3+ mon, 1+ week ago  (869+ words) Jennifer is a senior reporter at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. She has been writing professionally about. .. When it…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago  (41+ words) "studied in critters who use it to save energy and so survive the long, cold winters of the Northern Hemisphere." Do critters in the Southern Hemisphere not hibernate? (TIL I've already learned the. .. The strange animals that control their body…...

1+ week, 11+ hour ago  (580+ words) Supposed "first octopus" was something else entirely. To solve this puzzle, Thomas Clements, a paleontologist at the University of Leicester, and his colleagues put this supposed oldest octopus fossil through a series of high-tech imaging tests. They found Pohlsepia was…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago  (317+ words) Jennifer is a senior reporter at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. She has been writing professionally about. .. In the…...

2+ week, 1+ day ago  (446+ words) A receptor that's used to find prey is also activated by progesterone. Now, a team of scientists led by Pablo S. Villar, a molecular biologist at Harvard University, for the first time took a close look at octopuses' sex life. It…...

2+ week, 6+ day ago  (789+ words) Breathing capacity could have compensated for lower atmospheric oxygen. Unlike mammals, insects don't have a centralized pair of lungs and a closed circulatory system that delivers oxygen-rich blood to their tissues. "They breathe through internalized tubing called the tracheal system,…...

2+ week, 6+ day ago  (625+ words) Specially equipped nets can help save some species, while allowing fisherman to still catch others. Our oceans are full of sophisticated, perfect traps: Nets, hooks, fishing lines. Designed to capture animals destined for our dinner tables, they often catch other…...

5+ mon, 2+ day ago  (40+ words) When we are dealing with novel circumstances, a rational approach makes sense: weigh the evidence, assess the best course of action based on our tentative conclusions. But as circumstances become more. .. The evolution of rationality: How chimps process conflicting evidence...

1+ mon, 1+ day ago  (673+ words) Ars Technica Scientists have discovered that male fireflies in a South Carolina swamp follow local interaction rules to synchronize their flashing mating displays. The research is being presented at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Denver. (A preprint…...

1+ mon, 1+ week ago  (194+ words) Ars Technica Why do falling cats always seem to land on their feet? Scientists have been arguing about the precise mechanism for a very long time'since at least 1700, in fact'conducting all manner of experiments to pin down what's going on....