tiger – or thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) – is in fact a large marsupial,

Like so many animals, the northern star coral (Astrangia poculata) spends its winter in a state of hibernation. Don’t let the downtime fool you, though. There’s a lot of house cleaning going on around those resting polyps. According to a new study led by a researchers from the University of California, Davis, the microbial communities

The Yellowstone supervolcano in northwest Wyoming isn’t just one of the most fascinating places on Earth, it’s potentially one of the most volatile, thanks to the reservoir of magma contained within. A new study by an international team of researchers has determined that there’s actually more magma under Yellowstone than was previously thought, adding important

Everyone has seen lightning and marveled at its power. But despite its frequency – about 8.6 million lightning strikes occur worldwide every day – why lightning proceeds in a series of steps from the thundercloud to the earth below has remained a mystery. There are a few textbooks on lightning, but none have explained how

There’s nothing quite like drinking with friends, and it turns out ants may agree as they have their own form of social drinking too. But instead of getting on the beers, ants’ drink of choice is a kind of nutrient-filled ‘milk’ that oozes out from their youngsters. The whole colony partakes, from the newest hatchlings

The amount of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere makes it a habitable planet. Twenty-one percent of the atmosphere consists of this life-giving element. But in the deep past – as far back as the Neoarchean era 2.8 to 2.5 billion years ago – this oxygen was almost absent. So, how did Earth’s atmosphere become oxygenated?

Newborns need to store vast amounts of new information quickly as they learn to navigate the world. Silent synapses – the immature connections between neurons that have no neurotransmitter activity yet – are thought to be the hardware that allow this rapid information storage to occur early in life. First discovered decades ago in newborn

For something as chaotic as the wind, meteorologists tend to have a pretty good grip on the kinds of circulating air patterns we might expect to see whipping up storms around the globe. One, it seems, has until now slipped under the radar. In an effort to better understand contrasts in ocean temperature in the

When it comes to singing, bats have most species beat tooth over claw. Sure, their tunes might not be on everybody’s top 20 list, but their cries span a tremendous frequency range of around 7 octaves from 1 to 120 kilohertz, rising well outside the range of human hearing. Thanks to a new study of

A study of 26 years’ worth of wolf behavioral data, and an analysis of the blood of 229 wolves, has shown that infection with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii makes wolves 46 times more likely to become a pack leader. The research shows that the effects of this parasite in the wild have been horrendously understudied

For the first time in decades, Hawaii’s Mauna Loa – the largest active volcano in the world – erupted, turning the sky red. The eruption began around 11:30 pm local time Sunday night (0930 UTC Monday morning) in Mauna Loa’s summit caldera, according to a United States Geological Survey statement. In a 7:20 am local

Some of Earth’s weirdest fungi, including types of lichen, mycorrhizal, and insect symbiotes, never quite seemed to fit in our current tree of life. But a new genetic analysis discovered that despite the extreme differences between these oddballs, they actually all belong together on an entirely new branch that parted ways with other fungi more

Scientists have found small pockets of seawater that have been trapped in rock for some 390 million years, a discovery that could significantly deepen our understanding of how oceans evolve and adapt to changing climate conditions. The tiny amounts of liquid represent waters once populated by great armored fishes, ammonoids, giant sea scorpions, and trilobites.