Flying Apparently Makes Birds Happy
For centuries, we assumed the creatures overhead were reveling in the act of soaring. A new study says our instinct was right.
Nature
The Gene That Made Wolves Trust Us
A rare human condition defined by extreme, boundless friendliness shares its DNA fingerprint with your dog.
A Single-Celled Organism Ran a Cable to Its Neighbors
One-celled life isn't supposed to share resources with anything outside itself. So what is this species doing building physical tunnels to pass cargo to the cell next door, and why does it build more of them under stress?
Humpback Whale Songs Are a Dive Chart
A 40-ton animal has spent 16 hours performing the same routine, and it lines up with his body's position in the water almost to the second. What does it mean when the music and the movement turn out to be the same thing?
The Amber That Remembered a World Before Trees Knew What Insects Were
The fragment is smaller than a sesame seed. It predates the first dinosaurs by more than 100 million years. Nobody's sure yet what the plant was trying to protect itself from.
When Both Ears Point the Same Direction, the Bat Wins
A bat's ears aim at the same spot. The moth gets caught. International Bat Night is August 29–30.
Point Reyes Has a Pelican Drowning Problem
The otters are organized, systematic, and apparently very good at this. The pelicans have had six years to notice. What does it mean that they mostly haven't?
Two Marsupials the Ice Age Was Supposed to Have Killed Are Alive in New Guinea
Fossils said these two species died out thousands of years ago. Local communities never stopped saying otherwise, and it turns out they were right.
The Pacific Ocean Shoots Underwater Lightning
Ancient navigators steered by flashes deep in the water. Every scientific explanation has been ruled out except the one nobody has found yet.
The Moss on Your Garden Wall Is Running Electrical Signals
Wired up in a lab for seven days, an ordinary garden plant kept sending structured pulses. What is it communicating?
Bumblebees Lick Their Lips When They Like Something. They Shake Their Heads When They Don't.
A bee brain is smaller than a grain of sand. Apparently that's enough to have opinions about what you're eating. What that means for "feelings" is where it gets complicated.
A Living Dress Heals Its Own Tears
It's made of fungal tissue, it repairs itself, and it might not outlast your other clothes. The question nobody's answered yet: how do you keep it alive?
The Naked Mole-Rat Queen Doesn't Rule With an Iron Fist. She Rules With a Smell.
One airborne compound keeps every other female in a colony infertile, and it doesn't require anyone to be in the room to work. What else are we missing?
The Insect That Rebuilt Its Lungs Into a Submarine
The rule was simple: deep water pressure destroys anything that breathes air. One larva in an African lake never got the memo, and what it grew instead has researchers rethinking the ocean's biggest mystery.
Clams Are Pretty Good Parents
A baby shellfish's first move after birth is riding a fish like a school bus. This has been the care plan for 125 million years.
The Laugh You Just Had Is 15 Million Years Old
Every living great ape cracks up on the exact same rhythm: chimp, gorilla, orangutan, human, no exceptions. That's not a coincidence.
A Pterosaur Died 113 Million Years Ago. Its Last Meal Survived.
Bacteria moved in on this fossil immediately, the way bacteria do. Instead of destroying the evidence, they sealed it in.
A Frozen Rat's Chromosome Woke Up Inside a Mouse. It Glowed.
The chromosome came from a rat frozen for over a year. The mouse it woke up inside never noticed the difference.