Stories by Jennifer Frazer

Millions of tons of mushroom spores may seed rain over forests

A sinister string of beads made by the organisms that cause sleeping sickness helps the parasite both elude our defenses and make us sick

A new Sesame Street star in the making?

Although scientists have intensively studied household pests, almost nothing has been done to survey everyone else—and everyone else turns out to be the silent majority

Enigmatic tongue worm found fossilized together with a 425-million-year-old host for the first time

You will not look this good in 99 million years

Dozens of new sparkling dragonflies and sculpted beetles were easy to find. We just had to look

Modern mud dragons are kind of cute. At least one of their ancestors, however, was not

Scientists claim proteinaceous blood vessels from a hadrosaur that roamed proto-Montana 80 million years ago somehow survived

What happens when they take off those ornaments is more complicated than you'd think.

Once upon a time, a jellyfish became a parasite, and its descendants became unrecognizable.

Let it not be said that nothing good ever came from an oil spill, as this newly described species of deep-sea anglerfish shows

A tiny worm called Steinernema can fling itself nearly ten times its own length and seven times its height in pursuit of a new host.

Whirligig beetles are not obscure -- not only are they abundant and widespread, they call attention to themselves in the boldest possible way. And yet a new species has just been discovered in our very own back yard.

If you sift the mineral particles from conifer forest soil, wash them, and examine them under a microscope, you will discover a startling detail: tiny tunnels.

Stygiomedusa gigantea is a titanic jellyfish seen only about 100 times in the last 100 years which lacks tentacles entirely but appears to be hauling four 33-foot long bolts of funeral bunting instead.

Tell me what you think of my blog -- for science!

At last, scientists have identified the stylist that gives hornbeam and elderberry salon-worthy hair.

The weak light of the eclipsed moon revealed the "glow worms" I'd long sought to see.

Every so often, the observant naturalist will stumble on a treasure worthy of a BBC documentary.

There are few places that seem less likely for a zoanthid coral attack than Anchorage, Alaska. And yet the corals managed to poison around a dozen people in Anchorage over the last few years.

These little planthopper nymphs appear to be the offspring of an ent and a tribble, or perhaps shaggy sheep having bad hair days. Sheep that leap.

The identity of Earth's first flower has long vexed botanists. A new interpretation of an old fossil adds to the evidence that they may have come from the water.

On August 5, I was interviewed live by the Weather Channel about the 13 fungal infections caused by the 2011 Joplin tornado that I wrote about a few weeks ago. Here's that interview.