At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, cylindrical clusters of the glass sponge Euplectella aspergillum jut upward like skyscrapers in the deep sea. Some house tiny shrimp, to whom an 11-inch sponge is essentially a high-rise. And the sponge’s glass skeleton is certainly a feat of architecture, comprising a geometric latticework that gives the sponge […]
Butterflies seem gentle as they flutter from plant to plant. But some may be more murderous than you imagine. Naturalists recently witnessed several species of milkweed butterfly harassing, subduing and subsequently feeding on milkweed caterpillars, presumably to get their fill of toxic alkaloids inside the larvae. This behavior was described in an article published Wednesday […]
“It’s a very emotional thing for some families, whether or not they want it on the death certificate,” Dr. Gill said. “It shouldn’t be. It’s a public health matter.” In spring 2020, Dr. Gill said, he became concerned that Connecticut was overlooking Covid-19 deaths, especially among nursing home residents whose complicated medical histories can sometimes […]
The Komodo dragon has earned its status as a reptilian icon. The carnivorous lizard can grow up to 10 feet long and is equipped with a forked tongue, serrated teeth, armored scales and venom-laced saliva. The dragons can detect flesh from miles away while hunting an impressive array of prey, including deer, boars, horses, water […]
Some 506 million years ago, a predator swept over the silt bottoms of the Cambrian ocean. Its rake-like feeding arms sifted through the murk it raised, funneling soft-bodied worms into a puckering, circular mouth. In 2018, a team of paleontologists from the Royal Ontario Museum discovered the preserved shell of that ancient hunter during a […]
“Treat bats the way you would unvaccinated children,” says Winifred Frick, chief scientist at Bat Conservation International. Before Covid, biologists often blew on bats’ faces to get them to stop biting and on their underbellies to confirm their reproductive status. Don’t do that; you could inadvertently give a bat coronavirus. New bat-handling protocols suggest using […]
The Covid-19 pandemic has severely set back the fight against other global scourges like H.I.V., tuberculosis and malaria, according to a sobering new report released on Tuesday. Before the pandemic, the world had been making strides against these illnesses. Overall, deaths from those diseases have dropped by about half since 2004. “The advent of a […]
NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars has confirmed the successful collection of its first rock sample. “One down, a lot more to go!” Kenneth A. Farley, professor of geochemistry at the California Institute of Technology and the mission’s project scientist, said in an email. On Monday night, NASA announced that the rover had sealed the tube […]
The scenes described of Indiana farmlands and elsewhere seem like they leapt from a page in a horror novel, with black vultures descending into the forests and pastures of the Midwest and beyond. Farmers tell of ferocious attacks on their animals: wakes of funereal, hunch-shouldered large black birds feasting on newborn calves as they emerge […]
Piping plovers, dun-colored shorebirds that lay their eggs in tiny scrapes in the sand, are easy to miss as they dart over the beach. Chris Allieri is harder to overlook. This past spring, Mr. Allieri started the N.Y.C. Plover Project, an organization dedicated to protecting the threatened birds on beaches in the Rockaways in Queens. […]
