The James Webb Space Telescope has gotten the first sniff of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet in another solar system. “It’s incontrovertible. It’s there. It’s definitely there,”…
Author: ID
How death’s-head hawkmoths manage to fly straight for miles in the dark
Sitting alone in the cockpit of a small biplane, Martin Wikelski listens for the pings of a machine by his side. The sonic beacons help the ecologist stalk death’s-head hawkmoths…
A new seasoning smells like meat thanks to sugar — and mealworms
A spoonful of sugar may help the mealworms go down. Adding sugars to powdered, cooked mealworms creates a seasoning with an appetizing “meatlike” odor, researchers report August 24 at the…
A new seasoning smells like meat thanks to sugar — and mealworms
A spoonful of sugar may help the mealworms go down. Adding sugars to powdered, cooked mealworms creates a seasoning with an appetizing “meatlike” odor, researchers report August 24 at the…
7-million-year-old limb fossils may be from the earliest known hominid
In 2001, researchers unearthed a partial fossil leg bone and two forearm bones in the central African nation of Chad. Those fossils come from the earliest known hominid, which lived…
50 years ago, genes eluded electron microscopes
Visualizing Genes: The Possible Dream – Science News, September 2, 1972 Molecular biologists can now visualize the larger structures of the cell, such as the nucleus and chromosomes, under the powerful…
News stories have caught spiders in a web of misinformation
Even spiders, it seems, have fallen victim to misinformation. Media reports about people’s encounters with spiders tend to be full of falsehoods with a distinctly negative spin. An analysis of…
Sea urchin skeletons’ splendid patterns may strengthen their structure
Sea urchin skeletons may owe some of their strength to a common geometric design. Components of the skeletons of common sea urchins (Paracentrotus lividus) follow a similar pattern to that…
Extreme climate shifts long ago may have helped drive reptile evolution
There’s nothing like a big mass extinction to open up ecological niches and clear out the competition, accelerating evolution for some lucky survivors. Or is there? A new study suggests…
An award-winning photo captures a ‘zombie’ fungus erupting from a fly
Sometimes a photo is literally a matter of life, death — and zombies. This haunting image, winner of the 2022 BMC Ecology and Evolution photography competition, certainly fits that description.…
