Paradise FallsKeith O’BrienPantheon, $30 In December 1987, my family moved from sweltering Florida to a snow-crusted island in the Niagara River just north of Buffalo, N.Y. There on Grand Island,…
Category: Life
How a mound-building bird shapes its Australian ecosystem
Earthen piles built by a chicken-like bird in Australia aren’t just egg incubators — they may also be crucial for the distribution of key nutrients throughout the ecosystem. In the…
How do we know what emotions animals feel?
A dog gives a protective bark, sensing a nearby stranger. A cat slinks by disdainfully, ignoring anyone and everyone. A cow moos in contentment, chewing its cud. At least, that’s…
A hole in a Triceratops named Big John probably came from combat
A gaping hole in the bony frill of a Triceratops dubbed “Big John” may be a battle scar from one of his peers. The frill that haloes the head of…
How a western banded gecko eats a scorpion
Western banded geckos don’t look like they’d win in a fight. Yet this unassuming predator dines on venomous scorpions, and a field study published in the March Biological Journal of…
Leeches expose wildlife’s whereabouts and may aid conservation efforts
Leeches suck. Most people try to avoid them. But in the summer of 2016, park rangers in China’s Ailaoshan Nature Reserve went hunting for the little blood gluttons. For months,…
Leeches expose wildlife’s whereabouts and may aid conservation efforts
Leeches suck. Most people try to avoid them. But in the summer of 2016, park rangers in China’s Ailaoshan Nature Reserve went hunting for the little blood gluttons. For months,…
Where you grew up may shape your navigational skills
Score one for the country mouse. People who grow up outside of cities are better at finding their way around than urbanites, a large study on navigation suggests. The results,…
We finally have a fully complete human genome
Researchers have finally deciphered a complete human genetic instruction book from cover to cover. The completion of the human genome has been announced a couple of times in the past,…
Mammals’ bodies outpaced their brains right after the dinosaurs died
Modern mammals are known for their big brains. But new analyses of mammal skulls from creatures that lived shortly after the dinosaur mass extinction shows that those brains weren’t always…
