What’s longer than a minivan and can swallow a whole deer for dinner? The enormous Burmese python that turned up in the Everglades this week—the second largest found in the fragile Florida wetland environment within the last year. The snake was 18 feet 2 inches (5.5 meters) long and weighed about 150 pounds (68 kilograms). The...
You’ve probably heard about domestic dogs that are trained to sniff out drugs, explosives, and bad guys. You may also know that canines can detect the tiny molecular changes that distinguish cancer cells from healthy ones. Dogs in studies have perceived lung and breast cancer via a whiff of a patient’s breath, ovarian cancer from...
You’ve probably heard about domestic dogs that are trained to sniff out drugs, explosives, and bad guys. You may also know that canines can detect the tiny molecular changes that distinguish cancer cells from healthy ones. Dogs in studies have perceived lung and breast cancer via a whiff of a patient’s breath, ovarian cancer from...
More than 400 shiny new species, ones completely unknown to science, have turned up in the Amazon rain forest, according to the latest report from the WWF. The list of novelties includes 45 orchids, a thumbnail-size frog (already highly endangered, with a Latin name that means “that may be lost”), an elusive lizard with a...
More than 400 shiny new species, ones completely unknown to science, have turned up in the Amazon rain forest, according to the latest report from the WWF. The list of novelties includes 45 orchids, a thumbnail-size frog (already highly endangered, with a Latin name that means “that may be lost”), an elusive lizard with a...
More than 400 shiny new species, ones completely unknown to science, have turned up in the Amazon rain forest, according to the latest report from the WWF. The list of novelties includes 45 orchids, a thumbnail-size frog (already highly endangered, with a Latin name that means “that may be lost”), an elusive lizard with a...
No longer than your pinky and totally blind, the cave-dwelling Speleonectes tulumensis is still one bad-arsed little sea creature—and now the first of some 70,000 crustacean species to be confirmed as venomous. As reported in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, S. tulumensis deploys a nasty chemical cocktail that includes a paralyzing neurotoxin and enzymes...
By Jennifer S. Holland So your cat and dog share a bed, and your parrot and gerbil sometimes nibble at their food side by side. Cute. But a wild bear and a wild wolf hanging out like old friends—even sharing prey? Now that is something special. (See pictures of the pair on the Daily Mail‘s...
By Jennifer S. Holland So your cat and dog share a bed, and your parrot and gerbil sometimes nibble at their food side by side. Cute. But a wild bear and a wild wolf hanging out like old friends—even sharing prey? Now that is something special. (See pictures of the pair on the Daily Mail‘s...
By Jennifer S. Holland Please forgive Tony Goldberg for picking his nose. That little itch turned out to be a tick, and he had to get it out of there. Ticks are, after all, known carriers of several nasty diseases. Plus, it was a tick. In his nose. He wanted it gone ASAP. Turns out,...
By Jennifer S. Holland Please forgive Tony Goldberg for picking his nose. That little itch turned out to be a tick, and he had to get it out of there. Ticks are, after all, known carriers of several nasty diseases. Plus, it was a tick. In his nose. He wanted it gone ASAP. Turns out,...
By Jennifer S. Holland Please forgive Tony Goldberg for picking his nose. That little itch turned out to be a tick, and he had to get it out of there. Ticks are, after all, known carriers of several nasty diseases. Plus, it was a tick. In his nose. He wanted it gone ASAP. Turns out,...
By Jennifer S. Holland Here’s a little secret: Humans aren’t the only animals who know how to speak softly. Gophers sometimes whisper. There are bats that do it to avoid detection by moth prey. A certain fish does it to initiate sex (whispering sweet nothings into her mate’s ear canal?). (See “‘Whispering’ Bat Evolved to Trick Prey.”)...
By Jennifer S. Holland Here’s a little secret: Humans aren’t the only animals who know how to speak softly. Gophers sometimes whisper. There are bats that do it to avoid detection by moth prey. A certain fish does it to initiate sex (whispering sweet nothings into her mate’s ear canal?). (See “‘Whispering’ Bat Evolved to Trick Prey.”)...
By Jennifer S. Holland Here’s a little secret: Humans aren’t the only animals who know how to speak softly. Gophers sometimes whisper. There are bats that do it to avoid detection by moth prey. A certain fish does it to initiate sex (whispering sweet nothings into her mate’s ear canal?). (See “‘Whispering’ Bat Evolved to Trick Prey.”)...