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Why Some Kitties Meow and Others Roar
Members of the cat family (Felidae) are nearly all lone creatures and use meows and roars to communicate to potential mates over long distances. (Lions are the exceptions; they're the only social kitty species.) Scientists have wondered why some calls are high pitched—like your housecat's meow—or d...
September 27, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Florida Panthers Helped by Texas Cats
Call them panthers, mountain lions, cougars or pumas, the Americas' largest cat species has been dwindling in eastern North America for hundreds of years. They were extirpated from everywhere but some shrinking habitat in Florida between Naples and Miami. And even there, the panthers were not doing...
September 24, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Hares Can Get Pregnant While Pregnant
The idea that you could conceive a second pregnancy while already pregnant is definitely weird (and probably creepy for any woman in her last trimester). This is all but impossible in humans, but what about other species? Aristotle suggested more than two thousand years ago that the hare—the rabbit...
September 23, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Ants Defend Trees from Elephants
I'm beginning to think that elephants are pretty wimpy creatures, especially for ones their size. First came the Mythbusters (video below), who demonstrated that elephants might really be afraid of little white mice. And now there's a study in Current Biology showing that ants deter elephants from ...
September 16, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Cootie Catchers Say Lice Reveal Lots About Early Humans
Children all over America are returning to school this fall and I’m sure parents have done all they can to prep their youngsters—which hopefully involves any and all vaccines and boosters. But not even the most diligent efforts toward preventative health care can save your child from the bug that h...
September 13, 2010 |
By admin
A Strange Sail-Backed, Bristly-Armed Dinosaur
When I logged on to Facebook Wednesday morning, one of the first things I saw was a cryptic status update from University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas Holtz. He speculated that the paleo community at large would be "duly impressed" by something set to debut later in the day, but what was it? ...
September 10, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Rare Copy of Audubon's Birds of America for Sale
John James Audubon's Birds of America holds the record as the world's most expensive book. Not to buy, but to publish. Audubon had to raise more than $115,000 in the early 1800s ($2 million in today's dollars) for a print run of the multi-volume, large (39 x 26 inches) work that contained 435 hand-...
September 10, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Wildebeest Migration Threatened
The annual wildebeest migration through Tanzania and Kenya is one of the world's greatest animal wonders. Some 1.2 million animals loop through the Serengeti and Masai Mara reserves, following the rain and the grass. Photographer Suzi Eszterhas documented the migration over a period of several year...
September 03, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
A Close Encounter With the Rarest Bird
Newfound negatives provide fresh views of the young ivory-billed woodpecker
September 2010 |
By Stephen Lyn Bales
The Sport of Camel Jumping
In the deserts of Yemen, Zaraniq tribesmen compete to leap camels in a single bound
September 2010 |
By Brandon Springer
Thinking Like a Chimpanzee
Tetsuro Matsuzawa has spent 30 years studying our closest primate relative to better understand the human mind
September 2010 |
By Jon Cohen
The Mimic Octopus
The mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) has some interesting ways to keep from being eaten. The brown-and-white stripes on its arms resemble the patterning on venomous sea snakes and the coloring of spiny lionfish. And it can vary its shape and positioning to look like a variety of different under...
August 27, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Catnip's Effect on Big (and Little) Cats
Though we may call catnip "kitty crack," the herb is non-addictive and isn't even a drug (so it's perfectly safe to give to your kitty, big or small). But how does it work? And why doesn't it have any effect on humans?Catnip comes from plants of the Nepeta genus. These plants are a type of mint and...
August 19, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Don't Get Strung Along by the "Ropen" Myth
Growing up, I often heard that there might still be dinosaurs living in some distant, tropical jungle. In television documentaries and some of the less-reputable "science" books carried by my elementary school library, rumors of long-lost prehistoric creatures abounded, and I could not help but hop...
August 16, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
What Monkeynomics Can Tell Us About Us
A couple of years ago, the magazine profiled Yale psychologist and primate researcher Laurie Santos and her work studying a colony of rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico (read "Thinking Like a Monkey").She has built a growing and impressive list of publications ...
August 12, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Jellyfish: The Next King of the Sea
As the world's oceans are degraded, will they be dominated by jellyfish?
August 2010 |
By Abigail Tucker
Rising Seas Endanger Wetland Wildlife
For scientists in a remote corner of coastal North Carolina, ignoring global warming is not an option
August 2010 |
By Abigail Tucker
Extreme Jellyfish
There are some 2,000 species of jellyfish. Some are tasty, others will kill you with the tap of a tentacle. Here are nine varieties that really stand out
August 01, 2010 |
By Abigail Tucker
Koalas and Kangaroos Have South American Roots
Many of the poster animals of Australia—kangaroos, koalas, wombats and wallabies, to name a few—are marsupials, animals best known for carrying around their young in a pouch. Marsupials can also be found in the Americas; in the United States, the Virginia opossum is the only one, but there are doze...
July 30, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
On the Trail of Elephants in Mali and Kenya
Most of us use our GPS to navigate the freeways and city streets. But in Mali and Kenya, zoologist Iain Douglas-Hamilton has put global positioning to a far more interesting use—tracking elephants.Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants, has weathered droughts, floods and even rhino attacks...
July 26, 2010 |
By Jess Righthand
