‘Cyborg Soil’ Unearths a Complex Web of Hidden Microbial Cities
Dig a teaspoon into your nearest clump of soil, and what you’ll emerge with will contain more microorganisms than there are people on Earth. We know this from lab studies…
Cockatoos in Australia Are Teaching Each Other How to Loot Trash Cans
Australia’s sulphur-crested cockatoos have rapidly turned into big city birds. In Sydney, these large, white, and noisy parrots (Cacatua galerita) have fully adapted to the urban environment, quenching their thirst…
The Ancient ‘Eye of Sauron’ Has Been Discovered, And It’s an Undersea Volcano
Looking like the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, an ancient undersea volcano was slowly revealed by multibeam sonar 3,100 meters (10,170 ft) below our vessel,…
A Giant ‘Sea Scorpion’ May Have Attacked This Trilobite 450 Million Years Ago
A mangled trilobite, found fossilized in Czechia, looks like it narrowly escaped becoming lunch more than 450 million years ago. All that’s left of this ancient marine arthropod is the…
Chimps And Gorillas Seen Going to War in The Wild For The First Time
Chimpanzees and gorillas are not known for violence towards each other, and the two hominid species live peacefully together in certain areas – so it’s surprising and saddening that researchers…
Ancient 15,000-Year-Old Viruses Identified in Melting Tibetan Glaciers
Like the start of a horror movie, ancient creatures are emerging from the cold storage of now-melting permafrost: from incredibly preserved extinct megafauna like the woolly rhino, to the 40,000-year-old…
The Constant Threat of Humans Is Turning Fawns Into Heedless Burnouts
Even when we mean them no harm, deer tend to be wary of humans. When we approach, they usually raise their heads, prick their ears and stand very still. It’s…
Mysterious New ‘Borg’ DNA Seems to Assimilate Genes From Different Organisms
Mysterious strands of DNA that seemingly assimilate genes from many different organisms in their surrounding environment have been discovered in a Californian backyard. Scientists have named these elements “Borgs”, and…
The Biological Fireworks Sparked by Fertilization Are at Least 300 Million Years Old
New life quite literally sparks into being, at least under fluorescence microscopy. That moment when sperm touches egg, billions of zinc atoms ignite across their now conjoined surfaces. This spectacular…
Think Your Dog Would Share Its Food With You? We Have Bad News
If you’ve ever actually met a dog, new research into canine behavior will come as no shock. Scientists have found that “man’s best friend” won’t necessarily help said man out…
Bat Brain Study Reveals How Animals Use ‘Place Cells’ to Navigate in Space And Time
You’re running down the road and all of a sudden a car pulls out in front of you. In a split second your brain projects your location and predicts you…
Jumping Spiders Seem to Have a Cognitive Ability Only Previously Found in Vertebrates
Tiny little jumping spiders, with their magnificent eyes, seem to be able to do something we’d only ever seen before in vertebrates: distinguishing between animate and inanimate objects. In a…
Wildlife Trade Brings Huge Risk of The Next Outbreak, Study of Over 800 Species Shows
The virus that causes COVID-19 was not the first pathogen to pass from animals to humans, and it surely won’t be the last. And though we may never pinpoint the…
The Havoc Caused by Shipworms Remains a Mystery After Thousands of Years
Shipworms are voracious munchers of wood. For thousands of years, these ‘termites of the sea’ have been sinking ships and collapsing wharves with their insatiable appetites. Today, we still don’t…
Dogs Innately Understand Humans in Ways That Wolves Can’t, Experiment Shows
Dogs are born with an innate ability to read human gestures that is not apparent in their closest relative, wolves. Even when wolf puppies are carefully raised by humans and…
This Brainless Slime Mold Can Decide Where to Go Without Having Already Been There
A slippery yellow slime that lives in the damp undergrowth is continuing to test our understanding of what it means to make decisions. Physarum polycephalum, AKA the many-headed slime mold,…