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White-Nose Syndrome Kills Social Bats Most Frequently
Scientists have found that bat species that hibernate in clusters are more likely to be struck by the dreaded disease and may be at risk of extinction
July 05, 2012 |
By Joseph Stromberg
U.S. & Europe are Hotspots for Deadly Emerging Diseases
“A hot virus from the rainforest lives within a 24 hour plane flight from every city on earth,” Richard Preston wrote in The Hot Zone. It turns out, however, that the places most likely to usher in the next deadly outbreak are in fact the cities of the United States and Western Europe. At least [...]
July 05, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Frog Daddy Raises Babies in Throat, Spits Them Out When Ready
“A baby is the beginning of something special – usually dinner.” For more of that preciousness, check out this NatGeo video on male Darwinian frogs, found in South America. Babies grow up in daddy’s vocal sack, and when they outgrow the parental homestead, they’re coughed up like so many amphibious hairballs. More from Smithsonian.com: Rare [...]
July 05, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
A Sneak Peek at a New Dinosaur
Argentina unveils a new dinosaur to celebrate the country's bicentennial.
July 03, 2012 |
By Brian Switek
Stick Bugs Have Sex for Two Months Straight
Yes. They can. Two-plus months. Or, more specifically, 79 days, says pseudonymous entomologist--blogger Bug Girl
July 03, 2012 |
By Colin Schultz
Wrecked Rivers of T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Wasteland’ Teem With Life Once More
“The river sweats / Oil and tar / The barges drift / With the turning tide,” wrote T. S. Eliot in an ode to the River Thames in The Wasteland. Indeed, oil and tar and other industrial pollutants for years plagued Britain’s rivers, from the “Great Stink” of 1858 when human waste choked London’s Thames [...]
July 03, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Spend Your Fourth of July Hominid Hunting
Celebrate Independence Day with a trip to one of America's many archaeological parks
July 02, 2012 |
By Erin Wayman
Chimps Celebrate the End of a Research Era
For 30 years, countless chimps have lived out their days at Bioqual, a research facility where the Humane Society described treatment of some animals as “unethical.” Now, the last four chimps living at Bioqual are bidding goodbye to the facility, thanks in part to a recent report calling most chimp research unnecessary. The Washington Post [...]
July 02, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Extreme Geese Reveal High-Altitude Secrets in Wind Tunnel
Next time you’re cruising on a short flight in Mongolia or Tajikistan, take a peep out the window and see if you can spot any bar-headed geese sharing the air space. The birds soar up to 20,000 feet on their migration routes between Central and South Asia where they have to scale pesky obstacles like [...]
July 02, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Respect: Sharks are Older than Trees
Fun fact of the day: Sharks are older than trees. The earliest species that we could classify as “tree,” the now-extinct Archaeopteris, lived around 350 million years ago, in forests where the Sahara desert is now. But Sharks? They laugh at trees. They’ve been around for 400 million years, skirting four global mass extinctions along [...]
June 27, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
America’s Other (Lady) Audubon
Genevieve Jones got an early start as a birder. Born in the 1850s, the 6-year old would accompany her father on egg collecting trips to fill the family’s curiosities shelf. She wanted to create a book illustrating different nests and eggs of bird species, but her family discouraged her since producing such a book would [...]
June 27, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Australopithecus sediba: The Wood-Eating Hominid
For the first time, researchers have discovered that a hominid dined on wood or bark
June 27, 2012 |
By Erin Wayman
Cowboy Conservationist Frees Whales with Crossbow
Marine biologist Scott Landry’s tool of choice for freeing whales tangled in stray fishing gear is the gobbler guillotine, a crossbow-like weapon designed in Texas for shooting turkeys.
June 27, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
14 Fun Facts About Fireflies
Fact number 3: In some places at some times, fireflies synchronize their flashing
June 27, 2012 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Adorable, Critically Endangered Baby Sumatran Rhino Born
As the planet bids goodbye to Lonesome George, the last of a subspecies of Galapagos tortoises, the world welcomes a new conservation-hope poster child. After a 15-month pregnancy, Ratu, a captive endangered Sumatran rhino, gave birth to a healthy male calf late Sunday night in Sumatra, Indonesia. Fewer than 275 of the critically endangered animals [...]
June 26, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
The Paradox of the Nutcracker Man
Researchers have assumed Paranthropus boisei used its giant teeth to crack open nuts, but conflicting evidence suggests the hominid ate more like a cow
June 25, 2012 |
By Erin Wayman
The Last of His Kind, Tortoise Lonesome George Dies, Leaving No Offspring
For the first half of his life, Lonesome George lived on Pinta Island in the Galapagos. Once a thriving tortoise mecca, by the time a snail biologist discovered George there in 1971, the tortoise was the last of his subspecies, Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni. Dubbed “the world’s rarest creature,” George was transported to his new home, [...]
June 25, 2012 |
By Sarah Laskow
What Give Cheetahs The Edge In a Race With Greyhounds
If you could put a wild cheetah up against a greyhound in a race, the cheetah would win, no problem. But why?
June 25, 2012 |
By Sarah Zielinski
This Beautiful Window Art Also Saves Birds’ Lives
Bird-meets-window collisions are no small problem. Annually, 100 million to 1 billion birds meet their maker thanks to an encounter with glass. And while there are plenty of window decals out there meant to alert birds to the imminent danger, most of them aren’t exactly attractive. But now a group of art students are working [...]
June 22, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
‘World’s Rarest Toad’ Not Extinct After All
A toad that pulled a disappearing act back in 1876 has miraculously reappeared in Sri Lanka. The Kandyan dwarf toad was discovered in a Sri Lankan stream in 1872, but almost as soon as the warty little guy turned up in the annals of biology, it was written off as a lost cause. Exhaustive surveys turned [...]
June 22, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
