Some penguins save energy by riding ocean currents

Sometimes, the best thing for a penguin is to go with the flow. Magellanic penguins change their strategy for navigating home based on the strength of ocean currents, researchers report…

A dog’s taste for TV may depend on its temperament

Maybe your Pomeranian is a little too into The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Your pit bull says he likes mixed martial arts, but really, he’s curled up in a…

A newly discovered cell helps pythons poop out the bones of their prey

Burmese pythons and other carnivorous snakes are well-known for swallowing their prey whole. But what comes out the other end doesn’t resemble what went in. There’s not a bone to…

Greenland sled dog DNA is a window into the Arctic’s archaeological past

A millennium-long story about Greenland is written in the genes of the island’s sled dogs. A new genomic analysis, published July 10 in Science, suggests that humans (and their sled dogs)…

As bird flu evolves, keeping it out of farm flocks is getting harder

H5N1 bird flu isn’t going away. In fact, the virus continues to spin off new versions that outcompete their predecessors, posing a challenge for keeping it from jumping into people,…

This bug’s all-in helicopter parenting reshaped its eggs

Parents will fret, even among bugs. And even among bugs, it’s complicated. Ferociously protective parenting has evolved four times among the pointy-faced, wide-bodied little leaf dwellers called shield bugs, researchers…

Killer whales may use kelp brushes to slough off rough skin

A brush with kelp may help some killer whales clean up nicely. A group of killer whales (Orcinus orca ater) residing in the Salish Sea off the coast of British…

50 years after ‘Jaws,’ sharks face their own terror

One June 20, 1975, a fictional great white shark stalked beachgoers on Amity Island — and struck terror into moviegoers around the world. Jaws, based on Peter Benchley’s best-selling novel,…

U.S. seal populations have rebounded — and so have their conflicts with humans

Aaron Tremper is the editorial assistant for Science News Explores. He has a B.A. in English (with minors in creative writing and film production) from SUNY New Paltz and an…

Compare shark sizes on our infographic

Since Jaws was released 50 years ago, great white sharks have, arguably, become the most recognized fish in the ocean. But despite their fame, they’re not the biggest shark species.…