
Ants Abound in Manhattan's Slivers of Green
Ants—they're everywhere. Charging across your picnic blanket, sneaking into your sandwich and, naturally, marching one by one (hurrah!

Ants Abound in Manhattan's Slivers of Green
Ants—they're everywhere. Charging across your picnic blanket, sneaking into your sandwich and, naturally, marching one by one (hurrah!

Close, Peaceful Whale Encounters Captured on Video
I came across these incredible videos by John J. King II (AleutianDream on YouTube) and I just had to share them. These snorkelers are in such close and peaceful contact with wild humpbacks and sperm whales in waters near the Dominican Republic, and Dominica respectively.


Symmetrical Knees Predict Sprinting Speed
New research not only shows the predictive power of symmetry for athletic achievement but is a marker for overall genetic advantage

Fresh Mammoth Carcass from Siberia Holds Many Secrets
Scientists will examine the mammoth to learn whether it will yield enough undamaged DNA to make cloning the extinct creature a reality

Book Review: Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps
One of the most spectacular and visually fascinating Tet Zoo-related books of recent-ish months is Chet Van Duzer's Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps, published in 2013 by the British Library.

How Fake Fossils Pervert Paleontology [Excerpt]
A nebulous trade in forged and illegal fossils is an ever-growing headache for paleontologists

Call of the Orangutan: Injuries and Their Limitations
This last month has been extremely stressful for all of us at Sikundur research station in North Sumatra while we've been following two of our favorite orangutans, Suci and her 3-year-old infant Siboy.

Doctors Without Borders Fight on Ebola's Front Lines
Scientific American health and medicine correspondent Dina Fine Maron talks with Armand Sprecher of Doctors Without Borders, who has fought Ebola in Guinea and Liberia. And Steve talks Ebola with Stanford's David Relman, chair of the Forum on Microbial Threats of the Institute of Medicine

Critically Endangered Gecko Discovered in Madagascar
The island of Madagascar is home to a pretty amazing and diverse collection of geckos, with nearly 70 species from 10 different genera. Now you can add one more species to the list: Paroedura hordiesi, a highly camouflaged nocturnal gecko that was recently discovered in northern Madagascar.

That Comet? That's You, 4.5 Billion Years Ago
As the European Space Agency’s Philae lander bounced and settled onto the surface of comet 67P/C-G’s crumbly nucleus it wasn’t just space exploration, it was time travel.

`Proto-Ichthyosaur' Sheds Light on Fish-Lizard Beginnings
Regular readers will know that I have a major interest in ichthyosaurs, the so-called fish-lizards of the Mesozoic (see links below). As you'll know if you keep your finger on the pulse of Mesozoic reptile news, last week saw the publication of a really interesting new animal from the Lower Triassic: the Chinese `proto-ichthyosaur' Cartorhynchus [...]

How Zooplankton Bust a Move
Though plankton drift with the ocean currents, that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of any movement. Many of them can move to find food or mates, and they do so in some surprising and sometimes entertaining ways.