News
An Australian Wildlife Smuggler is Headed to Prison For a Record 8-Year Sentence After Packing 100 Lizards into Popcorn Bags
2+ hour, 15+ min ago (577+ words) Australia is home to 10% of the world's reptile species, and 90% can be found nowhere else in the world. The seizure of dozens of live Western blue-tongued lizards, bearded dragons and spiny-tailed skinks covertly packed into popcorn bags, biscuit tins and…...
Mosquitoes Have Been Bugging Humans Since Homo Erectus, 1.8 Million Years Ago
3+ hour, 38+ min ago (677+ words) Mosquitoes evolved a taste for human blood over a million years earlier than previously thought. You are trying to enjoy a warm evening outside, and suddenly, you hear that familiar, high-pitched whine. You slap your arm in frustration. It is…...
Why Do Caribou Females Grow Antlers? So They Can Have a Timely Motherhood Snack
3+ hour, 48+ min ago (426+ words) Moms munch antlers to fuel calves in the mineral-starved Arctic wild. But they don't just leave those antlers behind to rot. They eat them. For female caribou, the antlers are like a "bank" of minerals they can cash in at…...
Why French Bulldogs and Pugs are No Longer the Only Flat Faced Dogs You Need to Worry About
1+ day, 10+ hour ago (600+ words) Dogs with shortened, flattened snouts have become hugely popular pets. But the anatomy that gives these animals their distinctively cute appearance can also heavily interfere with their breathing. Veterinarians refer to the condition as Brachycephalic Obstructive Airway Syndrome, or BOAS....
There May Be Up To 26,000 Bee Species and We Might Never Find Them All
3+ day, 1+ hour ago (938+ words) A new paper provides the first statistically derived estimate of bee species richness around the world. But this is about more than bees. It's a question that has sparked the curiosity of scholars and bee lovers for decades: how many…...
Elephant Whiskers Are Structured Like Swiss Cheese and It Makes Them Different From Every Other Animal on Earth
4+ day, 7+ hour ago (532+ words) New research reveals that elephant trunk whiskers are unlike any other animal's, and could inspire a new generation of robots. The roughly 1,000 whiskers covering an elephant's trunk turn out to be unlike any other known mammalian hair, driven by evolution…...
The Mystery of Why Only Humans Have Chins May Finally Have an Answer — And It’s Not What You’d Expect
4+ day, 8+ hour ago (820+ words) Your chin might just be an evolutionary side effect of the human face shrinking over millions of years. The human chin is uniquely human, and the assumption has always been that it must have evolved for a specific purpose, perhaps…...
Newly Discovered 125-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Had Hollow Spikes That Are Unlike Anything Seen Before
1+ week, 3+ hour ago (595+ words) Home " Science " Paleontology A newly discovered dinosaur carried hollow spikes never seen before in its kind. A fossil discovered in northeastern China has revealed unusual skin structures in an ornithischian dinosaur that lived about 125 million years ago. The skin impressions…...
This 215-Million-Year-Old Crocodile-like Reptile Ran Like a Greyhound on Long Legs
1+ week, 1+ day ago (1051+ words) A fast-moving ancient crocodile ancestor gets a name honoring the physics teacher who inspired its discoverer. In the Late Triassic, some 215 million years ago, the region we now know as the southwestern United Kingdom looked nothing like the rolling green…...
Inspired by Octopuses, Scientists Print a Shape-Shifting ‘Smart Skin’ That Can Hide and Reveal Images
1+ week, 1+ day ago (587+ words) Home " Research " Materials A translucent hydrogel film can conceal and reveal Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, triggered by subtle changes in temperature, moisture, or mechanical strain. The illusion is the work of engineers at Penn State and collaborating institutions, who…...