Biodiversity

The biting midge Culicoides (Trithecoides) anophelis Edwards is a predator of engorged mosquitoes, which was first described by Edwards in 1922 [1].At least 19 mosquito species in the genera Anopheles, Culex, Aedes and Armigeres have been documented as hosts of C.

Historian of science Naomi Oreskes, now at Harvard, first came to my attention 20 years ago, when she and two co-authors argued in Science that “verification and validation of numerical models of natural systems is impossible.” In The End of Science, I cited the Oreskes et al.

A massive project to assess the health of wildlife in Bangladesh has confirmed conservationists' longstanding suspicions that sloth bears no longer exist in that country.

Octopuses might be charismatic, but not many can literally light up a room. One enterprising designer, however, has figured out how to repurpose bacteria from rare glowing deep-sea octopuses for terrestrial illumination.

With all the attention to the Ebola virus and other pathogens floating around in bodily fluids and the air, we may not be aware that the dirt beneath our feet is home to thousands of bacteria and other microorganisms.

Innovation and discovery as chronicled in past issues of Scientific American

Books and recommendations from Scientific American

Researchers are racing to breed beneficial new traits into the dangerously homogeneous coffee crop before it succumbs to disease or other threats

Chaser, a Border Collie from South Carolina, knows the names of over 1,000 different objects. Does anyone find themselves looking at their tail-wagging friend and wondering, "Well, what do you know?" When it comes to whether dogs can understand words, Chaser—the subject of not one, but two scientific publications—can attest that the answer is: Yes.

Dolphins can sense magnetism, suggesting that they track Earth’s magnetic field to navigate through the water

Joshua Lambus is an award winning photographer and videographer based on the Big Island of Hawaii. He specialises in ‘blackwater’ diving, which involves travelling up to 8 kilometres off the shore of Hawaii, and diving into the ocean in the black of night, when thousands upon thousands of deep-sea species head to the surface to [...]

Discovering a new species isn't always as easy as saying “Look, there’s a new species!” In the case of a rare bird recently identified in Brazil, it took about 20 years for scientists to gather enough evidence to classify it as a new species.