Spectroradiometer “Ray Guns” Let Scientists Use Light Instead of DNA To Tell Plants Apart
In Star Trek, characters carry a little handheld device called a tricorder that they can point at objects to analyze and identify them. When the show’s…
Field Museum
“Mystery of Manu” – A Strange Tree in the Amazon Rainforest Left Scientists Scratching Their Heads for 50 Years
“Mystery plant” from the Amazon declared a new species after nearly 50 years of flummoxing scientists. In 1973, a scientist stumbled upon a strange tree…
Scientists Studied Bird Poop and Found That When Birds Migrate, Their Gut Bacteria Change
The trillions of bacteria living in our guts play a crucial role in our ability to digest food and fight off disease. All other animals…
Three New Species of Hand-Standing Spotted Skunks Discovered
Redesignating an endangered subspecies as a separate species could help it get protected. Picture a skunk. You’re probably thinking of a stocky animal, around the…
Blood-Sucking Bugs Find Bats To Bite Thanks to Bacteria
Blood-sucking flies may be following chemicals produced by skin bacteria to locate bats to feed on. We humans aren’t the only animals that have to…
First US Case of Human-Led Insect Extinction Confirmed by DNA From 93-Year-Old Butterfly
The Xerces blue butterfly was last seen flapping its iridescent periwinkle wings in San Francisco in the early 1940s. It’s generally accepted to be extinct,…
Earth’s Worst Mass Extinction Took Ten Times Longer on Land Than in the Water
Our planet’s worst mass extinction event happened 252 million years ago when massive volcanic eruptions caused catastrophic climate change. The vast majority of animal species…
Largest-Ever Effort to Artificially Inseminate Sharks – And the Occasional “Virgin Birth”
It’s a tough time to be a shark. Pollution, industrialized fishing, and climate change threaten marine life, and the populations of many top ocean predators…
“Giant Cloud Rat” Fossils Discovered in Philippine Caves
Fluffy rodents twice the size of a gray squirrel survived for tens of thousands of years, and then abruptly disappeared a few thousand years ago…
Two New Species of Screech Owls Discovered in Amazon Rainforest – Both Are Already Critically Endangered
Recordings of owls’ screeches used to help tell species apart. The Amazon rainforest is teeming with creatures unknown to science—and that’s just in broad daylight….
Crystals Discovered in the Stomach of Fossil Bird Complicates the Mystery of Its Diet
It’s hard to know what prehistoric animals’ lives were like—even answering seemingly simple questions, like what they ate, can be a challenge. Sometimes, paleontologists get…
Reindeer Lichens Are Having More Sex Than Thought – Unexpected Levels of Genetic Diversity
Genetic analysis shows that reindeer lichens reproduce sexually as opposed to asexually more often than researchers thought. In northern Canada, the forest floor is carpeted…
“Extinct” Pinatubo Volcano Mouse Rediscovered on Volcano That Erupted 30 Years Ago
A small mouse rediscovered on a volcano that erupted 30 years ago provides hope for wildlife conservation in the Philippines. In June 1991, Mount Pinatubo,…
When Good Governments Go Bad: History Shows That Societies Collapse When Leaders Undermine Social Contracts
All good things must come to an end. Whether societies are ruled by ruthless dictators or more well-meaning representatives, they fall apart in time, with…
Growth Rings From Fossil Bones Reveals T. rex Had Huge Growth Spurts, but Other Dinosaurs Grew “Slow and Steady”
By cutting into fossils and examining growth rings, scientists learned how predatory dinosaurs got so big. Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs…
Birds Play by Different Evolutionary Rules in the Amazon’s “Sand Forests”
Birds travel across habitats patches to breed, unlike their forest counterparts. Picture the Amazon. You’re thinking lush rainforests teeming with animals, right? It turns out,…
Pristine Extraterrestrial Organic Compounds Discovered in “Fireball” Meteorite
On the night of January 16, 2018, a fireball meteor streaked across the sky over the Midwest and Ontario before landing on a frozen lake…
Solved: Mystery That’s Been Puzzling Scientists Since 1852 – Bizarre Giraffe-Necked Reptile Hunted Underwater
Twenty-foot-long specimens described as separate species from their cousins, named after mythology’s Hydra. A fossil called Tanystropheus was first described in 1852, and it’s been puzzling…