Tag: biology
Super-black feathers can absorb virtually every photon of light that hits...
Dakota McCoy, Harvard University
What do birds and aerospace engineers have in common? Both have invented incredibly dark, “super-black” surfaces that absorb almost every last...
Studying circadian rhythms in plants and their pathogens might lead to...
Hua Lu, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Linda Wiratan, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
At dusk, the leaves of the tamarind tree close, waiting...
It’s mostly mothers who pass on mitochondria – and a new...
Arunas L. Radzvilavicius, University of Pennsylvania
Evolutionary interests of males and females do not always coincide. This is known as sexual conflict: male innovations that...
Using the placenta to understand how complex organs evolve
Considering how different they look from the outside, it might be surprising that all vertebrates – animals with a backbone – share...
When birds go roaming: The mystery of avian irruptions
Archer Larned, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Sarah Luttrell, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
In North America when the leaves start to fall and...
To fight Zika, let’s genetically modify mosquitoes – the old-fashioned way
Jeffrey Powell, Yale University
The near panic caused by the rapid spread of the Zika virus has brought new urgency to the question of how...
Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded for work on natural DNA repair
Benjamin Burke, University of Hull
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2015 has been awarded jointly to Sweden’s Tomas Lindahl, USA’s Paul Modrich and Turkish-born...
Life boils down to five ‘rules’ … or so says the...
By James Smith
It may sound overly simple, but just five processes can define us as animals: eating, metabolism, reproduction, dispersal and death.
They might not...
EXPLORING NATURE
The chickadee in the snowbank: A ‘canary in the coal mine’...
Benjamin Sonnenberg, University of Nevada, Reno
Wet snow pelts my face and pulls against my skis as I climb...
