Nearly 100 million years ago, a droplet of tree sap captured a gruesome scene: a fungus bursting out of the body of an ant pupa. This amber fossil suggests that the fungus famous for its ability to hijack its victims’ brains has been infecting ants twice as long as previously thought, researchers report June 11…
Looking at my bookshelf, I’m stricken with guilt: the collected Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle have been sitting untouched for years. Unfortunately, I never got past the fantastic television adaptation starring Benedict Cumberbatch to read the source material. But happily for Holmes, the British detective has a following the world over. In fact,…
My son is a wizard. He walks into the kitchen, looks at me and utters the magic words: “Can I have a cheese and tomato sandwich, please?” A few minutes later, just such a snack appears in front of him. Other young animals can communicate their desire for food through grunts, tweets and growls. But…
Meaningful friendships might feel like something that should come naturally. We enjoy people’s company or we don’t; we find the same things funny or struggle to laugh together. But the unwritten rules of different kinds of friendship can be surprisingly tricky to navigate. Over the past decade, though, careful research has begun to unravel not…
For the first 2 billion years of life on Earth, our planet was dominated by single-celled bacteria and their cousins, archaea. It was Slimeball Earth, and it would have stayed that way were it not for the single most important merger and acquisition in the history of our planet. This story is part of our…
koto_feja/Getty Images koto_feja/Getty Images When we think of particles, we tend to think of them as real objects – tiny, point-like entities with definite properties such as position or speed. But particles are really just energetic spikes in the underlying fields that permeate the universe, which themselves can’t be observed directly. All of which can…
Orcas’ Killer Skin-Care Routine Relies on Kelp—And Help Massaging one another with kelp could help orcas keep their skin healthy By Elizabeth Anne Brown edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier The southern resident killer whale J41 holds kelp in her mouth. New research suggests orcas nuzzle each other with kelp, possibly for its exfoliation effect. Center…
Amid the millions of distant stars and galaxies captured in the first images released from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory are thousands of never-before-seen asteroids whizzing around the solar system. “These two beautiful galaxies were photobombed by asteroids,” said Željko Ivezić at the University of Washington in Seattle, presenting an image showing several asteroids streaking…
NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft, Exploring Solar System Origins, Is Back on Track after Thrusters Lost Power This explorer spacecraft is heading to a rare asteroid with a naked metal core. It could hold clues to how Earth began By Josh Fischman edited by Dean Visser Artist rendering of the Psyche spacecraft in orbit around its namesake…
Adult male mice that have two fathers and went on to have offspring of their own Yanchang Wei For the first time, mice with two fathers have gone on to have offspring of their own – marking a significant step towards enabling two men to have children to whom they are both genetically related. However,…
