When it comes to fidelity, birds fit the bill: Over 90 percent of all bird species are monogamous and — mostly — stay faithful, perhaps none more famously than the…
Category: Earth
How intricate Venus’s-flower-baskets manipulate the flow of seawater
A Venus’s-flower-basket isn’t all show. This stunning deep-sea sponge can also alter the flow of seawater in surprising ways. A lacy, barrel-shaped chamber forms the sponge’s glassy skeleton. Flow simulations…
Wildfire smoke may ramp up toxic ozone production in cities
Wildfire smoke and urban air pollution bring out the worst in each other. As wildfires rage, they transform their burned fuel into a complex chemical cocktail of smoke. Many of…
Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier ice shelf could collapse within five years
The demise of a West Antarctic glacier poses the world’s biggest threat to raise sea levels before 2100 — and an ice shelf that’s holding it back from the sea…
The Southern Ocean is still swallowing large amounts of humans’ carbon dioxide emissions
The Southern Ocean is still busily absorbing large amounts of the carbon dioxide emitted by humans’ fossil fuel burning, a study based on airborne observations of the gas suggests. The…
Climate change could make Virginia’s Tangier Island uninhabitable by 2051
Virginia’s Tangier Island is rapidly disappearing. Rising sea levels are exacerbating erosion and flooding, and could make the speck of land in the Chesapeake Bay uninhabitable within the next few…
Fungi may be crucial to storing carbon in soil as the Earth warms
When it comes to storing carbon in the ground, fungi may be key. Soils are a massive reservoir of carbon, holding about three times as much carbon as Earth’s atmosphere.…
Bubble-blowing drones may one day aid artificial pollination
Drones that blow pollen-laden bubbles onto blossoms could someday help farmers pollinate their crops. Rather than relying on bees and other pollinating insects — which are dwindling worldwide as a…
Insects’ extreme farming methods offer us lessons to learn and oddities to avoid
To picture this farm, imagine some dark blobs dangling high up in a tree. Each blob can reach “about soccer ball size,” says evolutionary biologist Guillaume Chomicki of Durham University…
Engineered honeybee gut bacteria trick attackers into self-destructing
Deadly, fat-sucking mites and wing-wrecking viruses, take note. Specially engineered gut microbes can defend honeybees by tricking their enemies into self-destruction. Rod-shaped Snodgrassella bacteria, common in bee guts, were engineered…
