Strange Life in an Improbable Place
Once similar to the U.S. Pacific Northwest, Antarctica now demands that life adapt to extreme cold—which explains, for instance, the existence of fish there that make their own antifreeze and lack red blood
The Giant Transparent Ribbons of Eel Larvae
Author's note: This is the latest post in the Wonderful Things series. You can read more about this series here. It is startling how different the larvae of fish can be from the adults that produced them, as I wrote in a blog post a few months ago.
Origins of Human Alcohol Consumption Revealed
A single genetic mutation 10 million years ago endowed human ancestors with an enhanced ability to break down ethanol, likely as they shifted to a terrestrial lifestyle
The Spiders That Would Be Ants
Some arachnids go to extraordinary lengths to mimic the appearance and behavior of ants
These Amazing Spiders Look Remarkably Like Ants [Slide Show]
Ant-mimicking spiders are the ultimate imposters
Vultures's Gut Bacteria Make Sure Rotten-Meat Diet Isn't Fatal
Gut bacteria and strong gastric juices show how the birds can live on decaying flesh.
South America's Many Remarkable Deer
Deer are strongly associated with Eurasia and North America and less so with the other regions of the world. In this brief article - part of which is an excerpt from my 2013 article on the conservation status of South American mammals (Naish 2013) - I'm going to say a few things about the deer [...]
Looking Back on 40 Years of Lucy
Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson's first glimpse of Lucy came on November 24, 1974
40 Years After Lucy: The Fossil That Revolutionized the Search for Human Origins
Forty years ago today, a young American paleoanthropologist named Donald Johanson made the discovery of a lifetime in the arid badlands of Ethiopia's remote Afar region: a 3.2-million-year-old skeleton of a small-brained creature that walked upright like we do.
Life on the Volcano Is Increasingly Tough for These Hawaiian Birds
You have to hike a pretty long distance if you hope to see the critically endangered bird known as the palila (Loxioides bailleui), but if you’re lucky and work hard, you can walk their entire habitat in a single day.
Better Barley Let People Settle Tibetan Plateau
Importation of a frost-resistant barley from the Fertile Crescent to Tibet some 3,600 years ago is associated with the advent of settlements at 3,000 meters and more above sea level. Cynthia Graber reports
Cats Teach Robots to Land on Feet
Training rescue robots to land safely from falls like cats could give them nine lives in the field. Larry Greenemeier reports