For millions of years, megalodon sharks were top ocean predators — and then came the great whites. New analyses of shark teeth hint that competition for food from great white…
Category: Life
An ‘acoustic camera’ shows joining the right boy band boosts a frog’s sex appeal
Loud sounds matter in both car design and frog flirting. So New Hampshire biologists lugged an acoustic camera used by car designers to springtime frog-mating pools to explore female preferences.…
High altitudes may be a climate refuge for some birds, but not these hummingbirds
Cooler, higher locales may not be very welcoming to some hummingbirds trying to escape rising temperatures and other effects of climate change. Anna’s hummingbirds live no higher than about 2,600…
Headbutts hurt the brain, even for a musk ox
Punishing headbutts damage the brains of musk oxen. That observation, made for the first time and reported May 17 in Acta Neuropathologica, suggests that a life full of bell-ringing clashes is…
Biocrusts reduce global dust emissions by 60 percent
In the unceasing battle against dust, humans possess a deep arsenal of weaponry, from microfiber cloths to feather dusters to vacuum cleaners. But new research suggests that none of that…
‘Wandering’ salamanders glide like skydivers from the world’s tallest trees
In one of the tallest trees on Earth, a tan, mottled salamander ventures out on a fern growing high up on the trunk. Reaching the edge, the amphibian leaps, like…
These are the first plants grown in moon dirt
That’s one small stem for a plant, one giant leap for plant science. In a tiny, lab-grown garden, the first seeds ever sown in lunar dirt have sprouted. This small…
These are the first plants grown in moon dirt
That’s one small stem for a plant, one giant leap for plant science. In a tiny, lab-grown garden, the first seeds ever sown in lunar dirt have sprouted. This small…
Caribou gut parasites indirectly create a greener tundra
Gut parasites in large plant eaters like caribou thrive out of sight and somewhat out of mind. But these tiny tummy tenants can have big impacts on the landscape that…
These dolphins may turn to corals for skin care
On her deep-sea dives, wildlife biologist Angela Ziltener of the University of Zurich often noticed Indo-Pacific bottlenosed dolphins doing something intriguing. The dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) would line up to take…
