A Predator's Genes Jumped Into Its Prey Mid-Kill
A predatory bacterium kills its prey, then its own genes jump into the corpse. Evolution using a murder scene as a delivery vehicle was not in the model.
Nature
100 Million Years Ago, Mites Were Already Better at Group Travel Than Most Hiking Parties
They were only 200 micrometers long, marching in a single-file line, tethered together by silk they made themselves. What amber just preserved should not be possible to know.
Learning Rule Has Held Since 1898. Pigeons Ignore It.
They found the reward. They kept looking anyway. Pigeons may be dismantling one of psychology's oldest assumptions about how any animal learns.
The Colony Didn't Just Feed Its Queen. It Engineered Her.
The colony didn't just feed its future queen. It built her a precision-engineered wax chamber, staffed it, and raised the temperature.
This Bird's Sexy Dance Began as a Fruit Craving
The most dazzling courtship displays in the bird world may trace back not to sexual pressure, but to a gut enzyme these birds quietly stopped using. What came first changed everything.
The First Look Inside a Whale Never Seen Alive
A routine beach call in New Zealand turned into the first real look inside one of the ocean's most elusive animals, and the anatomy inside was stranger than anyone expected.
450 Million Years Ago, Your Brain Already Had a Blueprint
A jawless fish unchanged for 360 million years just handed researchers a working map of the very first vertebrate brain, older and stranger than expected.
The Squirrel Monkey Has Entered the Chat on Human Childbirth
The obstetrical dilemma assumed our species faced the tightest squeeze in the primate order. Then researchers re-measured a much smaller mammal correctly, and the ranking changed.
A Sea Worm Built Metal Jaws Without Any Metal
Half a billion years before we figured out smelting, a marine worm was already building metal-grade jaws from protein. What else has nature quietly engineered that we haven't noticed yet?
The Great White Has a Thermostat Problem
Great white sharks run hot by design. Now that the ocean is heating up, their greatest physiological advantage may be turning against them.
A Plant With No Leaves, No Chlorophyll, and Apparently No Shame
It can't photosynthesize. It can't survive on its own. So this plant went underground, tapped into a host, and started rewriting its own DNA with borrowed code.
Sleeper Sharks From Thousands of Miles Away Feast on a Sunken Cow
Scientists dropped a cow a mile underwater to study deep-sea scavengers. Sharks that belong 4,000 miles north showed up instead. And they weren't alone.
These Catfish Have Been Catching Cancer From Each Other
Cancer has been passing between catfish in Lake Memphremagog. It is only the fourth transmissible cancer ever found in any animal, and the first in fish.
Bull Sharks in Fiji Keep Finding the Same Mates. Every Year. For a Decade.
The DNA said the same two sharks had pups together years apart. Bull sharks were supposed to be solitary. What else have we gotten wrong?
A Shark With No Voice Box Is Making Sounds at 155 Decibels
Scientists assumed sharks were silent. Then a PhD student in a New Zealand lab heard something that sounded like electric sparks. The sharks were the ones making it.
Nine Sharks. One Week. All the Weird.
From an 80-foot prehistoric giant to a bull shark following your stormwater runoff, YGBFKM has been covering sharks all year. Shark Week is a good excuse to catch up.
A Spider Wearing a Smiley Face Just Turned Up in the Himalayas
Two spiders, two continents, one inexplicable red grin, and scientists found this one while they were looking for ants. What else is up there?
Orcas Are Exploding Sunfish
Orcas in the Gulf of California are blowing up sunfish after killing them. Scientists suspect it is either a feeding technique for juveniles or a really good time.