Biology

Feb 12th, 2026 - Climate change may be giving frogs a helping hand in the language of love, a new study has found.  Researchers from University of California, Davis, have discovered that temperature plays a key role in shaping the sound and quality of male frogs' mating calls, with warmer climes making for a "sexier" tune.  In the early part of spring, male frogs' calls are typically sluggish. But as warmer weather sets in, their songs pick up the pace – a change noted by females looking for a ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - Wiped out in its native range by invasive pathogens, the trees may make a comeback. Very few people alive today have seen the Appalachian forests as they existed a century ago. Even as state and national parks preserved ever more of the ecosystem, fungal pathogens from Asia nearly wiped out one of the dominant species of these forests, the American chestnut, killing an estimated 3 billion trees. While new saplings continue to sprout from the stumps of the former trees, the fungus persists, ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google The southern right whale was once seen as proof that conservation can work. After heavy hunting pushed this giant close to extinction, protection laws helped the population slowly grow again. Many people called it a success. Now, new research shows a worrying change. Scientists say this whale may be sending an early signal about climate change in the oceans. Researchers at Flinders University and Curtin University , along with international partners in the United States ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - By Production of this article included the use of AI. It was reviewed and edited by a team of content specialists. A chance encounter on the outskirts of a village in northeastern India has yielded something rare: a previously undocumented vine snake species with a distinctively elongated snout that sets it apart from its relatives. The discovery began in 2021 when scientists Sourabh Verma and Soham Pattekar were surveying the area around Valmiki Tiger Reserve in Bihar, India. The region's ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Have you ever wondered what happens to a forest long after people stop cutting down trees? Does nature always heal on its own, or can something stand in the way? In the rainforests of Madagascar, scientists have been asking this exact question. What they found surprised them. Deep inside Ranomafana National Park , a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1991, a small fruit tree is quietly changing the future of the forest . Guava blocks forest recovery Rice University ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - By Production of this article included the use of AI. It was reviewed and edited by a team of content specialists. Deep in Bolivia's northern lowlands, a predator spent years hiding in plain sight. The four-foot-long snake had perfected the art of invisibility, its slender body and muted coloring blending seamlessly with the branches it called home. Then a single swing of a trail-clearing blade changed everything. A team of scientists was exploring the lowlands of La Paz in 2015, searching for ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. . B efore there was Charles Darwin, there was Erasmus. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. The English pioneer of evolutionary theory is thought to have taken inspiration from his paternal grandfather Erasmus, whom he never got the chance to meet. Erasmus, who died seven years before Charles was born (on this day in 1809), was a well-regarded poet, physician, and philosopher, among other specialties. But his influence on his grandson's ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - By Production of this article included the use of AI. It was reviewed and edited by a team of content specialists. A juvenile dinosaur unearthed in northeastern China preserved something paleontologists have never encountered before. The hollow, cylindrical spikes scattered across its body were made of hardened skin and intact down to individual cell nuclei. The find is rewriting assumptions about how diverse dinosaur body coverings actually were. The new species, called Haolong dongi ("spiny ... [Read More]

Feb 11th, 2026 - Denmark has introduced a revolutionary transformation: to change the street lighting. In the region called Gladsaxe, red LED streetlights have been installed along selected roads as a way to protect wildlife while keeping residents safe. It is also a way to reduce the harmful effects of artificial light at night. Nocturnal animals, especially bats, are highly sensitive to bright urban lighting, and this change could cut down the disruptions. Backed by scientific research, the shift hints toward ... [Read More]

Feb 10th, 2026 - Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. . F or 100 million years, plants had Earth's surface mostly to themselves while vertebrates thrashed around in the primordial seas. When vertebrates finally crept up on terra firma, they still opted to dine on their fellow animals, leaving the foliage alone. Tens of millions of years later, that changed. Now, researchers have identified one of the earliest known fossils of a terrestrial vertebrate plant-eater. They published their findings today in ... [Read More]

Feb 10th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google For more than a century, one small group of jumping spiders existed in scientific records mostly as fragments – incomplete specimens, scattered notes, and unanswered questions. New fieldwork in southern India has brought the missing pieces together. Researchers rediscovered the lineage, documented its first known female, and formally described a new species, closing a 123-year gap that once left the genus difficult to identify. The discovery does more than add a new ... [Read More]

Feb 10th, 2026 - Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. . T ermites are capable of constructing sprawling colonies containing millions of individuals, a complex social structure that evolved at least 100 million years ago. But how did they come to be so organized? A new study published in Science is shedding light on their fascinating evolutionary history. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. To get a better picture of termite evolution, an international team of evolutionary biologists led by ... [Read More]

Feb 9th, 2026 - The evolution of vertebrates sheds light on disease prevention The research is important for understanding how these proteins and pathways could be manipulated in disease management New research from the University of St Andrews (Scotland) has discovered an important piece in the puzzle of how all vertebrate animals (with a spine) – including all mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians – evolved.   Here, the ... [Read More]

Feb 9th, 2026 - On the outskirts of western England, inside the storybook town of Cheshire, lately the zookeeper Katie Kelton from the Bug Team has been busy chopping lettuce, sweet potatoes, and carrots, not to prepare a party buffet, but to feed some tiny button-sized creatures resting and reproducing in plastic trays. Dubbed Bermuda snails ( Poecilozonites bermudensis ), these teeny spiral-shelled creatures were once thought to be lost forever from the North Atlantic Archipelago. In 2014, a flicker of hope ... [Read More]

Feb 9th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google New clues from very old fish are helping scientists understand one of the biggest moments in the history of life on Earth. More than 400 million years ago, some fish began to change in small but meaningful ways. Over time, those changes opened the door for animals to leave the water and move onto land. That moment eventually led to frogs, dinosaurs, and humans. Two recent studies add new details to that story. They focus on lungfish, an ancient group of fish that still ... [Read More]

Feb 8th, 2026 - No Result View All Result No Result View All Result Sex differences in brain volume emerge before birth, groundbreaking research suggests [Adobe Stock] A new study published in Scientific Reports provides a detailed model of how the human brain develops during the transition from the womb to early infancy. The findings indicate that distinct growth patterns for different brain tissues and sex-based differences in brain volume are established between mid-pregnancy and the first weeks of life. ... [Read More]