WASHINGTON — Squid don’t have thermostats to control ocean temperatures. Instead, the cephalopods tweak RNA to adjust to frigid waters, a study suggests. Usually, genetic instructions encoded in DNA are…
Category: Life
These are our favorite animal stories of 2022
From spiders that catapult their way to safety to sea sponges that sneeze themselves clean, here are the creature features that most impressed us in 2022. Fishing fox Pics or…
Mysterious ichthyosaur graveyard may have been a breeding ground
Some 230 million years ago, massive dolphinlike reptiles called ichthyosaurs gathered to breed in safe waters — just like many modern whales do. That’s the conclusion that researchers arrived…
Reflections on the U.N. Global Biodiversity Conference
A CNPS COP15 Update CNPS staff in Montreal for the United Nations 15th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15). Pictured left to right: CNPS IPA…
Adult mouse brains are teeming with ‘silent synapses’
Learning lots of new information as a baby requires a pool of ready-to-go, immature connections between nerve cells to form memories quickly. Called silent synapses, these connections are inactive until…
Scientists thought snakes didn’t have clitorises. They were wrong
Female snakes have clitorises too, a new study finds. The research raises the possibility that the sex lives of snakes are more complicated and diverse than previously understood, researchers report…
Katydids had the earliest known insect ears 160 million years ago
Over 100 million years ago, the chirps of insects known as katydids dominated the sounds of Earth’s nights. Now, fossils reveal what the katydid ears that heard those sounds looked…
Katydids had the earliest known insect ears 160 million years ago
Over 100 million years ago, the chirps of insects known as katydids dominated the sounds of Earth’s nights. Now, fossils reveal what the katydid ears that heard those sounds looked…
The ancestor to modern brewing yeast has been found hiding in Ireland
In 1516, the duchy of Bavaria in Germany imposed a law on its beer brewers meant to reserve ingredients like wheat and rye for the baking of bread. The decree…
Armored dinos may have used their tail clubs to bludgeon each other
Tanklike armored dinosaurs probably pummeled each other — not just predators — with huge, bony knobs attached to the ends of their tails. Thanks to new fossil findings, researchers are…
