Mice carry a teeming community of bacteria in their guts, and these gut bugs influence how the rodents’ brains work, according to a new study. Specifically, researchers wanted to find out how gut bacteria influence the activity of brain networks involved in mouse social behavior. Normally, when a mouse encountersContinue Reading
A 6- to 8-foot-long great white shark bit the right leg of a 35-year-old man body-boarding off Grey Whale Cove State Beach in San Mateo County, California, Saturday (June 26) morning. Though the bite was “severe,” the man was able to make his way to shore, Bay Area news siteContinue Reading
One bee has cloned itself millions of times over the past three decades. When hives of the African lowland honeybee (Apis mellifera scutella) collapse, they do so because of an invisible inner threat: the growing, immortal clone army of a rival bee subspecies. That army is possible because the femaleContinue Reading
Black bears can actually be black, brown or white. American black bears (Ursus americanus), often simply called black bears, are the most common bears in North America. They live in northern Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. Black bears are smaller than brown bears (Ursus arctos) and polar bears (Ursus maritimus),Continue Reading
Oh, what a tangled web they weave. Spiderwebs are astonishingly complex constructions for objects that are so delicate. Even if webs don’t literally spell out the words “terrific” and “radiant” like those in the book “Charlotte’s Web” do, each is nonetheless an intricate engineering marvel. Building these strong yet ephemeralContinue Reading
It was as heavy as four African elephants. The remains of a 26.5-million-year-old giant, hornless rhino — one of the largest mammals ever to walk Earth — have been discovered in northwestern China, a new study finds. The newly identified species, Paraceratherium linxiaense — named after its discovery spot inContinue Reading
Mouse sperm thrived despite six years of exposure to space radiation After being exposed to space radiation for three to six years on the space station, mouse sperm produced hundreds of healthy space pups (some pictured). Sperm appears to be unfazed by long stints in outer space. In theContinue Reading
26 February 2021, Brandenburg, Horst: A herd of cattle stands in a paddock on the outskirts of the village of Horst in the Elbe-Elster district of Brandenburg. Compare a wild boar with a domestic pig and you may notice a few key differences, including the fact that the pigContinue Reading
The cold never bothered them anyway. Tiny zombies that were frozen in Arctic permafrost for 24,000 years were recently brought back to life and have produced clones in a lab in Russia. These hardy creatures are bdelloid rotifers, or wheel animals, so-named for the wheel-like ring of tiny hairs thatContinue Reading
A small bone stiffened its lower jaw, bracing an otherwise flexible joint. The fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex had a tremendous bone-crushing bite. What made this possible was a stiff lower jaw. And that stiffness came from a boomerang-shaped bit of bone. A new study finds that this small bone braced whatContinue Reading
