These birds help humans hunt for honey—but it’s not as sweet as you might think
What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer...
Wildlife
Bioluminescence may have evolved 300 million years earlier than scientists previously thought
Many marine organisms–including sea worms, some jellyfish, sea pickles, and more–can emit ethereal glow through a process called bioluminescence. The...
Lampreys offer clues to the origin of our fight-or-flight instinct
Lampreys look like something out of a horror movie, with their sucky mouths chock full of teeth, eel-like bodies, and...
Daddy long-legs-inspired robot could one day squirm through Martian caves
Robotic engineers are no stranger to turning to nature for inspiration. In recent years, birds, dogs, extinct sea creatures, and...
New species of extinct marine reptile found with help from 11-year-old child
Paleontologists already know that the extinct marine reptile ichthyosaurs were enormous. Some newly described jawbone fossils uncovered in England represent...
This butterfly hybrid thrived against evolutionary odds
Life may “find a way,” but how living things evolve is not a neat and orderly process. Instead of a...
Grizzlies are getting killed by roads, but the risks are bigger than roadkill
More than 4 million miles of roads crisscross the US. So it’s little surprise that roadkill makes up a big...
How super resilient tardigrades can fix their radiation-damaged DNA
Microscopic tardigrades have fascinated scientists for their incredible toughness since they were first discovered back in 1773. They can sense...
This gnarly fungus makes cicadas hypersexual
As we wait for this spring and summer’s “cicadapocalypse,” when trillions will emerge across the Southern and Midwestern United States,...
Super-muscular 374-pound kangaroos once thumped around Australia and New Guinea
Earth used to be absolutely crawling with more megafauna. The fossil record is full of enormous birds like New Zealand’s...
‘Peaceful’ bonobos bite and push each other, actually
From a human perspective, chimpanzees and bonobos often represent two sides of our very nature. Chimpanzees are seen as more...
Toothed whales traded chewing for echolocation to evolve
Dolphins and other toothed whales–or Odontocetes–use their heads to create sounds that help them communicate, navigate, and hunt in their...
