Beef jerky and some woolly mammoths have at least one thing in common: Drying turns their DNA into super-tough glass. This glassy DNA is so stable that it preserved the…
Category: Animals
Tiny saunas help frogs fight off chytrid fungus
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Bird flu viruses may infect mammary glands more commonly than thought
The discovery of bird flu in dairy cow milk highlighted a previously overlooked target for the H5N1 virus: mammary glands. A new study suggests it’s not unique to cows. An…
The last woolly mammoths offer new clues to why the species went extinct
Four thousand years ago, on an island off the coast of what is now Siberia, the world’s last woolly mammoth took its final breath. Living on that island, isolated from…
Beneficial bacteria help these marine worms survive extreme cold
Antarctic marine worms survive with a little help from their bacterial friends. Close relatives of earthworms, polychaetes are some of the most common animals on the ocean floor, but how…
Can leeches leap? New video may help answer that debate
A chance video by a grad student relishing her first big field trip might help resolve an argument that’s raged among biologists for more than a century. The question: Can…
‘Cull of the Wild’ questions sacrificing wildlife in the name of conservation
In his new book, ecologist Hugh Warwick seeks middle ground in the waging battle that is wildlife management.
Fossil finds amplify Europe’s status as a hotbed of great ape evolution
Two lines of ancient apes, including what may be the smallest great ape yet, lived alongside each other in Europe, fossils discovered in a Bavarian clay pit indicate. It’s the…
Horses may have been domesticated twice. Only one attempt stuck
Horse power may have revved up about four millennia ago. Horses were domesticated at least twice, researchers report June 6 in Nature. Genetic data suggest Botai hunter-gatherers in Central Asia…
Bird flu can infect cats. What does that mean for their people?
Cats are getting — and dying of — bird flu. That’s sparking worries about the risk that the ongoing outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza poses for these feline…
