If you have kids, youve probably read the children's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar at least five thousand times. If you havent had the pleasure, heres a brief plot summary. A caterpillar hatches from a small, white egg. Extremely hungry, the cater...
Its hardly clear that there is a causal relationship between optimism and health; it could be that they are related to the same underlying gene complex or set of mechanisms. Still, it sure is tempting to surmise that its partly a positive attitude th...
Surgical masks arent designed to protect you. Theyre designed to protect those around you from the germs you might be spreading, by blocking those droplets you shoot out when you sneeze or cough. Surgical masks also divert airflow so that you dont en...
Would a thousand rads kill Conan the Bacterium? No. D. radiodurans shrugs it off. Two thousand rads? Ten thousand rads? Researches have found that D. radiodurans even survives a blistering assault of one point five million radsradiation so intense it...
With its long ears, twitching nose, and adorable hopping ability, the individual rabbit is fairly cute. Multiply that bunny by millions, however, and they begin to seem entirely sinister. The great Australian rabbit infestation was ecologically devas...
In 1859, an unassuming Australian landowner named Thomas Austin got the hunting bug. Eager for something to shoot, he released twenty-four wild rabbits onto his property and had a jolly time tracking them down. Unfortunately, some of the rabbits mana...
Im glad were an intelligent species, but boy, that infant head feels mighty large going through that narrow birth canal. And then, after all that, the baby comes out facing down and backwards, which means youre helpless to assist it, or even to untan...
A number of animals, including honeybees and butterflies, use sunlights polarization in their navigations, but the dung beetle is the first animal ever discovered to use moonlights polarization to guide its travels. Polarization happens when some of...
Until recently, that is. Geological surveys of the area have detected two faults, or cracks in the earths crust, intersecting directly under the oracles chamber. Samples from Delphic spring water and rock from the intersecting faults revealed traces...
Conan the Bacterium. Thats the playful name given by biologists to an organism whose official moniker is Deinococcus radiodurans. D. radiodurans is microscopic, but that doesnt mean its a pushover. It can take heat, cold, long periods of desiccation....
Have you ever noticed that while its pretty easy to tell your dog is sick, its much harder to know how your cat or bird are feeling? Well, before you start asking your dog why it cant be more stoic like animals half its size, its probably worth consi...
Its a behavioral disorder related to anxiety, and scientists estimate that it affects two percent of the dog population. Any range of odd, unexplainable repetitive behaviors may indicate the presence of the disease. This includes excessive licking, b...
The sample didnt have any visible animal or plant remains in it, but researchers found loads of DNA anyway. They have already identified such animals as lemmings, bison, and going way back woolly mammoths. But if there were no carcasses, how did the...
Most people believe that regular hand-washing is the best way to prevent infections. And theyre right: hand-washing does prevent certain infections, but too much washing can actually help some infections along. Whats going on? Right now, there are mi...
As we know from the movie, the Hulk is a guy who, when he gets angry, turns into the strongest, meanest creature on earth. The natural world features a few amazingly strong creatures of its own. In fact, the pound-for-pound strongest creature on eart...
